2. Technology used:
Pre-production:
Google - to do the research of the similar products, other pop stars' websites
Camera and beauty lights - to take pictures of Cheri for the website
Production:
Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat - to create social accounts for our star and add these links to the website
Post-production:
Wix - to create an actual website
3. PRE-PRODUCTION: GOOGLE
Google was our main research tool, which we used in order to find official websites of the
artists, similar to Cheri, such as Dua Lipa, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. After analyzing what
these pop stars present on their websites we had a rough idea about what should be on ours.
First of all, the website's home page should advertize the latest album - it's name, front cover
and colors. This would help to keep the fans updated about the artist's work and would present
to the target audience the latest star image constructed for the artist. For example, Taylor
Swift's website presents only her latest star image - strong, independent woman - and there is
nothing about her ex-"girl-next-door" image.
Moreover, most of female pop singers follow the genre conventions by using bright, usually pink,
colors on their website. Also, a homepage usually has a big picture of the artist as the
background, where she is presented as a creative and, more importantly, a good-looking woman.
Apart from reflecting the latest album and presenting the artist, websites also have other pages
with more information, such as 'events' (where they post tour dates), 'shop' (where the audience
can buy products with the artist's logo) or 'social media' (where the audience can find links to
the artist's social profiles).
All of this helped us to construct a clear plan of what should be included on our website in order
to adhere to the genre connotation of pop music and address the target audience by presenting
our star as a creative and pretty female.
4. PRE-PRODUCTION: CAMERA&LIGHTING
Camera and beauty lights were used during the photoshots and making of bts in
order to use this material on the website. As I've explained in the digipack section,
the main aim was to take pictures, which would present Cheri as an attractive
woman, so that we not only address the target audience of young girls, but also the
secondary audience of males.
For this photoshoot we've used the same camera - Canon EOS 7D, but lighting was
different. Instead of the one used in the photoshoot for the digipack, which was in a
form of the circle, we've used Neewer Dimmable Bi-color 3200-5600K, CRI 95+.
This camera device produced a lot of light, which allowed us to take high quality
bright close-ups and mid-shots of Cheri to upload on the website.
5. Production: Social networks
In order to fill our website with the information about Cheri, so
that the audience get to know her better, we have created social
accounts for her. For example, Instagram @cheri_official, where
we post her pictures. As you can see, we have created a typical
young girl account with the photographs of flowers, food, herself
and some bts pictures, which reflect what kind of person she is (or
what star image she has).
Creating social pages increases the artist's popularity because
she can address a bigger audience. Moreover, it creates an
opportunity for fans to interact and communicate with the artist,
which is one of the points of the Richard Dyer's 'Star Theory' - 'the
star should be simultaneously PRESENT and absent for the
audience".
Social accounts, more importantly, help to create and support the
star image. Whatever an artist posts and writes underneath can
attract even beyond the target audience and, therefore, increase
popularity and album sales - that's why we've decided that
creating social accounts for Cheri and presenting them on the
website would be a good idea.
Cheri's Instagram account:
6. Post-production: Wix
Mobile version of the website:
The main part of post-production was actually
creating the website. For this purpose we used
wix, as it is the website with one of the easiest
ways of creating your own website for free.
In order to link the website with the whole
marketing campaign and the star image we've
decided to do it mainly in red color. Moreover, we
embedded a lot of pictures of Cheri, so that
anyone, who comes to this website know for sure
that she is a pop star and how she looks. We have
also wrote the tour dates and added the links to
Cheri's social network accounts.
