Re-doing the logo

Once again I've had to make some changes on the logo. Today we placed the logo on the website and to put it bluntly, it looked rubbish. The quality was poor, there was white patches around it which we didn't want and it wasn't even the right shade of purple.

I spent some time this evening trying to make it look better and here's what I've done.

The team hasn't seen them yet but we'll discuss whether these are suitable or not. Hopefully when we try putting them on the website it will look better.

#AB

We almost had a mental breakdown about our logo. So we were thinking of ways to make it more simplistic & ways to go with our website.
We looked at the T4 & SBTV logo for ideas on how we could alter our logo in a way that was effective.

We thought of using the initials EMN for Earmunch news for our logo instead of the full words.
Or we might just stick we the original 'Earmunch' logo but change it to fit our website by changing either the colour or font or colour & font.
I have too many thoughts going through my head right now to process.

#KK

So now we have been in a dilemma for the past few days as to whether we should change the website template or make the logo different. However we all agree that we want to stick with the website as we like how it looks. This therefore means adjusting the logo in some way, although we have not decided what to change just yet.

We had a look at the SBTV website again as we originally wanted something along the lines of this, with the bright colours and we all really like aspects of it, especially the neon writing. So who knows at this rate we could be changing things on our website too. #NK

More work on the website

I'm getting a bit too excited with this blogging stuff now, but I've been working on the website even more and I've tried to make it look more professional, so I've made a few changes with the pictures. 

I went all out and decided to fully customise the 'Hip-Hop' page by adding videos, music and the template for a story, I won't lie, I had some fun doing it because I listen to hip-hop music all the time and it was a way I could show off my knowledge.

I've also added some music on the homepage which viewers can click on and listen to, I got the songs from www.soundcloud.com.

I had to make frequent changes as I kept forgetting that our news channel is for all types of music and not just hip hop/rap which is what I listen to, and that's when I had to do some research.

#AB

Working some more!

Editing Process

RIYA HERE!

Editing is going really good! We have a lot of the title sequence ready but still have a few bits to do! I am trying to make sure the audio and visual fit together to make it perfect :) I have a few ideas but we'll have to wait and see if they work!

#RG

Just playin' around..

Soo.. I've decided to spend some time on our website at home as we've been having trouble in school, trouble seems to follow us wherever we go. 

I've updated our website and put some original images on the homepage just to make it more exciting, I gathered these images from friends and my brother who is a musician himself. I've also made some changes so that our website can be found on a search engine, I'm trying to get us out there.

As for the Twitter, I've put our little monster trademark as our profile picture just to increase professionalism and I've also linked the Twitter to our website so now our tweets show up on the website.

https://twitter.com/EarmunchNews

#AB

Shout Earmunch!!!

Today me & the team grabbed the camera ready to film our fans. We approached random people requesting them to shout "EARMUNCH!!!" at the top of their lungs. Most people were willing and enthusiastic,  to the point they were screaming 'Earmunch' so loud that a teacher had to approach us, asking us to quieten down. We also gathered a big group of people asking them to shout "Earmunch" whilst jumping in the air, in a cheesy 'High school musical' fashion.
Doing this task enabled us to also promote out news channel as it prompted people to ask the question "what does Earmunch even mean?", this frequently asked question led to the development of out slogan "IT'S MUSIC WE FEED YOU" 

#KK

STRESS

Today I really tried my hardest to work on the website, but it just was not happening. I had a go at trying to change the colour scheme to go with our logo to make it just right. I messed around with different colours to see how they look, however none of them seemed right. 

I also tried to embed our no.1 single and twitter feed but I couldn't get it to link to YouTube or Twitter to work. It also does not help that we have chosen a difficult template use, although we are determined to get there.
#NK

Nothing is impossible.

Our group is literally looking at the website not knowing where to start. We chose this website as it already has a sort of music vibe to it but we do not know how to make "our own" yet. We've been told by our teacher that we've selected one of the hardest types of template, trust our group to make that mistake. Other groups have resulted to giving up on this template but not us. 

What is life without a challenge?

We are still optimistic to what this website can be and what WE are going to make it.

#KK

Earmunch is now on Twitter!

I decided to make a Twitter account because most, if not all, news channels have a twitter account these days. This way our viewers can also get live and instant news updates by following us on twitter. They don't have to wait for us to post a news story about it on our website, they can get short news updates instantaneously.

#RG

Creating a Facebook Page

Today I decided to make a Facebook page for Earmunch News, where we can post pictures and information about up and coming artists and our news stories etc.. This will help us as it is yet another way the audience can hear about Earmunch and get to know who we are. This will advertise Earmunch, our news channel and website as people can 'like' and 'share' our page. I have embedded  our logo to the page, therefore we can be known through branding once we get out there. I also used our Earmunch monster as our profile picture  to make sure it is associated with Earmunch. I have puts links to our website, Twitter and Youtube channel, therefore enabling the audience to find out more about us and browse our websites. Fingers crossed we get loads of likes. #NK 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/EarMunch-News/512610565434268

Youtube

I decided to make a YouTude account for EarMunch News, so the latest videos and vlogs posts can be watched on this channel. I have also added our logo as branding is significant. I have also put links to our website, Twitter and Facebook page. #NK

http://www.youtube.com/user/EarMunchNews

Here is the YouTube channel, and I have uploaded our No.1 video from our website.        I have also added our logo as a picture so we are continually branding.



I have also subscribed to other music channels such as SBTV and MTV in order to get some inspiration as to the sort of videos they upload and to see if they have any interviews we can use as inspiration for our news package.



I am currently uploading our focus group video to YouTube.

Music failure

For almost the whole lesson now we have been struggling on Garageband to find the right sound for our Music news channel. The difficulty is not using Garageband but finding the right balance between making it sound like a news channel and also making it appeal to a younger audience. We  listened to new channels soundtracks, i.e sky news, for inspiration but it sounded way too formal and serious for our type of news. Then we tried sampling songs but then we didn't know how to tweak it to make it sound...well..not like we just stole the whole song. 

After countless effort, we still didn't find something that sounded 'Right' for Earmunch news. So, we decided, we'll return to trying to make the music at a later date.
#KK

Editing the Title Sequence

Today Riya (me) and Kaira edited our footage for our title sequence. We decided the pace of the videos and tried matching it with our music. We have many different shots to choose from so we were trying to make the right decision.

For example for the faster parts of the music we wanted clips which complimented the beat, so fast and colourful clips. Whereas, for the slower more softer part of the music we wanted soft imagery, e.g someone playing a guitar or singing.

We got quite a lot of the editing done so we were really happy, but there's still lots to do! We want to make sure its perfect!

#RG

First day of filming

Today the whole team are taking a trip to camden with our camera's to look for inspiration for our title sequence, anything that catches our eye we'll whip out our camera and start filming. 
Camden is an spontaneous place, whereby you'll meet a range of people and with different music interest's. Lots of things in camden are music based and it's a place where upcoming artist's go to try make it as a star by selling their cd's to the general public. 
We have hopes of finding people busking and random musical influences on our adventure to camden. 

#KK

Analysing opening sequences

These are two opening sequences we thought are similar to the one we are currently producing.

The Daybreak opening sequence consists on a montage of morning rituals that are relevant to the theme of their news channel which is a morning breakfast show. The clips are very picturesque and vibrant which give the news channel a pleasant image and representation. The are a lot of establishing shots to emphasise their concept but also give us a powerful snippet of each clip.There are clips such as shops opening up, children getting ready for school and these correspond to their theme. The logo is in the bottom corner which lets the audience know what they are watching. The sequence uses Labrinth's hit single "Let the sunshine" as its theme music which complements the opening sequence very well and gives the audience a "feel good" feeling for the morning.

The BBC news sequence is similar in the way it merges different clips together. Each clip shows news reporters at different parts of the world broadcasting news and this is essentially what BBC news aims to deliver, reporting news from all around the world. The music is also simple but memorable because of the beeping sound, it is also very "News-like" unlike Daybreak's which is catchy. Their logo is also at the bottom corner of the sequence similarly to Daybreak.

These opening sequences are essentially what we want to base ours on, we want it to be fast paced and full of different clips that portray what our news channel is about - music - as well as our music being memorable with the use of a catchy memorable.

#AB

Vlog: Working

BLOG ON THE GO!

We just realised....
we can blog on the go!

We can download blogger to our phones and blog whenever and wherever we like. This way we can keep updating our blog constantly and can blog about an idea quickly before we forget!

Access our blog from an iPod/iPhone

View our blog from an iPod/iPhone

Write new blog posts from an iPod/iPhone

View our blog from a Blackberry

Write new blog posts from a Blackberry

#RG

Storyboard Explanation

In this video we are explaining what each shot will be and why we think getting that shot would be good for our opening sequence. #NK

Storyboard

This is a video of the finished storyboard, and what we hope we will be able to find when we go out filming.  #NK

Editing the Storyboard

I have finished editing the storyboard. It looks good and gives us an idea of what to go out and look for and what we more or less want to aim for. #NK

This is how we are thinking of starting with an establishing shot of a bus.
The first layer circled in red is the Earmunch logo, which is important for branding.

I editing the animatic storyboard so that it looked as smooth as possible.
Circled in red is the second layer of the footage. 

We are ending with our logo Earmunch. The third layer on Adobe is the music. I added the music in, which was made so that the storyboard can have the full effect with the music we are going to use.

Animatic Storyboard

Filming the Animatic Storyboard!

Well we have really precise ideas of what we would like to go out and film. This is us filming the storyboard and turn by turn, me (Riya), Arthur and Kaira explained each sheet and each shot and what we hope to film, while Nicky recorded us.

Nicky setting up the camera to film 

Kaira getting ready to speak.

Arthur getting ready to speak.

#RG

Filming Requirements

We are going to film tomorrow in Camden and we are very excited about it. Our aim is to hopefully get all the shots we want and more!
We want to get a range of different shots e.g high angle shot, panning shot.

We have all our equipment ready.

• Camera
• Tripod
• Shot list

Plan:

1. First of all we want to just film panning shots of the location. e.g the bridge in Camden, the water etc.. These will be our establishing shots to set the scene, to show our viewers that it is local news, instead of getting random shots of places that are not local/in London.

2. We want to get shots of specific things to do with music to portray that it is a music news website e.g shot of CD's, a guitar, a DJ, someone dancing etc.. We also want to make sure that we show that it is not just a hip hop news website, but a news website for all music genres.

3. Hopefully we can get someone or a couple of people to sing/rap for us so we can show that we promote upcoming London artists. It gives it a more local feel if we have people who are trying to make it into the music industry on our title sequence.

4. We all have agreed to have lots of shots all grouped together when we edit to maximise our efforts to show it is local news. Many different shots gives us the advantage to put different effects on them and transitions.


#RG

Filming animatic storyboard

Although we've prolonged doing it, we finally got round to filming our animatic storyboard. Riya filmed each shot for about 3-5 seconds. You'll later see the animatic story board when it is uploaded.

KK

Hi, It's Kaira.

The storyboard is well on it's way, it'll be complete once i've explained each picture but watch the video and it'll tell you all you need to know(:

#KK

Making the Music

When making the music we had troubles finding what we wanted. We were inspired by the SBTV/Google Chrome opening sequence and decided that we wanted our opening sequence to be similar.

We took a sample of Wretch 32's song, Tractor. This is the song that was used in the SBTV opening sequence. After playing around with the sample on Garageband we decided that it wouldn't work with the idea that we had as it was hard to manipulate the sample.

Sooner or later I just decided to create something from scratch, I experimented with a lot of different instruments on Garageband as well as trying out different melodies that were catchy and went with our theme.

At first the group weren't really "feeling" what I had created, nor did the teacher, I tried to make adjustments but only ended up making it worse but everybody seemed to like the music as time went and we decided to stick with what we had.

#AB

Storyboard is looking GOOD

Here is our storyboard so far and I must say Kaira is doing an excellent job! She'll tell you more about it in her blog! x

#RG

Focus Group

Here is the video of the focus group that me and Kaira conducted which was very successful. The conversation flowed very well and the group had many answers to the questions we had.                                                                       From doing this focus group we have learnt many things which will assist us with making many decisions.
As this group was our target audience we took all the different opinions into account. This focus group helped us to decide certain things as:

1. The youth watch many different music channels depending on what genre they listen to. Therefore we need to include ALL genres within our music channel.
2. They obtain their music news from different platforms, but mostly TV and websites which is what we were looking for.
3. We got good feedback on our logo and which colour the group preferred. It was clear that the majority preferred purple, this has helped us a lot as we are more likely to pick purple instead of blue.
4. They felt that the increasing amount of swear words was not needed in order to make a point and this destroyed the song as they would need to bleep them out.
5. Finally it was clear that the majority of this group downloaded music quite often in comparison to paying for an album. They also stated that they tend to download music of new artists to see if they like them. This is an interesting idea which can be discussed.                                                                                                             Overall I would say this focus was very helpful and  has helped us stay on track.                                                                                                  #NK

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES!

TOO MANY TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES!

Hey, it's Riya here,

We originally had planned to carry on improving the website and blogging but the Internet was not connecting, so therefore we had to go to Plan B and start writing our 'About Us' page and work on the music. I'm glad that we got on with other work and didn't let the Internet problem stop us from getting on with it.

We hope the Internet gets sorted out for next lesson!

#RG

Focus Group

Me & Nicky conducted the focus group today. We gathered a bunch of volunteers who were willing to feed us their opinion, so in the future we'll be able to feed them MUSIC NEWS.
The focus group enabled us to better our knowledge on what the public are looking for in a music website. The focus group went better than expected, they gave us all the answers we were looking for as they all obviously had a passion for music. 
They had a great group rapport,  were loud, humorous, youthful, full of energy, opinionated & did i mention LOUD. The only stress was their inability to speak one at a time, they couldn't help but speak over each other as they debated on the questions i used to prompt them into discussion. Otherwise all in all, it was 10/10.

Nicky will further update you with how the focus group went when she uploads the footage of the focus group in action..

#KK
  

Earmunch Questionnaire

We have put together a questionnaire which will assist us in making the right choices. As our target audience give their perspective on what they may like or dislike, we hope this will gear us in the right direction to what they would like within Music News. Within this paper questionnaire we have asked relevant questions which can help us on big decisions, such as which colour logo they would prefer. This will ease the decision for us as it would be clear which colour appeals to our audience more.

We are considering doing a focus group instead of just a paper questionnaire in order to build  rapport and for conversation to flow better, therefore if there are any additional questions they can be asked. We may also do the paper questionnaire too for those people who may be too shy to speak out but have an opinion.
#NK

Just Working Hard!

Everyone seems to be working really hard today! DETERMINATION!

Arthur and Kaira working on Logo Ideas and the Storyboard

Riya (me) working on what to write on the website

Nicky working on the website

#RG

SHOT LIST

#KK

Website

We have started working on our website; we have chosen a template that we think would suit our music based channel. There have been problems logging onto wix and therefore we have been held back. We have changed the tabs on the website to the different genre of music available, in addition to an about us/contact page and a home page. We have also tried to embed our 'Earmunch' logo to the website but there have been difficulties. 

#NK

Location Ideas

We have started discussing where we would like to go and film, and we have decided we need somewhere that is rather busy and has a lot of busking or performances. We thought of a few places:

Covent Garden: is licensed for street entertainment and contains a large number of entertainment facilities. Such as Covent Garden square: The space is popular with street performers, who audition with the site's owners for a timetabled allocated slot. The courtyard space is dedicated to classical music only. There are street performances at Covent Garden Market every day.
Covent Garden would be  a good location for us as we are guaranteed to get good footage in regards to performances, in different genres.
 If we choose Covent Garden to film, we will definitely be visiting the markets and the square.

 

Camden Town: is well known for its markets and shops which are strongly associated with entertainment, fashion and music. Camden also has surrounding shops which are popular with young people. This is relevant for us as our target audience is young; therefore we will be able to get good footage and may be even recognisable to our audience as it is Camden.

We would be able to get the footage we need, associated with music as there are street performances which would be useful. If we choose Camden as our location we will be filming in many places but mostly markets which surround Camden such as Buck Street market, Stables market and Camden Lock village markets which surround Camden such as Buck Street market, Stables market and Camden Lock village.

RESEARCH INTO MUSIC WEBSITES

MTV

T4

E4

SBTV

Conclusion: 

All these websites have aspects which we would like to incorporate on to the Earmunch website.

All these channels have certain things in common in which we would also like to include, such as broadcasting a variety of music genres to the audience. In addition to addressing social issues occurring which are through news stories and they target adolescents. 

We have concluded that when it comes down to the making of a website many  aspects need to be considered. For instance,  having the right layout and colour theme, in addition to presenting the content in a way that a variety of viewers can enjoy. 

We have talked about certain things we want to include after looking at these websites:
1) A live twitter feed which was evident on most of the websites we viewed. This will keep viewers up to date on our website even if they do not have a Twitter account.
2) Some sort of official chart where we have our top songs listed which could also be in video form like MTV.
3) A slide show at the top of the page showing pictures of upcoming artists or our recent news stories. Therefore the viewers do not have to go looking for it.
4) And finally we discussed theme colours, as on all the websites we looked at the logo which stands out against the background. Therefore we came to the conclusion that if the logo is dark then we will go for a lighter background colour e.g white.If the logo is bright we would go for a background that is dark, for instance black

Looking at these websites has really helped us think about decisions that need to be made in order to have an effective music news website. We hope to incorporate what we have researched into Earmunch News.

#NK