Merchandise page /Website

 My Store /Website

My Merchandise web page : 

This is my merchandise page created using Canva, Shopify and Printful. 

Part 1: To make my merchandise page I set up an account with Shopify and then I added their web extension known as Printful which allows you to have templates for different items to be able to design from clothing to accessories. I chose a selection of items that are commonly used as merchandise options by similar documentary companies as you can see by my conventions research shown at the bottom of the post. 

Part 2: 

I decided to start off by designing a rucksack, I wanted to keep the design simple and advertise the production company. I kept my colour palette simple by matching that of the logo black and white. 

Part 3: 

I then I wrote and edited the project descriptions and added hashtags that describe the product such as - Documentary and Youth fashion. I then chose the stock images to present my product such as front images, side images and interior images. In my product description, I described what the product was made of as well as its criteria.   

Part 4: 

I then repeated the same process for different items as shown underneath. Underneath we can also see my product control page where finished products are stored. 

Part 5: 

After estimating the cost of my products I then went to check how they will be presented on the website, you can see this by the images shown below. 

Part 5.5 : Same steps as previously stated. 

Part 6: Same steps as previously stated. With the hoodie, I selected the embroidery option. 

Part 8:  In this section, we can see how I calculated the estimated cost of products as well as profit off of each product sold. For example, for the hoodie, it is sold for $54.07 and I make a profit of $15.31. 

Step 9: In total, I created 7 products in total as shown below, each sharing the same design and varying in value.  

Step 10:  After I designed all my products and verified that their pages were functional, I edited the website editing the opening page to match the conventions of a production companies page in my case I used a stock image of a man carrying a camera in black and white that matched the colours used on the products avoiding any clashing. 

Step 11: I reviewed how my website looked after altering the product display so that it was cleaner and showcased the products in a much clearer way. I was very happy with the final result as shown below. 

Step 12: Due to covid I believed a vital merchandise accessory to add was a mask as this makes the merchandise relevant to the current times. 

Example that follows similar conventions:

After looking at National Geographics Merchandise page I knew what I needed to do for my own, they use minimal colours and match their items to their logo to advertise themselves which is a convention I will be implementing into my own designs as it is simplistic and effective. 

Website plan

This is my website plan and colour palette for my website, I want it to match the logo I had created earlier, as this matched some of the conventions I saw from other production company sights such as 'National Geographic' and 'Focus Features'. Commonly documentary sights keep their colour palettes very simple and stick to around 2-3 colours. On my website, I will be linking my social media account, as this will allow my audience to have easy accessibility to be a part of the movement of the production company. In my plan I have made sketches illustrating what will be on each given page e.g shop, cast & crew etc, as this will give me a clear idea of what my layout should be. 

My inspiration:

National Geographic:

Focus Features: 

 Common conventions that I picked up were the fact that each website used a large arrange of videos and images, as well as linked their work and social media. The sights also used the colours of their logos and kept them very minimal. Their websites were made to not be complicated and can easily be navigatable. 

Finalized edit /documentary

 Disclaimer - Photos obtained and presented of 'el Maestro de la Costuras' in this documentary were not taken by me. 2 images exist. 

Edit 4

Step 1: 

In my next steps, I wanted to readjust the transition at the beginning as the cut between lips and eyes was not transitioning smoothly, to do this I added a blurred transition at the cut of both shots to make it easily run both parts. I also readjusted the colour of the original image to feel more warm matching the setting of the next shot which uses warm lighting.  

Step 2: 

After making the readjustments to the introduction I added the music I had created which matches the conventions of fashion documentaries and documentaries in general which is spoken about in my post about conventions of sound and music in documentaries. I didn't want the intro music to disturb the master interview so I added a cross-fade -3db as this allowed a nice transition into the interview. I then added all the shots of the master interview and went through it to check if there were any errors or awkward pauses in the shots that I then cut out. At this point, I also added more video and audio channels as there was not a lot of room in the editing software to make adjustments to the video and audio. I also went over the audio again and de rumbled the audio as best I could to remove any distracting background audio. 

Step 3: 

After this, I added the Title and subtitles manually, this proved to be rather challenging as if there were any errors or typos I had to remove the text readjust it and rewrite it as the software would not allow me to go back over any mistakes. It was also challenging as the interview used two different types of Spanish dialect including Valencian Spanish and Mexican which I had to try and translate which came to cross over in some sections such as ' How did it affect your social media?' 'My social media', which doesn't sound correct in English however is the correct translation. This was a very time-consuming part of the editing progress whoever was very successful in translating the interview I was proud of the result. 

Step 4: 

After adding the subtitles I enhanced the audio as I did previously and I added the spare shots in areas that were not running smoothly but also correlated to the subject being discussed, while I was doing this I added some cross dissolves to make the images flow nicely together as well as added some images that were taken by 'El Maestros de la Costura' of  Lucas on the show to match the segment he was explaining I extended at this point the crossfade so that the images smoothly came into frame and out, keeping the continuity of the documentary. I also ensured there were some swipe cuts into the fashion show that I cut to demonstrate Lucas walking into the next room as well as a camera grab by Bosco that comes into the next outfit, I had one small issue at this point and it was the fact that I could not match the colours of the lighting in the hand grabbing camera shot making it an obvious jump cut. 

Step 5: 

At this point, I went over the footage again and added some more cross dissolves so that I could have a better continuity of video throughout the project. 

Step 6: 

I tried to experiment with the camera grab shot in the fashion show by adding a smooth out transition as well as trying to increase the videos original speed, however, the increasing video speed was unsuccessful and the smooth out transition ended up looking very messy therefore I removed it. 

Step 7: 

The fashion show at the end created a very uncomfortable mood on its own therefore I decided to add some accompanying post-production music that matches the tone and conventions of a fashion show. I ended up using the original young fashion music I had created for the intro and cut it to solely have the instrumental that seemed to function alongside the interview and made the other all feel of the shot less uncomfortable. With the music I lowered its volume and output as to not become a distraction under the contributor talking about the items being presented, I also then wanted the audio to be used multiple times without having jump cuts so I used a  cross-fade -3db at the end of each loop to avoid having any overlaps of the audio or jump cuts. 

Step 8:

In this image, you can see the loop of audio I was referring to. At the end the audio seemed to continue to run on so I added an image of the logo of my production company that I have created 'Youth fashion documentaries' that gets faded into at the end of the documentary.  
 

Editing 3 (audio and colour )

 Today in my editing process I tried to remove any blemishes, by using the colour options available, this meant that I could make my shots more colourful and saturated making the shot more eye-catching. I started my colour alterations in the master curve settings making the reds more saturated as reds and pinks seemed to be a prominent colour within my documentary. 

After altering the master curve I started to do more alterations on the colour warper however after a few minutes I started to notice that it selected the white space behind the hair and started to damage the shot, I selected the colour pipet to try and change the colour location of what I was trying to change however it simply was not working. 

After I attempted to make the image more saturated, I decided to move on to the audio as it was muffled in some sections as well as there were sections where the sound was anempathetic and overlapping into the next audio section which did not work as one sound was dietetic and one was non-diegetic and the non- dietetic had much more volume than the other audio, this was something I needed to change. 

My first steps in changing the audio was by reducing the sound which I did manually, in the first image below you can see what the audio settings started with. 

In this second image, you can see the changes I applied including the de-rumble option which unmuffled the sound and made it crisp clear. This was good news as the audio now sounded professional which was what I was aiming for. (This is the entry music audio).  

video first draft

 

This is the first progression of my video editing so far I have the opening title, the audio I created and have managed to cut my footage down from 1hour and 15minutes to just 15minutes. There is still a lot more editing I need to add as some of the audio is now overlapping and the transitions are not ones I am pleased with. Some of the audio is also muffled and needs to be changed to have a clearer audio progression, in addition I have a lot of B roll that I have not got an exact location for as of now. All together I am happy with the progression of the editing however there are a lot of elements that need adjusting for the flow of the video, so that it runs smoothly. 

Edit part 2

 Today I attempted at fixing the audio as it started to mumble what my contributors were saying. There was a clicking sound that also started to continue throughout the video, of which I went over and tried to fix as you could no longer properly distinguish what the contributor was saying. 

After attempting to solve this I added an audio crossfade to prevent the overlapping speech, however, the issues that were presenting with the audio seemed to have troubles in regards to fixing it. After many attempts at rectifying the audio, I decided to replace the videos again and start over so that the audio is no longer muffled this seemed to be the only option I had in rectifing the documentaries audio. 

Social media account

Creating a logo :

I wanted my social media to account to be professional and represent the image of the production company. To do this I decided to create a Logo for the production company I invented(Youth Fashion Productions Documentaries)  using Canva. I wanted a simple logo design that matched the conventions of other social media documentaries accounts E.G:  

 As you can see in the images above, the logos and icons used by big documentary channels are very basic, using a minimal colour pallet sticking to most commonly two different colours that represent their company. When creating my logo I wanted to keep this in mind and not go over the top with the logo I designed and decided to stick to a black and white colour pallet that solely says the name of the production company. 

Setting up the account: 

When creating my account I wanted to ensure that it highlighted the name of my production company, having the name and logo match I feel really accentuated the fact that this is my company and Young fashion is my documentary. I did not want to use my name publically therefore I changed the name to a sudo name 'Tiger'. I wanted to set the correct tone for my account and I believe that to match the conventions of the fashion industry I should have a quote represented by a major fashion influencer presented in my biography however I later changed this as I was not pleased with the overall statement of the production company. Instead, I matched my conventions to what other social media accounts of this genre were doing. 

Following the conventions of other film production accounts, I decided to keep my bio simple, advertising my products and what they are about. 'Watch our amazing global documentaries that take a look into the fashion world.' 

I decided to keep my hashtags as they are relevant to my content and expand my account by coming up as an option to follow if people are looking into fashion or youth content, this is more beneficial for my production company as it allows to reach to a wider audience targeting people who are likely to be interested in my content. 

Targeting the right audience: 

After setting up my account I decided that it would be beneficial for my account to start following influencers, brands and people with similar interests as this starts to attract the appropriate audience for my product. I followed influencers with an interest in the fashion industry such as 'Lailaloves' as influencers may look at my account and decided to create content on it expanding the reach to my target audience and pulls in more attention to my products. I decided to follow big fashion brands such as 'Chanel' 'Louis Vuitton' etc, as interacting with these big brands starts to allow me to attract my target audience of people interested in the fashion industry, as they will look at who is following these big companies and collect people with similar interests which allows me to establish my Production company and film as my account may come up as a suggestion to follow as my company shares similar interests.  

Fashion insiders: 

When posting items on my social media account I wanted to ensure that I was using a mix media, starting off by presenting some fashion insiders such as presenting some of the colour palettes that are being considered for the next big fashion event, using elements like this allow my audience to feel a part of the behind the scenes and feel a part of the story. This makes the audience feel like they are part of an insider that is getting exclusive insights which creates the idea that they are more involved. This concept was also put into action with my A1 coursework. 

Showcasing the designer's designs and announcing the documentary: 

My next media was to post images of the contributor's designs creating his image as well as announcing the release of the documentary 'Young fashion' that is focused on him as a young designer in the fashion industry. My caption of the post starts with a hook into the stories of fashion before announcing the release of the documentary as this engages the reader of the post. In my caption, I announce my contributor's name as well as where he is from in terms of the fashion industry being ' El Maestros de la Costura'  as this begins to present who the documentary is based off. I use multiple hashtags as this allows my content to spread to a wider audience that are interested in the sections that have been hashtagged this also makes my account easier to discover. In my captions, I also use emojis as a form of symbolic communication that presents the tone behind the words that have been written. 

Announcing the documentaries release: 

I decided to post a photo of my Production companies logo as it accentuates the name and makes it clear to viewers, which gives publicity to the brand. For the caption, I decided to set the mood of what the production company will be releasing as well as prep my next post that announces the release of 'young fashion' of which I dated to be released the 10/12/2021. 

BTS(behind the scenes) : 

As part of my mixed media, I also posted some images taken from behind the scenes of the shoot day, so that the audience can feel a part of the process and engage as well as interact with the product. 

Acknowledgement and engagement of other brands: 

As part of my social media posts, I wanted to illustrate the focus of my documentary by establishing and gratifying some existing brands and events that have been displayed, using images that one of my family members had taken from the Paris Mugler Couturissime I was able to interact with the genre of my documentary and discuss opinions of brands design and fashion achievements establishing myself as a production company and possibly giving my production company some more content to document.  

More BTS and set layout: 

As part of my mixed media, I also posted some images taken from behind the scenes of the shoot day, so that the audience can feel a part of the process and engage as well as interact with the product. I also presented the set in black and white to tease my audience with the release making them more curious about how the final documentary will actually look. 

Acknowledgement of the combination of art and design through film and photography: 

As well as my other posts I also presented another image that represents the film side and the photography side of the fashion industry that links to my account as a fashion documentary account. This is a current event by Mugler which keeps with the overall tone of my documentary which is keeping up with the new fashion, Lucas as a young designer has to understand current themes which I believe should be presented in my social media account. This image has also been taken by a family member. 

Full Instagram page: