Digipack

In this blog I will taking an in depth look at digipacks, explain what they are and discuss how they are used by artists for promotional purposes. I will additionally be analysing existing digipacks from the artists genre I am producing a video on and make appropriate decisions concerning my digipack. Later on in the blog, I will be producing flat plan designs for the digipack, gaining feedback then making decisions from this feedback before creating a final design. To begin, a classic digipack is a type of CD packaging made from card used to hold a compact disc. Digipacks flip open like a book and have three portions, one package opens to the right and another to the left, with the centre portion holding the CD. The digipack we are producing, is in the format of a DVD box but in a cardboard form similar to the original digipack design. Digipack are used by artists because they are visually pleasing and look attractive leading to the consumer purchasing them. I will now analyse my three existing ideas for a digipack for my artists single, I have followed a format by showing the front and back, as well as the inside and inside back covers to demonstrate my ideas. I will make appropriate decisions concerning the digipacks and eventually decide upon a digipack I think will be the best one to use for my coursework. This first digipack flat plan has been an idea of mine from the early stages of the task. After researching my target audience, (http://lukesidwella2coursework.blogspot.com/2010/09/target-audience-of-band.html), I came across some existing digipacks used by the band that I found interesting. I noticed that a lot of them just incorporate a simple image and use the signature "lighter" that can be seen in all of the bands CD covers, pictures of these will be seen later in the blog when I analyse current digipacks the band have produced.

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In this digipack, my idea was to use the name of the band to reflect a theme of being on the streets, making a clear link with the bands name. The front cover shows tower blocks in the background showing a street and urban feel to the cover, which would coincide with the video as it is shot all in an urban setting in and around large buildings in a city environment. The bands name and the name of the song are shown to be in the form of a billboard, being lighten up and shown in the foreground and against the urban background. Sitting on the billboard I plan to photoshop in my main protagonist, so a further link can be noticeably created between the video and the digipack. The inside cover will follow a theme of an urban setting and show large buildings to create a city-scape. All of the information needed for the digipack will be suitably placed around the back and inside covers. This digipack certainly would appeal to the target audience of the band through the fact that it is similar to other digipacks created previously by the band, this means that the targeted group would be enticed into buying the CD as they make the association with the band, due to it following a similar trend of previous CD covers. However I feel the digipack is far to similar to previous CD covers and can almost be seen as a copy of another CD cover that has already been created by the band. The tower blocks in the background I now feel are to simple and not very aesthetically pleasing. In addition to this, the billboards with lights on that I have chose to incorporate into the cover, are often only seen in America and with the video being set in an urban England setting, this could be contradictory to the footage seen in the video.

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My second digipack design was one that came to me at a later stage of the planning process. I thought the idea of having a cartoon cover, against such a serious song could be effective. The cover shows a protagonist, laying on the road with yellow lines either side of him representing this. It cuts off the bottom half of his face, showing the top half in a view from above. The inside shows him on his face with a puddle of sick and a bottle of alcohol laying next to him, this demonstrates the lyrics of the song and instantly shows the consumer what the song is going to be based around. For the CD section, I decided to keep it simple in my design and incorporate the image of the trademark lighter the streets often use in their songs. The song title is shown in a bubble, making a connotation that he is thinking about staying positive through a drug addiction. The back cover, just shows the road again with speech bubbles coming off it. I though initially the idea would be effective if i were to put it into production, however when considering the target audience and what the bands usually produce it was a bit to different and would not appeal to them. The streets usually include large images of urban landscapes suiting the theme of their music. I believe the initial idea would be too ambitious and I should stick to a design that the target audience are comfortable with so the digipack would appealing to them and ensure that if it were to be produced that the CD would sell.

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This is the third and final digipack design that I produced, and is the one I am going to select for my final design. I have used the idea of following a narrative throughout the digipack and making links between each cover so it follows a story as you look through the digipack. Their is a constant image of a lamppost and a wall leading throughout the digipack with the main protagonist sitting on the wall. On the cover it shows them sitting on the wall with their legs dangling down, additionally they will be wearing a hat to cover their face so the character can not be seen. The name of the band and the name of the song will be written on the wall beneath the protagonist, so it is blended into the environment and doesn't look falsely placed. On the back you see the same shot but from behind the character, with the track listings and the technical information being written underneath on the wall, following the format of the cover. On the inside cover the story continues with the character standing up on the wall kicking a can of drink over, with grabs of lyrics from the song written on the wall underneath him. Behind the CD is just a basic image of the wall and lamppost without the character standing there. This digipack is my favourite because of the fact that it sticks to the theme that the target audience of the band are used to seeing on the streets CD Covers which is why it makes it my final choice and the one I will be using. I plan to develop my ideas and will evaluate and discuss the photos and fonts I will be using in the digipack, later on in the blog.

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The images on the left are all existing Streets album covers that they have produced. Noticeable similarities can be made between them all, as they all focus on a basic image are basic in the fact that they only portray a single image onto a background. The two middle album covers show the lead singer sitting on a car in a rural background and him standing at a bus stop. This is what I drew inspiration from for the idea of having the main protagonist of my video simply sitting on a wall with a lamppost facing down on them. It is a pastiche of album covers already created by the streets and follows the pattern to appeal to the target audience of the band. They all also incorporate the signature streets lighter, I am not yet sure as part of the planning process whether to use this lighter on my digipack, it would be successful in following a trend set by the band but could also be seen as un-original. All of the images do however, use a background image that supports what is going on in the foreground and the main part of the digipack. Therefore I will attempt to take a separate photograph of an urban setting and photo shop my image over the top. An initial idea I have is that I want to show a set of buildings, as seen in the first of the album covers on the left, to look as if the protagonist of my video is sitting on the edge of a building, instead of just simply on a wall. Unfortunately I could not find any digipacks that were produced by the band only the front covers. So I am going to analyse two existing digipacks from different artists, one which I believe is effective, and another which I feel is not so good.

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The First Digipack I am going to analyse is Kayne West’s album Late Orchestration. The album cover is instantly eye-catching as it uses an image of a large bear crossing the road dressed in a school uniform. This is obviously something not often seen on CD covers and is unique in its choice of image. Therefore this will attract an audience who will be interested and want to know about the album through the use of an eye-catching image. The composition of the front cover shot is effective and the choice to have the bear off-centre allows us to see the London road sign behind it and establish the location. The border is additionally effective, in the fact that it follows the theme of the pedestrian crossing and the colours on the flashing beacon meaning it all fits together. The choice to have the name of the artist and album on the right hand side of the cover is interesting and the choice of font is matched throughout. The reason behind having the Y and W on the front cover in capital letters is however not evident. The back cover flows nicely from the front cover, using the taxi to link the two together effectively. The cab is used to display all of the relevant information including the track listings and bonus features which is shown in the same font as used on the front cover, showing that there has been attention payed to the choice of the font. Overall the digipack is well thought out, grabs the attention of the consumer and is relevant to the artists genre.

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The next digipack design I am going to analyse is one by a band named nine inch nails from the album all that could have been. The digipack itself and the design overall is very basic, clearly not a lot of thought or care has been put into producing the digipack and it shows in the final product. The front of the CD shows an image in the top half of the cover showing something which is not very clear to see, due to the fact the consumer can't see what the image portrays then it can be seen as irrelevant. The logo is composed to take up most of the cover and is placed over some of the writing at the top making it difficult to read. Additionally, the fact the logo is so large and the font describing whats on the CD isn't, it makes it difficult for the consumer to establish which band the CD is by if the logo is not already known to them. The choice of colours is very bland and unattractive, and the description of the band name and album is repeated at the top and does not look professional. Concerning the back of the CD, there is not many points to draw upon due to it being very basic. The colour of the font clashes with the dark grey and makes it difficult to read and the font is not the same as the font shown on the front, making the digipack flow badly and look as if the front and back cover are not linked. The information at the bottom looks as it it has just been slapped on without any thought of where to put it or how to position it. Overall this is a very poor example of a digipack and this would probably be reflected in its sales due to its unattractiveness.

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All the fonts I am about to analyse are taken from the website http://www.dafont.com. All of them have been print screened from the page and this is how they will be entered into my blog. The first font I found is a font which is presented in the style of large tower block buildings. The font is very imaginative and clearly incorporates the urban aesthetic that I am aiming for on my album cover. However the font is quite difficult to read and establish what it actually says. When producing album covers it is always important that what is written onto the cover can be read properly, making this font a poor choice despite is link with the album cover. This second font is one that I have found and think is the one I will be using throughout my digipack. It incoporates the urban feel and it is effective in its bold styling with scruffy edges, associating itself with a graffiti style and one that suits perfectly to my album cover. The fact my album cover shows a wall, means it can easily fit in with the style and feel i am attempting to create and would look perfectly suited on top of the image I will be using. The back to front lettering is also a style which I have been drawn to. If I were to use this font I would ensure that I kept it the same throughout, therefore using it on my front cover, back cover and on the inside to make the digipack flow accordingly. As I am still quite unsure concerning which one of my many images I wish to use for my digipack, I have looked into alternative fonts in case I change my mind and use another photo. This font co-incides with the second image I am looking to use, which will be seen later on in the blog when i analyse my photos and make my final decisions. In my second photo, there is no wall incorporated into the image, therefore the graffiti font would not be as suitable or effective. This font is similar to the one already used by the streets and have a desired impact when combining it with my image. The font is bold and narrowly composed, however the incoporation of the weathered effect on the letters, was what drew me towards this paticular font.

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The photo I have entered into the blog is my initial idea for my front cover of my digipack. I plan to use this image and edit out the date and time the photo was taken at the bottom, as well as removing The water behind the shoes. The photo is meant to show our protagonist of the video, sitting on the wall dangling there shoes over the edge. We planned to use this image as there is no clear sight of where the wall starts and ends and could suggest to the consumer that the charecter is sitting on a wall thats really hill in the sky, or just on a small one. I additionally plan to brighten up the image and work further on its contrast and colour scale to improve it. Furthermore, I wish to make the wall look more weathered to match the font I have chosen above. The picture is simple, however after conducting research I did notice that album covers from the streets are never crowded and often focus on just a basic image. Which is why I decided to follow the trend and keep with a design that the consumer is used to seeing. Flaws with the photo are that it could almost be seen as too basic, and dosen't leave many ideas for me to create a back cover and the inside from. I will edit the photo, place my font on top and then decide whether or not to use this as my final digipack. To follow are my final designs for my digipack and my evaluation in the form of a video presentation.

Here are my notes use for my video presentation in the form of a google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16ZvnqQ4bh-oBrH5Ut6DJUHMK1OabfihpGWuiX63SPiE/edit?hl=en_GB&pli=1#

Shooting Diaries

When on location yesterday, we collected all of our footage and are now ready to edit it down to a final video and add a soundtrack. As we only had one days filming, we have a relatively short shooting diary, however I had entered into this blog the diary from yesterdays filming drawing upon any problems or issues we had during the day and how I felt the filming went.

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Wednesday 16th March- Filming for Music Video: The day started well with us heading into college and picking the camera up from Craig, we had already completed the Risk Assessment form during Danns lesson the previous week so it was a simple process to pick up the camera and meant us heading back to Telscombe Cliffs to begin filming instantly. The weather was a dark and windy morning which suited the exact conditions we wanted to begin our film with, minus the rain which we were lucky enough that it managed to stay clear whilst we filmed. Upon arrival at our first location the beach front was deserted which was exactly how we had planned it as we wanted it to reflect an early morning and despite us not filming till 10, we managed to ensure this effect was reflected. We encountered a slight issue with the handycam,as we realised the person filming would only have one hand to be able to use in the shot as the camera would be being held in the other which proved to be difficult, however we decided for the scenes in which both hands are required to have the other person who was not filming to hold the camera whilst the other did the movement. We had difficulty with the ipod scene, as the camera could be seen in the reflection so it took a few takes to get this right, and we will edit it down during the editing process.

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All of our filming down at madeira went perfectly, with the weather continuing to be miserable, exactly how we wanted it, however there were some members of the public around so we needed a few takes to ensure no-one walked past during our shots, as it was important to ensure our character was shown totally on his own during shots. Other than that we had a very incident free filming process and returned the camera on time to Craig ready to begin our 6 weeks of editing, which we ensured we had enough time to complete.

Shooting Schedule

Now we have storyboarded, the next step for us is to create a shooting schedule. This means us working out how and when we are going to organise everything for the filming including the booking of the camera equipment, organisation of the crew and directors and the filming itself and what we are going to shoot and how. When scheduling our shooting, an important tool to use is a shooting script which is a document that is used on the day of filming including a list of shots we are intending to film. After shooting, there is space on the shooting script to write information on each take and which one was the best which will make it easier for us when capturing back the footage during editing. As me and Sam got ourselves organised we had a very simple process concerning our filming and managed to get our footage on the same day which was made easy for us by the fact it was shot in first person and meant we didn't have any actors to organise, and didn't have many props to sort out. On the left is my shooting schedule scanned in that we carried on set with us, as well as the shooting script used for one of our shots which can be found below. The shooting script pictured is the one we had to use as we encountered an issue when filming this shot, the picture in the shooting script is print screened out of our test filming.

Health and Safety

Health and safety is often an area that is misunderstood in terms of its importance, when considering video and film production. When producing media forms, there are a lot of external factors that need to be considered to providing a safe and risk free set for actors and directors to film in, a technique that works to eliminate risk and promote safety is a risk assesment. The risk assesment is a way of highlighting potential risks in the form of a document and discussing ways in which it can be eliminated contributing to a smooth as possible production experience. We had experiences involving risk assesment forms and had our own risk assessment form when on location (a template of which is on the right). We considered filming in wet weather as being a risk to both the camera becoming broken and potential slipping and injury of actors, as we are deciding to film both on clifftops and the underpass, we need to ensure the weather is suitable before embarking on filming. Additionally every time we booked a camera from the college we were required to fill out a risk assessment form which was covered by the college insurance policy and also helped us to identify any risks to ourselves, general public and production equipment. This means us having to evaluate access requirements and permission to film, which in our case is not such a defining factor as we are using public locations and will ensure no external member of the public is featured in our video.

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Additionally, contributing to the health and safety is carrying a call sheet at all times when on location, a call sheet is a list of everyone working on the film with a reference to one of more contact details such as mobile phone number or email address. This enables you to be able to contact all relevant personell, including actors, equipment suppliers, crew and anyone involved in transport and logistics. it is a vital piece of equipment across all stages of the production. Below is the call sheet use between me and my partner, we had all the contact details of our college tutors and technicians and had this on us at all times. I also had Craig the technicians number in my phone when on location in-case there was technical difficulty with the cameras. We didn't have much difficulty in producing the call sheet as we don't have any actors in our video, due to it being shot from first person.

Storyboard and Animatic

In this blog I will scan in my initial storyboard that I produced before any filming had taken place to outline my original ideas and enable me to be able to follow my plan when on location filming my video. A storyboard is a very vital piece of work in relation to a film or music video, through its ability to enable the director (in this case myself), to pre visualise the video before setting out to record it. It can be used in pre production, to sketch and outline the initial ideas that could prove to be inspirational in producing a good video, there is nothing worse then having a great idea for a shot, then forgetting about it! It can also be referred back to post production to allow the director to see how accurate their film/video is compared to his original plans, and whether or not they stemmed away from the idea they initially had and how accurate the storyboard was.

The storyboard I have created demonstrates my groups idea which is to produce a video shot completly from a first person perspective, we wanted something edgy and uncommon to accompany a track that is one we found difficult to intepret, leading us to make the decision to shoot it from this perspective. Our locations and lighting we are aiming for is dark and very tonal colour balances with an urban, city backdrop. We want the camera to be handheld and strapped to our main protagonist, who's face will never be seen, adding to the mysterious ambience we are aiming to create. This means having a shaky and blurry camera movement, which we aim to look intentional without looking like it has just simply been badly shot. We want this to reflect the protagnists disorientation he is experiencing and create a video that almost breaks a mould and is purposeful in not looking perfect, and as true to reality as possible.

In a storyboard, my proposed idea needs to be put onto paper in a shot by shot format with a sketch for every shot and a detailed description next to it. Each shot is numbered and includes a description of the shot type, movement of the camera and the action and movement within the shot.The storyboard should be ideally around 30 shots long, to allow great detail in portraying an idea that the director has, however at this stage of the process, I do not have a clear enough idea to be able to produce a 30 shot storyboard. I will incorporate the shots I have planned into this blog in the form of small sketches demonstrating my idea, I do have some test footage however I feel it is more beneficial for me to draw the ideas so my idea can be fully expressed. I have a clear idea for the opening of my video, but am not yet sure of how to draw the video to a close and how to develop a narrative into it. In the later blogs, my storyboard will be used to create a shooting script and schedule.

Mise-en-scene

In this blog I will be discussing the choices we have made regarding the mise-en-scene of our video. The term mise-en-scene is a french term which basically means everything that goes into a shot that can be seen by the viewer. We have ideas on all aspects of the mise-en-scene, which we wish to use in our video. In terms of the setting, we feel due to a lonely dark theme of the song, we will select a setting of a local town in the early hours of the morning where no-one will be around to reflect the theme of loneliness. The aspect of the clothing our main protagonist will be wearing needs to demonstrate that the character has been out all night and using drugs, this also means we will need to use make-up to darken the eyes and make the skin pale. Important props we will need to use is the mobile phone, which helps to start the video using an extreme close-up of a text message from a relative, additionally there is not many props we will need to use, as the video doesn't contain any other characters. Furthermore we have an idea to use a bottle of vodka to reflect that he has been drinking.

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All of the mise-en-scene elements we have selected contribute to the videos themes of drug use, loneliness and depression. It strongly reflects the genre of rap, as rap videos are always very powerful and true to the lyrics that the song possesses. All of the streets previous videos, such as dry your eyes, follow a simple theme, therefore we know that the video will be welcomed by streets fans as it similar to videos they have already seen. To gain some ideas for our mise en scene, we used a recce. A recce is a starting base for a project and involves visiting potential locations for filming. Below are some images that constructed our recce and are the locations we will be filming in.