Evolution of Digipak-Front cover

As part of creating our digipak we designed and created an image which woulld be our front cover on our album and poster. As a group we drew many different designs but we all decided this one was the right one for our digipak. We then scanned that image into a computer and sythsasised it to match our synthasised track. Using Photoshop  we experimented with merging our image into different backgrounds to see which one worked well. Below you can see the thumbnails of the different options and what we had to choose from in this prosess.

This was our final choice of background which is a peeling, painted wall. We chose this image because it has that urban feel which we were trying to create. I also put on our band name and album name to getter a better feel for it, and to justify our final decision making.
This worked well for our track because it conformed the stereotypical youthfulness and rebeliouness which are the conventions of our target audience.

Our Digipak

One thing which came with making our digipak was also creating a band and album name. To help us decide on names we wrote down words which we thought described what our band and/or music video was about and then words that followed on from those. We also used synopsis words and a thesaurus to help inspire our ideas.



Originally we decided on 'The Auspice' for our band name and 'Backbones' as the album name and so we started creating a digipak revolved around that. However we later realised it was not right for the message we were trying to project. By having a male back on the album was giving out the wrong message and would perhaps attract the wrong audience. Therefore we thought again about our choice and decided on 'Dirty Habit' for our band name but kept 'Backbones' for our album name.

When developing our digipak we researched into darker things, as this was appropriate for our band's image. These are a few of our rough sketches for planning our digipak.

Our Shoot Day

Our shoot was to start at 9am on thursday, november 4th. However at 9 o'clock we noticed that two of our band members had not shown up which did not work to our advantage. We found out that one of them had pulled out last minute and the other had not bothered to turn up. We managed to find one of them, which was the guitarist and the other was unavailable.
Therefore we had to make do with what we had. We were missing our DJ, therefore we took another band member, which was supposedly meant  to be playing another guitar and he became our new DJ.
Although me was a guitarist and had no clue he was going to DJ he did a very good job and was much better than most of us expected.

Our set had two tyres on the floor with a red and blue light coming through the middle, and other lights placed around, which added a really nice effect. We also had chains on the floor, a rope hanging from the ceiling and a deck, set up for the DJ. We had to get Holly, our lead singer, onto the rope, which she swings off. I know that this was very uncomfortable for he, however she was very patient and listened to commands very well.

After shooting our first section, which was the performance element of our media video we were meant to shoot in the woods, for our narrative section. However the weather was not how we wanted, therefore we had to shoot our performance element in the studio. So after a quick set change we were ready, however once again, more of our cast had pulled out last minute. We managed to have a few that we originally wanted, but had to collect a few others which were not originally supposed to be in it. Although a few of them did not know what they were supposed to be doing they were very helpful and did what we asked which made it so much easier for us. We got everybody into costumes, these our a few of our cast in costumes:

We got everybody into costumes and got them into a classroom, where we told them to get into creepy, animal characters. Although it started slow as people were unsure of what to do, they picked it up and really got into it which saved us a lot of time. These are our freaks rehearsing in the classroom:

After we had a few rehearsals and our new set was built we were able to take our cast into the studio to carry on with filming. Holly was also in some aspects of the narrative scenes, which meant the audience would relate her into both aspects and the two scenes would merge together in our final cut.

There were a few shots when our main narrative cast, Abby, was being attacked by the freaks/animals to add tension and an aspect of violence in a descrete way, so our target audience felt they could connect with our music video. One of the shots we did for this was birds eye view which had a different effect, which worked really well.

Although I was slightly worried with what might or might not happen on our shoot day, due to lack of organisation, I think we managed to pull it all together just before shooting which I thought was a success and althought there was stress at times, I think everybody enjoyed themselves.

Codes and Conventions of a Digipak & Advertisement

Digipak

The Digipak and advertising is very imortand for an artist/band and its all about selling their product to their target audience. A lot of  what they want to acheive is adding value, however they dont want to lose possible buyers by setting their price to high. The customers want a reasonable price for what they are purchacing. Therefore if their digipak is giving something special, unique and adding something extra people will be willing to pay more.

We went through a couple of digipak examples in class, however I decided to analise my own which I created using PhotoShop:

Overall digipak style:

• Usually uses 2-3 colours, 4 colours maximum. This digipak has used 3 colours, white red and black which signify danger colours, which is re-enforced with the blood. These three colours are used throughout the entire digipak which gives it continuity
• A digipak does not tend to use over 2 diffent style of fonts
• Includes elements of graphic design
• Must create some sort of visual link with advertisement

Advertisement

The advertisemnt must or is most likely to include:

• release date of album
• prominent display of artist name & album title
• Usually has image of album
• Repeats the same graphic style of digipak
• may also include; tour dates, review quotes from magazines, record label logo, website

By doing this I have re considered our own digipak. I have taken this information in and its helped me to think about our digipak which we have to design and create.

Timetable of our shoot day

The Storyboard Anamatic

Originally we were going to have a girl in a club cutting to and fro the same girl in woodland with creepy animals and weird characters. However, we have since decided to change this. We decided that the club scene would be boring and wouldnt work well. Instead of the club scene we decided to have a performance element, which would include 3 band members. The lead singer, who would be a sexualised female, inspired by Taylor Momsen, a DJ, and a guitarist all of which will be wearing dark clothes.

We put together a storyboard anamatic of our original idea to help give us a rough understanding of what our final video might look like. The images of our storyboard have been cut together with our track and I think this will give us a better idea of what we should expect.

Storyboard

To get an idea of what shots types we wanted to shoot with, we created a storyboard showing the different shot angles/shot types and what was going on in each image so that when we got to our shoot day we wouldnt be clueless about what we were doing and where we could set up the camera so there was minimal delay before we got shooting.

 

Our Band's Image

We had already go pictures of other bands to imply what ours might look like, but I didnt feel satisfied. I decided I was going to gather pictures of our cast, which I found on the school account and place them on bodies of people who I thought had the right Image.

I opened their school photographs individually into photoshop along with a body i found in google images, of what I had in mind for our band image.

I started with editing out the backgrounds of the two images so that they were behind a plain white background. I edited out the original heads on the bodies and placed the new ones on. I used the eyedropper tool, which selects any exact colour you want from an image. I used the eyedropper tool to select their skin colour so that if the colour of he face was not the same as the body I used I painted it on with a low oppacity so it looked more realistc.



Before









After









I did this with each band member and placed them together, with Holly in the middle as shes the main band member and I wanted to draw attention to her.

As we are having red and blue lights behind our band I decided to give full effect I should put a blue and red background behind the band to give a more realistic effect.

After spending quite a lot of time on this, I have come to realise that with the exception of the lead singer, and the guy at the far right, the band members are not dressed how our band will look. They do not fit together and this will show on camera. Therefore I have learnt that these costumes do not fit together which I think has been successful and worth the time I put into this.



Artists band image

Our band image is not taking themselves too seriously. They dont really care about peoples opinions, and they do their own thing. They do not conform the stereo typical band, they are more dark and sinister.

They are not a formal band, so we shall show this in the way they're dressed. The picture above shows a similar aspect of how our band will look, however our band has four males and one

female as the singing in the song is a female voice.

The female member of our band will be rough and slightly scary looking to conform our target audience. As our audience is mainly male, we could sexualise her to attract this audience, and may increase the chances of that audience re watching our video. This pictures are showing similar aspects of what we want our female singer to look like:

                            The female singer, played by Holly will have dark, provocative makeup

                            to show her feminism, but to keep the aspects of the band in her image.

                             I found these images below to give us an idea of what she will look like.





Casting

We have asked a selection of students if they can be in our music video. We had a list of 50 students, however we were told we couldnt take this many people, so this is what we have narrowed it down to:

Performers For band:

Singer - Holly Finlay

Guitar - Walter Daley

Drums - Otto West:

Bass - Will Bodner:

DJ - Hector McAllister:

 

Main girl: 

Abbi Douetil:

 

Extras:

Andrew Irving

Ellie Wilson

Sadie Middleton

Amy Rumble

Jess Wilson

Peter Bergin

Will Barlow

Bella Spaeight

Ella Robinson

Tilly Goodridge

Talisa Vergsen

Nat Holley

Ian Heritier

Jana Page

Freddie McGaw

Paula Riemann

Tom Barnett

Emily Rhodes

Laura Bowman

Marina Hambro

Merlin Talard

Sarah Wichall

Katherine Vincent