Digipak Research

Before we go and create our Digipak, we must research into what makes a good one and take key conventions to try and develop, use or challenge them.

Michael Jackson 

Front Panel

The first album I looked at was one by Michael Jackson. It was released in 2005 as a greatest hits compilation released by Sony Music's catalogue division, Legacy Recordings as part of 'The Essential Series'. As you can see, the album has a close up picture of the artist in the forefront of the album. This would have been done so as people would be able to identify what the album contains without having to read the title of the album. The image has also been desaturated. This may have been done so as the artists name which is in a red font, stands out to the audience more. Another thing that I have noticed from looking at the picture and knowing a lot of Michael Jackson's songs, is that the picture is actually from his song, 'Beat It'. Although it is not an identical match to a scene in the video, it is clear that the album photo was taken at the time of filming. I can see this as the artists hair and clothing is the same.

Centre Panels & Disc

This is the inside of the album. The left hand panel is another desaturated image of Michael in his younger days of when he was part of Jackson 5. The left panel is also a booklet containing many other images of Michael throughout his days as an artist. The front of this booklet is the front album cover. Again, the left hand image has been desaturated. Another reason that this has been done is maybe to give the audience a 'memory' like feeling as they flick through pictures and are able to identify them with songs that have been released in the past years. The right hand panel is plain purple, but the main focus is the disc. The disc is black with gold text on it. The record company have decided to name the disc 'EPIC' as they try and promote the album as an 'epic' one. The rest of the text that you can see on the album, is all of the song tracks. The song tracks are important to include on an album otherwise people will not know what they are listening to. This is a key convention that MUST be adhered to when we design our digipak. The right hand panel, under the disk, is just a plain purple. Seeing as the rest of the album is black and white, I think purple is a contrasting colour and works well to add a house style to the product.

Back Panel

This is the rear of the album to Michael Jackson's Essential hits. It is the only panel to have some real colour added to it.  It has yet another picture of Michael performing one of his songs located on the left hand side of the album. Again, the audience would be able to identify what the performance is if they are a true fan of Jacksons. The picture has been taken whilst he is performing as the stage is surrounding him. As well as the picture, at the top of the album there is a mini biography about Michael and his musical background. This is similar to what you would expect to find on the back of a DVD cover, as it sort of tells us what the album is about and why you should listen to it. To my knowledge, this is quite unusual for an album to have, however in this case it is needed to further attempt to sell the product to the audience that it is aimed for.
The other piece of text located on the back of the album, is obviously the track listing. This is a 2 CD album, hence the two different lines of music. The tracks are positioned numerically one under the other so as you can easily see each individual song. Below the track listings is the legal disclaimers which detail where the album was produced and what companies have helped produce the album, in this case 'EPIC', 'LEGACY' and 'MJJPRODUCTIONS'. The artist also has a personal website further promoting himself and this 'michaeljackson.com', has also been included so as the audience would be able to look at other works by the artist and read more in to the life of them. The last significant thing that is located on the rear of the album, is the barcode. Without this, there would be no way that the album would be able to sell in the industry as this is what is scanned to make a sale. The barcode is a simple one that is neatly placed in the bottom right hand corner of the album.

Michael Buble

Front Panel

 This is the latest album by Canadian singer/songwriter Michael Buble. It is called Crazy Love. The front of the album has the artist right in the middle. This is a mid shot as it focuses more on the pose that the artist is holding. He is wearing a suit, something that he as an artist is known to wear when performing. The suit in this instance is of grey in colour and this background to the album cover reflects this by using a grey/silver. The whole of the front of the album is in silver apart from the artists shoe, which is brown in colour. I feel that although this is only a small part of the picture, it stands out and breaks up the nearly completely silver/grey. On the top and bottom of the album, there are banners that have been added after the image was taken with the artists name 'Michael Buble', and his initials 'MB'. The initials have been done in a handwriting style font to try and convince the audience that he himself has signed the album. As well as this, the audience is drawn to the only bold wording on the front of the cover which is 'Crazy Love'. If the audience knew Michael Buble and his work, then they would be able to see that this is the name of the album as one of his singles that was released was also called this. Even if someone did not know the artist well, I feel that the bold writing is clear enough to suggest that this is the title of the album. As well as this, when the album was purchased, there was a sticker on the front. The sticker informs the purchaser that it is a double CD with certain 'hit songs' that he released individually. This would further promote the media package as they would feel they are getting a credible album with 'big hits' and even new tracks on it.

Centre Panels

This is the inside of the album. It is rather simplistic however maintains a consistent house style. The left hand side continues the silver colouring as well as the silver banners that were seen on the front of the album. The banners continue to read 'Michael Buble', 'MG' and 'crazy love'. The right hand panel is also just plain silver. The disc however is bright orange. It appears that orange is a contrasting colour with silver and goes very well and stands out. The disc has a similar style to the album cover with the silver banners with the same text on, however there are some extras. Compared to Michal Jackson's album, not only does it have a track list on, it also has some legal disclaimers on here. At the bottom of the disc it shows what different songs were produced by different people.

Back Cover

This is the back cover of Michael Buble's album. Again, it keeps the consistent house style using the silver colouring, however this panel has more life on it than the others. Over half of the panel is covered with either a picture or text. The left hand side has an image of Buble to further promote the artist. The albums track listings are also on the back of however, unlike Jackson's numerical one under the other layout, the track listings on this CD are layed out numerically however next to each other. This would have been done as if it had have been one after the other in a line, then the whole of the back cover would have been taken up and the album would have looked unprofessional. as well as this, the rear of the album has continued the orange colouring by using the colour to identify the track numbers. The same font has been used on the track list as the font that is used throughout the text found on the whole album.

As well as the track listings, the album also contains the legal disclaimers and logos. In this instance '143 RECORDS'. A website promoting the artist is also included, just as it was used on Michael Jackson's album. A barcode is also found neatly to the bottom corner of the album.

JLS

Front Panel

 This is JLS's latest album which was released in 2010. The front of the album is fairly simplistic with a close up of the group. Each band member is clearly visible and all are pulling the same 'no expression' pose. The picture has been desaturated and the bands name is clearly visible at the top in big bold white letters. The combination of the image of the band members and the large text naming the band is enough to show the audience who the album is relating to. The only colour on the cover is four lines. It would appear that each line represents one of the band members what with there being four band members and four separate colours.

Centre Panels

 
This is the inside of the album. On the left hand side is another picture of the band, looking more fashionable, in colour and smiling for the camera. The image is a long shot of the band as it focuses more on the bands image. The plain white background is something that I was not expecting to see when I opened the album. Because the rest is black, I assumed the whole of it would be, therefore, to me, this album has not maintained a house style for this particular panel. The right hand panel is black, which is the same as the disk. The disc has 'JLS' printed on with the same four colours as the front printed underneath in a line. This is shown on the left hand side of the disc, and on the right is the legal disclaimers part. The plain black disc works well with the background to the panel that it is on and if it was in a different colour, someone may think that they have the wrong disc in a case.

Back Cover

The back cover to this album is also black in colour which keeps the house style of the front of the album. Again, the same four colours are used at the top, middle which is then followed by the track list.  The same font has been used for the track list. Under this is the legal disclaimers part that all of the other albums appear to have, as well as the barcode which in this instance has also been centralised.

Magazine Advert Research

Before we go and create our own magazine advert, we need to ensure we have done extensive research in to what we are getting ourselves in for. We need to look at conventions in to magazine adverts and see what we need to adhere to when creating our own. Below are a number of adverts that I have looked at to try and gain inspiration from to begin creating my own.

JLS:

As you can see from the advert, this is very simplistic, however gives across what is needed. The reason I have chosen this advert is because I am going to analyse their album for the digipak research. The advert is a plain black background with the band cropped in to the middle of the page. all are wearing similar clothing to each other and are expressionless. The band is further identifiable by the big bright coloured letters that read JLS. This further promotes the band to an audience and the colours make this more appealing to the eye and stand out more if seen at a distance. The fact that the bottom of the advert says 'In Stores 14th July' is enough to make an audience believe that their next album is going to be released on this date, and this is further reinforced as above this, it says 'JLS Beat Again' which would evidently be the name of the album.

Rihanna

Here is Rihanna's magazine advert promoting her latest album, Loud. The main image is of the artist pulling a certain pose. It appears that the image has been specifically taken for this advert as I cannot find the image any where else on the internet. You are instantly drawn to the advert due to Rihanna's bright red hair which has been used to maintain a brand identity with her digipak. The digipak can bee seen in the bottom right hand corner of the advert, and you can see it is an extreme close up of Rihanna's face, yet you can still see her bright red hair. The advert also has the artists name printed at the top in a faint text so as not to ruin the image that is the main feature of the page. The name of the album is also present on the advert, Loud, and this is needed to make the audience fully aware of what they are going to purchase. Again, just like the JLS advert, this is quite a simplistic advert, as the bottom is a simple message to say that the album is out now ready to purchase and that it 'INC. 'Love The Way You Lie' and 'Only Girl (In The World)''.

Noel Gallagher

Seeing as we are doing a song by Noel Gallagher, I felt that it was necessary to look at the magazine advert that has been created to advertise his new album. The advert again, has the main artist in the centre of the page looking straight at the camera. The identity of the person is easily made as at the top of the advert it says 'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' in a font that I have seen him use across his platforms (see left). As well as this, there is quite a lot of text in the lower third of the advert. All of the text that has been included includes things such as 'No1 Album Including....' and also pull quotes from popular newspapers and magazines that have reviewed the magazine. These would be included to reinforce to the audience that what they are buying is actually of good quality. As well as the pull quotes, there are user ratings which also would influence someone buying this album or looking at it. The advert also contains a note to say how tickets are available for Noel's tour at different arena's across the country followed by a website to go on to purchase the,. The bottom right hand corner of the advert contains the logo of Noel's record label, Sour Mash, and his personal fan based website.

Adele

Above is a collection of the promotional material that was used to promote Adele's most recent album, '21' The top left image is the front cover of her album. As you can see, it is a close up shot of Adele herself, that has been desaturated. The artist is also looking away from the camera. The image is very similar to that of the magazine advert which is shown on the right hand side. Although the picture is not the same, there are similar aspects to it. The image is again, a close up of Adele looking away from the camera, and has also been desaturated however the pose is completely different to that of the album cover. In case the audience is not sure what the advert is trying to advertise, then the creators of the advert have inserted a thumbnail picture of Adele's album on the page with the words 'AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE NOW'. As well as this, there is a colour consistency across the two products with the desaturation and the white and green text which the audience would be able to identify further products to this artist and the album. There is also some small print at the bottom of the magazine advert with some legal disclaimers and company logos which appear to be a common convention with magazine adverts.

Boards

When we got back after our first day of filming, we re looked at our story board and noticed that some of the scenes we required our model to be holding signs that say 'WHAT', 'A', 'LIFE' and '?'. Adam took note of this and the next day he came into school with this all prepared. I was only expecting to see a bit of card with the words, but instead, he had managed to find a couple of pieces of wood of equal size and sprayed the letters on the board. Below is what Adam managed to create and these will be used in our filming for Glenn to hold.

Equipment Needed

Before we go up to London we need to establish what we are going to take up to help us. Obviously the main two things that are needed are a camera and a tripod. The camera, for the filming aspect, the tripod to prevent any shaky camera movements. Equipment that we need are as followed;

• Sony Handycam
• Tripod
• Camera Tape
• iPhone/iPod
• Digital Camera - Sony & Hitachi
• Acoustic Guitar

Each piece of equipment is vital to us in order to help us film the video.

Risk Assessment

What Music Channel?

As a group we have decided on a song and a rough idea of what our video is going to look like, however it has occurred to me that we also need to think of a music channel to 'host' as it were, our final video on. It is important to add a channel identity in to the music video to add the authenticity to it and to make the video seem more believable to the target audience. Thinking about some music channels, I think it is safe to say that the song that we have chosen is one that could potentially be played on any channel. The song has only just been released in to the charts so it is quite a contemporary song that would be played across a wide variety of music channels. Of course, the music channels would have to be genre specific. for example, you would not necessarily see a Noel Gallagher song being played on something like music channel 'Kiss' as this channel predominately facilitates for more R&B up beat contemporary songs.

We knew that the most obvious music channel that everyone could relate to was MTV. MTV is such a big brand and has many different extensions that show different programmes and different genres of music.

Animatic Video

This is the final animatic that we created on Final Cut. It is only a very rough cut as it is simply a guide of what we are going to follow for when we actually do some shooting. I have tried to add in some different fades at the beginnng and end of the aimatic as this is an idea we wish to use in our actual video.

Animatic

Before we start filimng the video we had to plan our ideas so as when we go up to London we are not standing around deciding what to do and also so we do not mess our model around and waste his time!
In order to plan the filming, we had to storyboard our ideas. We had to delegate roles within the group to make this happen. Jay and Adam offered to do the drawing of the story board as I am not artistic at all. Because they were doing the drawings, it was my job to edit them all into the right places using Final Cut, a programme that I have used once or twice before.

After Adam and Jay had finished drawing a particular scene, we took a picture of the frame, uploaded it to the computer and I tried to fit it in to the right place within the song.

The picture on the left, shows me using the Final Cut programme and composing the animatic, and the picture on the right shows Jay and Adam creating the story boards.

Below is a picture of all of the storyboards that we created. As you can see, there are a lot of different shots that we have decided on!

The London Eye

The other idea that we had was to do with the London Eye. These are the two shots we got of the wheel. The shot from the front of the wheel was taken because we had the idea of filming the wheel front on and then speeding the footage up. Also known as over cranking we felt that showing footage of the wheel in a sped up motion would look effective to use at some point within the video. The picture below is another of the London Eye from a different angel. We were walking along a bridge and saw the view between some buildings and thought it was a very picturesque shot. We also noticed how the sun was positioned and thought we could take advantage of the different angels of the sun on different landmarks within London.

Leake Street

On Wednesday 30th November me and my group went to London to seek out a few locations that we could use in our shoot. We went to a few of the obvious places being all along Southbank and The London Eye and had a few ideas with these locations, explained in the next post. This post however is about a street that runs underneath the tracks and platform of Waterloo Station. The street is called Leake Street. Many people may know this as the 'Banksy Tunnel'. The walls are decorated with graffiti initially created during the 'Cans Festival' organised by Banksy himself. The graffiti along Leake Street is tolerated by the authorities especially as there is a claim that it is a legal wall. Below is a board of pictures that we took when we went to Leake Street to show the types of art that can be found there as well as what the tunnel actually looks like.


As you can see, the tunnel is literally covered in graffiti. There is literally not one brick below head height that can be seen. As I have said above, the picture above shows what type of art can be found. This is because the street was originally for artists to leave their work for others to see, but as you can see from the picture, this concept has been abused, probably by youths that just want to go out spraying walls because they think it is legal. A lot of the original art has been destroyed by peoples 'tags' and other art, such as the smiley face and the grey face that you can see in the mood board. When we were walking around the street, we noticed how one of the bits of graffiti said 'Life'. This gave us the idea to possibly spray our own line on the wall and film it to use in our video. we would like to have the line 'what a life' on the wall.

As well as the covered walls, the street itself was fairly busy and this is what we wanted for some shots of the video. We did not want our performer to perform somewhere with no people around at all.

Copyright Letter

It has been two weeks now since we have sent the permission letter to Sour Mash Records, and still have not heard a reply, so as a group we assumed that we were able to use the song. If we were unable to, then I'm positive we would have been contacted to advise us of this.

Who Are We Going To Use...?

When we started to story board our ideas to the music video, we realised that we didn't have a model to appear in the video. This again is another aspect of the research that we should have considered at the start of the video. It would be no good doing all the research to find that we didn't actually have an appropriate person to appear in our video. We contemplated over who we could use and different people we named but quickly decided against because they were not the sort of person to fit our genre of music.

Jay then said how he knew of someone within his football team that could possibly appear in our video. The person Jay mentioned is a young, enthusiastic singer and guitarist and this is the sort of person that we are looking for. After a few searches on YouTube and watching a couple of his performances, Jay contacted him to which he agreed to help us out. Jack can be seen in the picture to the right.


A performance of his can be found as an mp3 below.



Creating the mp3 bar above was a lengthy process which is explained in this post.

Location Shots

After establishing the song that we are going to produce a video to, the next thing was to decide on locations that we would want to be in our video. We could have filmed in local areas in woods, houses or town centers however a a group, we felt that local areas would take away authenticity of the video as people viewing it would identify the area and not believe it was a proper music video. We wanted to find a location that would be iconic and one that we know has been used in other videos as a central point of the video. Taking this into consideration, we felt that London would the most appropriate location to do our shoot. There are so many different locations in London that could work with our video, from the constant busy streets, to the quiet side alleys that are yet to be discovered by many people that venture up to London.

Southbank
An iconic location that could be used in our video is the famous London Southbank. It is always busy with people commuting to and from work, going out for day trips, and also with tourists. The riverside walkway also hosts a number of different famous landmarks such as The Houses of Parliament, The Mayor's Office, The London Eye and Tower Bridge, all of which are identifiable to the public as being London's tourist attractions. These places would be good to film for large crowds and also a different number of people as tourists from all over the world travel to see the different destinations.

Wembley WayWembley Way would be another great place to film. We could have a long shot of the whole of the walkway and see the stadium in the background looking at the different people that are walking below. This would give a notion of looking sense as the audience can see what other people do with their lives and either relate or differentiate it to their own life. It would be ideal to shoot this location completely empty to show how life has not yet started (due to the time of day) and then a later shot of the walkway packed with people showing how quickly life develops and how the world becomes busy.

Tube Stations
Tube stations are tricky locations to shoot in. There are so many across London that would benefit us and our video. One of our ideas for the video is to have our artist/actor singing with his guitar in a tube station watching life as it goes by. Although this could be a good idea, we have to appreciate that filming anything on the TFL (Transport For London) is very tricky due to the previous terrorist attacks. As a group, the only way we could decide on over coming this, should a tube station happen to appear in out video, and we are asked to move on, the best thing to do is plead ignorance and say we are students merrily filming some footage for our Media A-Level and we were unaware of the restrictions of filming in tube stations. The idea of the tube station, again can be used to show people moving about their everyday life and would show an audience the different types of people that live in the world.

Hyde Park

Another location that sprung to mind to appear in our music video was Hyde Park. As Christmas is just around the corner - only 5 weeks away - we thought that we could take this to our advantage and use the famous Christmas market and fair in our video. We were told by our teacher that a few students from a different school used this same location and produced a high graded finished product. As a group, we felt that the different colourful lights would have a good effect with the right camera work, and that again, there would be hundreds or even thousands of people walking around the fair going on the different rides and buying different items that are on sale. The idea was to have our artist walking around the fair watching the people on the rides and walking around and see how people enjoy their lives. It would also be good to have our artist in a neutral position as he observes a different variety of people as they pass him.

Obviously the ideas above are only rough ideas that are potential locations for filming. When we go up to London to shoot -thats even if we defenitly choose to go to London- then when travelling around, we may find areas that we feel would look good in the video and set up a camera and start filming. If later we chose not to use that part of the film, then it can easily be edited out.

Target Audience

The next thing to do after deciding on the song was to start thinking of our target audience. This is an important part of creating all music videos, films and TV programmes otherwise you wont get the viewings. The artist of the song, Noel Gallagher - according to Wikipedia - is considered as a Rock, BritPop, Alternative Rock and Psychedelic Rock artist.

• Rock Music: developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the US and UK. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Like pop-music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. An example of a rock band is The Beetles, on the right hand side.

• Alternative Rock: a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various sub-genres that have emerged from independent music - shortened to indie music - scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, BritPop, Gothic rock, Indie pop, and Indie rock. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style or ethos of punk rock, which laid he groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s. An example of an alternative rock band, is The Goo Goo Dolls, shown on the left hand side.

• BritPop Music: a sub-genre of alternative rock that originated in the UK. BritPop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. An example of a BritPop music band, is Blur. a picture of their album cover is shown on the right.

• Psychedelic Rock: a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in the US and the UK. An example of a psychedelic rock band is that of Pink Floyd, as shown in the picture to the left.

After establishing the genre of music that we had chosen to produce a music video to, it was time to research who our video would be aimed at. To do this I went onto the UK Tribes website that allows you to see what 'group' different people in society fit in to. Upon visiting the website, I found a group called 'Alternative'. After reading the description of this, it is clear that the people that are categorized into this group is who I need to be aiming my music video at. Below is the description given, straight from the UK Tribes website.

Members of the Alternative tribes are vaguely rebellious but don’t yet have a specific focus to rally against (their parents may well have helped shape their Alternative views, in fact). However, they are likely to conform with peers. While open-minded about music and fashion they are wary of the Mainstream tribes and determined to be different – together.

Alternative Tribes are predominantly made up of white working and middle class kids. It seems a huge proportion of teens in the UK have a hankering for something a bit different, and Alternative brands that have achieved massive traction include Converse and Vans. Kufiyas also feature heavily.

All Tribes within the Alternative segment are passionate about music, and their friendship groups, tastes and activities are largely defined online. Peer influence is a huge part of the Alternative scene, though new trends usually emerge outside the segment. The best way to reach these kids is through niche magazines and social media.

Young Alts is the gateway Tribe to the Alternative and Leading Edge scenes and is a massive group who snap up all kinds of media and accessories as they ape their elders. Metalheads and Skaters are much more rigid Tribes, adopting teens early and keeping them until their mid-twenties in small, fiercely loyal friendship groups. Both scenes are fluid about fashion but fanatical about their core preoccupations: rock music and skating. Emos and Scene Kids are heavily over-lapping tribes with Goth-derived fashion sense and US-led rock music tastes, although Emo kids are interested in angst while Scene Kids are more concerned with socialising and building massive online presences. Apart from Gamers, Scene Kids are the Tribe most glued to their computers, making the Alternative market the most-web facing of the segments.

The final category, Gamers, are truly unusual in that their online profiles and pastimes have assumed more importance than real-world socialising. They are a globalised Tribe with eclectic and influential taste in games, music and film, but no real need for fashion.

Below are a couple of mood boards illustrating the types of brands and media that people of the alternative culture are in to.














Below is a small table showing the media consumption for the average person in the alternative group.

As you can see, the average Alternative 'member' relies quite heavily on the media for entertainment. The table clearly shows how Alternative people enjoy heavy usage of Internet, TV, Magazines and Radio. If people were not interested in Radio, TV or the Internet, then there would be no point in creating the video. Obviously all music videos are filmed to accompany a particular song, and this is then played out to the public via certain TV channels. So what would be the point in making a music video to people who barely watch TV? As well as this, music videos appear all over the internet and compete to get the most amount of 'hits' - most views - so again, making a music video to someone who does not use the internet often would also, to me, seem non-beneficial.


So what does an 'Alternative' person look like?

The above picture shows the type of people that fit into the category of 'Alternative'. The picture was taken at Reading Music Festival, which is exactly the festival where Noel Gallagher would most likely play at. They normally dress in clothes such as skinny jeans and anything else that shops like TOPMAN or Urban Outfitters sell.