Flatplans

As part of my digipak design process, I have designed three flatplans. The designs below, show my initial ideas for my digipak.

This digipak design is brightly coloured and bold. I have chosen these colours as I think they represent the bright, vibrant and fun style and genre of the music. I also think they will make the digipak stand out to the target audience.

Using two main colours also means the each element of the digipak can be easily identified.

The front cover of the digipak is a photo of the final shot of the music video, this adds continuity, which will encourage and promote the music video.

The font I have used on this is more absract and sans serif. The reason for this is that it reflects the relaxed and fun style of the music, and because of this will ultimately appeal to the target audience. I have howeever used a more bold and black font for the back cover, as it is displaying more poignant information.

The C.D component stands out the dark blue backround, I have intentionally made it a lighter colour (Yellow) in order for it to stand out. I feel this is an importnat design aspect as the C.D is the most important component of the digipak.

The front cover of the digipak also shows the title of the song, designed to look like the sign for a pier, such as Brighton. The relevance to this is that the video will be shot in Brighton and therefore once again adding continuity.




This design has a different approach to the design style. The colours are a lot darker. The reason for this is to attract the more meaningful and darker side of the artists music.

The front cover of the digipak design is based on a clicker board used in films and music videos. This idea came from the theme of this project and making a music video.

While the front cover shows a close up of the clicker board, the back cover shows it in its entirety. I have taken the idea of this and placed the information of the clicker board such as the song title, time and artist on the spaces on a clicker boards, where the film title and scene/shot would usually appear.

I have also used the two main colours of black and white to continue this theme. I have also used red to compliment this and make it stand out more. This is a typical colour to be linked with my artist as she had red hair and can be easily identified with. The inside cover uses the black and white checkerboard theme as an insert.

I have used an italic and handwriting style font to show contrast to the bold colours. It adds a personal touch and I though it would appeal to the target audience more as it adds a softer tone to the look of the digipak.

Finally the C.D component is split into two colours, black and red. The use of two colours will make this component stand out and it also displays all of the relevant information needed for the used to identify this to the digipak.



The basic idea behind this design. Is the title of the artist 'Florence and the Machine.' The front covers shows a computer like machine displaying the title of the artist. The keyboard shows the title of the single the digipak is being made for. This idea is quirky and individual, and I think would appeal to the target audience as it reflects the style of music, in its literal meaning.

The back cover shows a music machine with a shelf of C.D's. Each C.D displays the artist name in a different font or style, and in a different colour. The display screen of the music player shows the single title as if it was playing on the audio track. This design it once again in keeping with the quirky element of this design.

Both the inside insert and C.D use the same multi candy striped design.The use of more pastel like colours throughout this digipak design has been used in order to reflect the colours in which the artist most typically dresses in. This will appeal and attract the target audiences as it is a feature they will be able to easily relate to.

All designs also show a bar code which is an essential part of a digipak, as well as the recycle symbols and record producers icon.

I am now going to start designing and making my digipak on in design and photo shop. I will take pictures for the graphics I want to use on my digipak, I will edit them on photo shop. I will also use dafont.com to find appropriate fonts for me to use on my digipak.

Existing Digipaks

As part of my coursework I have to produce a Digipak and promo pack. A promo pack is the Music Video Digipak and avert combined, to produce a promotion pack to showcase the band or artist and their product available on the market.

A Digipak is a patented style of compact disc or DVD packaging, with graphics on the outside picturing the band or artist, the name of the album, and a listing of songs.

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. The term digipak, means an object to hold the digital.

Ways in which the Promo pack and Digipak link are through images of the band or artist. In the example of the promo pack I am going to produce. Pictures of my Artist Florence and the Machine will feature on both the promo pack and the digipak. It will be obvious that the photographs of my artist were all from the same photo shoot, but they will all be staged different and conform with themes from the music video. The reason they will be clearly the same is that they will feature the same colours, for example in clothing. The characters in our Video may be wearing navy blue and gold throughout, therefore to add a level of continuity to the mis en scene, we may use the same colours in the Photo shoot.

There may also be props that feature predominately in the video, we would therefore en corporate this into the images of the digipak.

The Fonts on the promo and Digipak will be the same, so that the two can be easily identified as the same product, and stand out to the target audience and consumer.

As part of my decision into how I will design my own digipak, I am going to evaluate and analyse two digipak covers of artist from a similar genre to my own. I found the digipak covers below at the following website.

http://www.cdcovers.cc/

Kate Nash "Made of Bricks"

As you can see by the Album Digipak above. The Mis en scene says a lot about the genre of the music and the way in which this record company want to market the artist to her Target audience. Kate Nash has a target Market of predominantly females, between the age of 13-20.

We can see immediately from the cover that the font is childish is messy, to reflect the girly and innocence of Kate Nash and her music. This Font continues onto the back cover, where we see the continuity of the messy layout of the font, as the song titles and numbers are not aligned, and just appear arranged at random on the cover.

We can also see the animated style house and garden on the front cover. By using bright colours the cover will stand out on the shelf. The house is bright Yellow, and Kate Nash is dressed in Red to contrast this. This is important, as if she didn't stand out it wouldn't be as obvious who the album belonged to. In the same Vain, it is clear that the objective of this digipak, is to let the design and images speak for them self, as Kate doesn't feature as heavily as most artists would on their album covers. This thought is in keeping with her style of music. Kate's music is quite controversial and speaks for itself.

The Brightly coloured house, and the fairytale like shaped animals in the garden once again appeals to girls and reflects the same image of Kate herself. The dark Background behind the house, allows the house to stand out. It also could be a connotation for the harsh aspect of Kate's music. As she does have an element of rude/harsh lyrics.

Finally the C.D poses a very simple design, with a pink colour and 3 flowers. The C.D doesn't follow any theme in comparison to the front and back cover of the digipak. This may be so that the C.D stands out as the most important component.

Paloma Faith "Do you want the truth or something beautiful?"

As you can see from the album digipak above. The cover of the Album shows Paloma looking very mystical and staged with a halo like light behind her. In terms of the Mis en scene, this halo like look, contrasts against her dark lace costume, made to look like a tattoo. This may have been used to shows the two different sides to her music and personality.

Props used in this Photo shoot, are roses and doves. Both of which signify purity and beauty. This element is linked to the album name. Both of these props feature in one of the songs on the album 'New York' In addition to this, the same colour scheme is also used. This is done to ensure continuity to her audience who may buy the album as they like this particular song.

The Font used is mystical and individual, this is to reflect the style of music Paloma produces. As well as her look, her hair and her costume.

The back cover sees Paloma having her hair and makeup done, and another character placing one of the doves onto her arm. This could be the name of the album being illustrated once again. As we see the back cover shows how the Front cover came to life. Its the truth behind the beautiful front cover. We see the lights, which result in the halo like effect around her head, and we see the makeup artist making her look beautiful. This back cover sum up the "Do you want the truth" element of the title. The front cover is seen to be beautiful yet staged and sums up "or something beautiful."

On the back cover the meaning of the album is the main focus, as we hardly see Paloma, and even the list of songs on the album has been put in the bottom left hand corner.

The C.D is a bright red colour, which isn't a colour that features on the digipak. This is to make sure the C.D stands at as one of the most important components. The Picture of the dove is also continued from the music video to the digipak and C.D.

Animatic

Below is a link to the animatic for my Music Video. In order to make this I used Final Cut Pro and took pictures on my camera of each shot of the story board. I then imported the pictures into Final Cut Pro and added the Song I am going to use for my Video.

I then edited the sequence of images to the music as if they were live footage. The reason doing an animatic is helpful for the end production of my music video, is that is will help me when I come to editing stage of my Video. I will have more of an idea where my shots will go and in what order, as well as the timings to the music.

Below is the Expoted Quicktime Video of the Animatic:

Storyboard

Below is the 24 shot story board for our music video. I have carefully thought out each shot, and planned how the shots will appear according to the different speeds and tempos of the music.

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B-MR-K2Mi0ScMzlmMDAwZDYtZDQyNi00NjFiLWFmMWUtNzU2MmUxODZhYjk5&hl=en

In my storyboard I have used a range of shot types. Primarily I have used Long shots. This is to show the character in my music video in the surrounding and sets I have staged, this will give the best overall view of how the shot has been constructed.

There are certain shot I have used close ups and extreme close ups. This is in order to show the emotion of the character in alliance with the meaning of the songs, and the words being sung in that specific shot.

There are also a few shots of musical objects such as stereos and ipods. The purpose of this is to show the song being played in different ways as the character moves from one place to another. For one particular frame. I have used a tracking shot to show the character walking down the road as the music plays from a portable stereo on a building site. The reason I have used a shot such as this is to show the whole of the frame which both the character as well as the site in which the music is playing.

I have also you a point of view shot as I feel this type of shot is important in order to emphasise the realism of the video. It will ensure that the video looks realistic, and also help people watching the video to gain a better understanding of the storyline.

I have used an aerial shot to show the character sat at her desk. The reason I have chosen this type of shot is to show the clutter on her desk. This is poignant to the story, as she is under a lot of pressure at work and is quite unhappy. This type of shot will also make the character look small and venerable in her surroundings, which will again emphasise this part of her stressful job. This shot will be difficult to achieve, but we plan to use a ladder in order to gain the height and achieve this shot.

Finally I am going to use a time lapse to show the passing of time within the video. This is important to show people watching the video, as the video begins in the morning and ends late at night. By showing the sun going down and it getting dark it will be a nice effect and the audience will understand the storyline is now taking place elsewhere.

Pitch & Presentation

As part of pitching our idea, we did a PowerPoint presentation, showing our research and findings to a prospective music industry investor. In our presentation we discussed why our choice of artist and song was worthy of making a video for, readership statistics, genre and targeting our audience. We also discussed the success of the artists and previous videos as well as media appearances.

The research we documented meant that we were able to put across a well constructed argument for why our music video should be made. The Power Point presentation is on the link below.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B-MR-K2Mi0ScNWU5NjEzYWQtNTBmOS00ODMzLWE5Y2UtNTllMDVkMWY4OTU0&hl=en

The video recorded presentation of our pitch is below.