Brief draft video filming schedule:

31/10/12: Primary filming, once dark, I must film the footage I have intended to. All shots of outside content must be filmed at the appropriate time. Stick to intended shot types and duration.

01/11/12: Most filming has been complete. If necessary due to film incompletion, book another session with the video camera and film all remaining shots.

02/11/12: Hand-in draft sample of video footage. I f possible, begin editing for video.

03/11/12: Use camera to film scenes requiring female artist.

Panorama shots:

This is an example of an indoor panorama photograph. This shot features the entire large living room of a house. If my music video somehow related to this image, I could use an image like this for my inside panels in the Digipak. As you can observe, this overall image would have perfect consistent continuation from panel to panel, as it is all part of the same original picture, I would merely have to split it into 3 different parts.

I must choose an acceptable landscape to capture if I am to use a panorama shot. My street may not be the best location to use for the photography, even if it is the most relevant to my music video. An important thing about taking a good shot of this type is to take the picture from a distance, so more image can be captured by the camera in the shot.
I must also keep the camera straight when taking the shot.


An example of an exterior panorama shot. The camera has taken a shot of great clearness and quality. The shot is very wide and this is an image that could be used for my inside panels if it was relevant.

Draft Poster analysis:

This is an incredibly simple advertising product. The production time for the draft production of this poster was incredibly limited, and thus this version of the poster is poor in terms of visual quality as well as its ability to market the album. The design is very simple, a plain black background with some subheads and marketing lines. The main image being the hand drawn sketch design that was originally supposed to be part of the front cover, but has now been used for the draft lyrics page, though it now may be removed from there as I plan to significantly change the lyrics page. As part of consistency for the draft Digipak, I decided I would use the sketch drawing in both the poster and one of the Digipak album panels. The main image is the drawing, and it simply shows a picture of me and the girlfriend (from the video) together. The rest of the draft is such a simple design of various lines of text all below each other. This poster will be drastically altered and transformed for the final version.

Draft Digipak panel analysis:

The front cover is has a black and white background with a black and white main image as well. The title Josh U R still exists in the right lower corner, and appears in its intended colours, and now serves as a colour contrast to the background to make the two stand apart from each other. There are various changes from the intended draft front cover and this one. The intention was to have a gradient black to white background with a front image of half my face in front of the black, and a sketch design in front of the white part of the background, with the title Josh U R to appear in the lower right background. The sketch no longer features on the front cover, and has been moved to the lyrics page. The image of my face has now been enlarged to cover the entire front cover, and has been featured in colourless fashion. The title has remained in this version of the draft cover, but the U and the R have now been combined into one symbol as part of an idea I had during production.

The back cover of the Digipak album perhaps had the most thought and development contributed. The general layout and structure I intended for the back cover back in the sketch has been maintained. The most notable recent changes in production of the back cover included removal of the subhead ‘track list’, the resizing of the content at the bottom, so the size of each property on the back cover appears life-like and now the back cover actually appears like it’s the back cover of an album. Also, the barcode has changed position and an artist logo has been added to the cover.

This is the first inside panel, it appears as one of the 3 houses on my road that I have tried to use as a substitute for a panorama camera shot.

This is the second inside panel. The circle inside this panel is a demonstration of where the CD will be inserted. As you can see, the background continues from the previous inside panel, as part of my panorama shot attempt.

This is the third inside panel, and the final one to contain the attempted panorama shot effect. While the implication that the background continues from one panel to the next is clear, the continuation of the image is not accurate or straight. Part of my job in progression towards the final version of the Digipak is to replace these images with those that actually belong to single filmed panorama shot, which I can use to more accurately produce an image that can continue from panel to panel. Some research into panorama shots may be necessary.

Here is the 6^th panel, the panel which would feature the lyrics. While the layout is certainly neat and effective, the fact remains that most album lyrics pages do not feature the lyrics of only a single song in the album. Either lyric to every song in my track list must be written up and inserted into the lyrics page, or I use this page for something other than the write-up of song lyrics.

Draft poster:

Draft Digipak:

Track list:

1. Take me over there.
2. Show me a wonderful time.
3. Hold me, kiss me, give me.
4. Tell my wife, please.
5. Proof.
6. Say the forbidden.
7. Dance all day.
8. Make me laugh, and cry.
9. Never say always.
10. I want you to leave.
11. Show me to right way.
12. Sinner, dinner.

Song no.1: Take me over there is a song that sounds like a classical romantic conceptual song. This song was listed first as the name for it is simple and attractive to a soft rock audience.
Song no.2: Show me a wonderful time is a song title which resembles narrative adventure, romance and happiness. This positive ambience should perhaps intrigue the target audience.
Song no.3: Hold me, Kiss me, Give me is a song title of aliteration and consistency. The title is yet another romantic title, a pattern has developed.
Song no.4: Tell my wife, please is a possibly more negative title, which may appeal to the soft rock audience as based on previous songs and research, they seem to relate a lot to more negative songs. The title is interesting as it sounds like a video where some cheating has been occuring.
Song no.5: Proof, an actual song and the one I am using for my actual music video.
Song no.6: Say the forbidden is an ambiguous title of meaning, possibly using the enigma code to intrigue the audience and album cover viewers.
Song no.7: Dance all day sounds like a typically loud, karaoke style of song which is unusual for a soft rock music video. The contrast from stereotypical genre expectations may mean it's a title of interest to the audience.
Song no.8: Make me laugh, and cry. Much like my Proof video, the emotional content within this video appears to be mixed, which should certainly appeal to my target audience.
Song no.9: Never say always is an oxymoron standard of song title. Much like say the forbidden, the meaning of this title is highly ambiguous.
Song no.10: I want you to leave sounds like another music video filled with negative narrative content, something which may interest the audience and viewers.
Song no.11: This title certainly implies the video property of narrative adventure, a change of pace from the stereotypical version of slow-paced soft rock videos.
Song no.12: Another alliterative title which seemingly relates to another romantic storyline. The alliteration alone should intrigue the audience.

Costume examples:

Shirt option no.1: This is the first shirt choice that I could use to wear in my video. The reasons being simple, the shirt is cheap, old, worn and does not appear to be very well kept. Keeping in mind that the clothing I wear in the music video is supposed to be somewhat messy and unclean to represent the narrative content of self degradation from the character, a simple, cheap shirt such as this one might be a good choice for clothing.

Shirt option no.2: This is the second shirt. Since my star is 18 years of age, this slightly more mature shirt may be a good idea to choose for wearing in the video. Since this type of shirt can usually be seen a trendy fashion within young adult men, perhaps this choice will be better for visually appealing to the target audience I have of young adults.

 Shirt option no.3: This is a shirt I had in mind for use in the music video as it is an incredibly basic and cheap T-shirt that I could use as a clothing prop. Perhaps gradually staining and making this shirt more dirty shortly before filming would be a good idea. So that come filming time, I have this shirt in ready condition to wear as part of my degradation narrative in the video.

Jeans of the cheap and baggy variety may be of use for this video. The idea of the clothing in the video is for the man I play to be wearing cheap, worn out clothes that truly present the concept of cheapness, degradation and poor life choices, this jeans type will certainly help to do so.

This hoodie jacket may or may not be worn, unzipped, above the choice of shirt that I use for the music video. This is a simple, old, fairly fashionable piece of clothing that should certainly present the man in the video's concept of youth, as well as poor lifestyle.

Production changes:

This post serves as an update for a change in Digipak production. These are some of the changes I have been making during my Digipak production as opposed to my previous plans noted beforehand. Among the changes are:

Changes to work:

As previously explained, my front cover was to have a gradient black to white background that would effectively fit in with the image content in front. The main image would be a picture of me being depressed, and half my face would appear on the left side of the cover. The black part of the background would appear over it to represent my emptiness and depression, and loneliness. Then in contrast, the upper right corner of the front cover would slowly transfer over to a white background. Over this would be my planned sketch design that would feature over the white background, as the narrative content of me and my girlfriend in the video as seen in the picture would reflect the white background, not only blending into it, but also being seen as lighter and more positive to the black background image on the other side of the page. However, when I was undergoing Digipak production, it became apparent that the gradient would make the cover appear cheap and poorly produced. I deleted my half face image and sketch design from the front cover, and instead added an alternate picture of me, enlarged it, and then set it to black and white. While this initially appeared very poor as a front cover to me, I started to realise the relation that this new cover idea had with the narrative content of my video was actually very strong. The black and white image represented dullness, boring nature, and well as old fashioned visual content. All of these qualities relate to the pause that I have undergone as a result of the girlfriend break-up my character has had in the music video storyline. The pause shows how my character’s life is a halt and how he is living in the past, a painful one. The slightly pixelated, black and white image of my depressed face really amplifies the illustration that my front cover has to relate to the narrative of my music video. Right now, my current structure of this new idea is that it will be a cover that follows the rule of thirds. AKA my face will appear on the left centre of the cover page, and the text will be separately spaced from the face, appearing in the lower right corner.

As a result of the cover change, my sketch is now no longer going to be featured on it. However, since my poster is being planned to feature the sketch as the same main image (a use of consistency) I have decided that I will still feature the sketch in my Digipak as well. This is where my 6^th panel AKA the inserted lyrics page, comes into play. My lyrics page has been arranged in such a way that there is a noticeable large space in the lower right corner featuring no content. This is where my space will be included, as it will certainly add to the visual interest of an otherwise text filled page. This sketch will then be ascended to a more significant role in the poster. It is intended to be the main image, centred in the middle of the page in terms of top to bottom scaling. The sketch may just be added into the lyrics page of the Digipak with no further editing, since the white background of the drawing in contrast to the black background of the page should help it to stand out anyway.

Originally, the title of the track list was supposed to be featured on top of the track list on the back cover, but since most back covers on album Digipak's don't actually feature the title 'track list' I have decided to remove it and just feature the actual list in the centre inbetween 2 border lines.

I previously stated that I would choose between using field images for my inside panels consistent pictures, or using suburban images instead, as both provided certain narrative relevance to the music video. However, I eventually opted to use the suburban images instead of the fields for the following reasons. 1, the suburban images have more direct relative meaning, such as the images showing my house and street, the main location of my music video. Also, the houses, while they initially look nice, were also taken in the dark, but with a flash feature on the camera. This is supposed to represent that in the house, where the man in the video will be, there is darkness, internal depression loneliness, and grief. But there is a light outside the house as aided by the camera flashlight. In terms of narrative meaning, it implies that if the man gets out of this emotional state, like he actually does in the video, then better, lighter life will be waiting ahead. Whereas while fields provide basic illustrative content, bare limited relevance to the music video I have planned.

Digipak techniques practice:

A small post demonstrating the use of a few techniques I have picked up through my research and anaysis for my Digipak.

An example of how I will create 3D text for the main front cover title on the Digipak album. There will be 3 different layers on the Photoshop version, all of the same text and font, and the texts, in different colours, will all be positioned in front of each other, slightly lower and to the left to create a visual, 3D effect.

A second example demonstrating my previous mention of contrast in used fonts. My main titles and subheads will be made with a stand out font, not the same as BlackOak STD, but with a bold, stand out, outgoing font that attracts attention. In contrast, to make text relevant to the soft rock genre content I analysed in my examples, the remaining text and paragraphs will be produced using a casual, classical font such as Imperial BT as shown above.

How I decided upon my overall idea:

Throughout the past fortnight, I have conducted various preparation and understanding tasks towards the production of my Digipak by analysing relevant examples of previously produced media music texts, as well as looking through inspirational texts that I could use as ideas for my own Digipak production. This post will explain how I ultimately came up with my idea for the Digipak, as well as which inspirational texts I will use for the production of my own work…

How i got my idea

My overall ideas and decisions:

The overall ideas I have for my Digipak, based on previous analysis and inspiration tasks:

My overall ideas are as follows:

-          The front cover will still have the Josh U R text in the bottom right corner of the front cover serving as the main title. Using the inspirations and ideas I have gained throughout the past fortnight of analysis and inspiration writing tasks, I have concluded that a fitting front cover for my soft rock Digipak would be to have a sketch as one of the images, much like how I am Kloot and Elbow did in some examples I analysed. Since the sketch only has to be simple and the chances of me taking a ‘good’ photograph are slim, this will be a good idea to have in my front cover to attract my intended target audience. Since my target audience, however, is young adults and not older people, the drawings I make for my Digipak front cover may need to be drawn in a more ‘juvenile’ style.

-          The gradient fill will be used still, as the main photo image of half of my face as demonstrated in my original drawing idea will still be used as part of my front cover as well, which will appear over the black background in the lower left corner of the cover. The font is undecided pre-production but I will use fonts that will be necessary and fitting to the overall appearance and intentions of the Digipak I am making, much like how appropriate typography was used in the examples I analysed. The colour scheme will be black, white, and brown and orange, which was one of the colour schemes I analysed in my colour palette post. This is a seemingly fitting palette for a soft rock album Digipak.

-          The back cover will have a track list, structured in a professional looking and appropriate style, it will follow the colour palette and will have acceptable typography and fonts used for a soft rock back cover. Underneath the track list will be a series of other required elements, such as a barcode and other copyright details, etc…

-          The inside panels will have images of either empty fields at night (which will illustratively portray emptiness, loneliness, and darkness via an image of negative entity, which will therefore relate to the narrative I am including in music video of a man who is drunk and alone. Either this or my new idea will be used. The new idea I have is to use a similar technique but instead of fields, use an urban or even rural area. Anywhere with pubs and relevant backgrounds. Possibly the same location I am filming my video in. The shots will still be taken at night, and without any people around, so the shots will still reflect emptiness and loneliness. However, since open fields have little relevance to my work, maybe I will use populated areas instead.

-          The extra panel I left out in the sketch idea I made was because I had not ideas for that leftover panel. Originally, the lyrics, not track list, were supposed to appear on the back cover. But since it seems both more stereotypical and useful to include the track list on the back cover, the lyrics now need a new location in my Digipak. Therefore, the spare 6^th panel will belong insertion of the lyrics of the most significant (no. 1 standard) songs, including the Proof video I make.

What I will use for my Digipak:

Resources I will use for my Digipak:

-          A photo of myself for one of the two main images. The right side of my face will be shown in the lower left corner with a black background, to show the main artist on the front cover, which is always a useful thing to have. Also, since I will look sad, it will relate to the depression storyline I have in my Proof video.  

-          A sketch drawing of the other main image on my front cover. The sketch drawing is being used to relate more to other soft rock examples, as demonstrated in my analysis. The image I draw will be of me and my girlfriend in the Proof video. The image will appear over the white section of the gradient background so it both blends yet stand out also.

-          A barcode. I will probably have to get one of these from a template barcode producing online software. This shouldn’t be too hard to access. I need one as part of my album production.

-          Photoshop by adobe. This is the main software I will use to produce my Digipak panels. All of the images, backgrounds and text will be created and merged into images using this software. All media department computers have this software installed.

-          Images I take for the inside panels of either open fields or urban/rural areas at night. As explained previously, these relate to the storyline of my music video. See overall ideas and decisions posts to understand.

Inspirations:

A post demonstrating which song covers I can take inspiration from and why...

1: Soft rock BALLADS.

2: Alternative rock BALLADS.

3: I am Kloot play Moolah Rouge.

4: Face image on cover:

5: Dreamboats and petticoats CD.

Rough sketch concept:

Here is an example of how I could make my Digipak and what it could be like:

Scan-to-Me from 192.168.255.105 2012-10-11 101922
(The black strip in the middle appeared due to a fold in the paper causing the middle of the page to stick up in front of the scanner.)
My intial idea as mentioned in my previous posts (the sketch above was made before the 3x album analysis) is that my Digipak album will have 6 sides. The front cover was planned to have the right side of my face, looking depressed, appear on the left edge of the cover, in front of a black background, to visually imply despair and emptiness. Then as the cover shifted to the top right, the gradient fill effect would become a white background, to make the other half of the cover appear lighter and softer. Then the background image in that corner would be me and my girlfriend standing together in happiness.
The back cover would be basic, follow the colour palette, and feature a track, and other details required on the album cover such as a barcode.
The inside panels would feature background images of a bar, to provide distant relevance to that of the narrative. The panel which contained the CD itself would have a background of a round table surrounding the placement of the CD as an effective visual effect. (Somewhat metaphorically breaking the fourth wall by implying that the disc is being placed on the round table in the pub, as if we were actually there, which would amplify our relation to the narrative content featured in the music video.)

A 2nd idea:
However, since this idea was developed before my other analysis tasks, I have since thought of a more fitting idea that would suit an album presenting a soft rock genre CD.
- While some photography may be used, the general idea is for me to use sketch drawings. Since my drawing skills are limited as shown by my Animatic production, another idea is to take Photo images and edit them to appear more like drawings, perhaps using software such as Photoshop.
- The design and layouts for my soft rock cover examples were generally more basic and less outgoing than the Kerrang Digipak, which was used in my analysis as a notable comparison. The design for Elbow for instance, had a front cover that simply had a title, over a main image, over some details below. The implication being that based on my analysis and inspiration tasks, it may be a good idea to consider using a basic or stereotypical layout schematic for my Digipak making. On the other hand, if I research some examples of Digipak layouts, I may find further uses of inspiration and ideas.
- The colour palettes used in the soft rock examples were basic, about 3 or 4 colours. For instance, the Elbow Digipak and poster generally featured yellow, brown, green and balck and white only. Since use of black and white are practically compulsory, only 3 colours of choice were used for the entire Digipak and poster. The colours were also very dull in contrast to Kerrang's bright colours, since it was a design and colour scheme assosciated with soft rock's classical, old fashioned feeling. Compared to kerrang, the colours were very 'casual' in representation of the Digipak. (The soft rock covers were the 'blue oni' to Kerrang's 'red oni.'
- The typography was variable in terms of the soft rock examples. I am Kloot included many different fonts, and all of unusual types. This was to provide effective use of illustration in its Digipak and most notably in its poster, which had lots of different uses of fonts. In comparison, Elbow used very simple, Arial in bold styles of font, and used it consistently in both its Digipak and poster. My idea is to perhaps use one familiar font for most of the small text and additional details, but to use illustration effectively, I may use more unusual and visually interesting, stand out fonts for my main title and sub-heads, etc...
- All in all, my cover will probably have the main image of me still in photography, but the background image in front of the white background will be hand drawn. This may actually make the background work more with the white bg in the top right corner, since the pencil outlines will perhaps both blend in and stand out from the bg at the same time. This is a useful and effectively illustrative idea for my album cover, not to mention evidently fitting to the soft rock genre media texts associated with my idea. Instead of a pub background for my inside panels also, my new idea is to perhaps use open fields as my background. Not only are large, open fields stereotypically good background to use in any form of media, (such as in Windows Computers, when open field images are set as sample pictures) but the emptiness of the field images may actually work, since in the story of my music video, the man played by me is lonely and drunk, and metaphorically lost by being dumped by his girlfriend in the video. The field images will send this message that the man is lost, lonely, and empty inside. Since the video is set at night, maybe the photos of the background field images should also be taken at night. This will also make the illustration of the Digipak become 'darker and edgier.'

Typography examples:

Now that I have analysed both the Digipak examples and the appropriate colour palette examples, I must now consider some good fonts and text styles to use for my work...
Typography

Colour palette examples:

Colour palette examples for Digipak:
Colour Palette Examples

Poster analysis:

Poster Analysis

Digipak analysis:

Digipak: analysis x3:
A task providing examples of previous Digipaks, 3 covers, 2 back covers, and 2 inside disc examples.
This is a task that I have produced to provide both inspirations and ideas for my Digipak creation...
3 Album Cover Analysis