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

Narrative ideas:

As the final stage of my research and planning, I am going to consider some feedback I received after posting my Animatic video onto the blog. The comments I received included:

-          A problem based on why emotional redemption is achieved. A lack of visual illustration was believed to be in my video so the narrative didn’t make sense.

-          Another issue involving visual illustration was how the song consists of the man sitting there without any movement. It was claimed to appear boring. The suggestion being a more interesting way of getting the man in the video (me) to speak during the lyrics being played while drunk on the floor. Possibly with the girlfriend crying because she seen me in the house in a drunken state. This was considered to be a solution.

-          A problem was raised in the locations used, as well as high I was going to make the scenery AKA my house fulfil its intent to be messy and damaged to create illustration towards the narrative.

The problem was raised that the music video does not make it clear as to why emotional redemption was achieved. It seems that the man suddenly becomes happy, because the video gives no clear indication why the character has become happier. It just happens naturally.

In response, I defend that the video does supply a certain amount of narrative content and illustration to give out the reason as to why the man becomes happier. In my video, as the 2^nd verse ends, the man looks at an image of his girlfriend. This was not demonstrated very clearly in the Animatic, as my drawing skills are poor. The way in which it is evident that the girl is his ex-girlfriend is by the relation of the illustration, and visual events occurring, to the lyrics of the song themselves. E.g. the line ‘could you stand another drink’ is related to my added narrative of the man in the video walking home drunk. In this case, the line ‘do you wanna spin another line, like we had a good time’ if perhaps the best indicator of a relationship crisis. The original Proof video included this line also, and the facial expressions, combined with the content of the lyrics, provided the implication that the man in that video, played by Chris Eccleston, had just been part of and ended a relationship, and was depressed until he achieved emotional redemption. In my case, my added narrative and illustration of the man walking home drunk, being depressed through verses 1 and 2, and now holding an image of a girl his image shortly after those meaningful lyrics played, overall, at least strongly imply that he has been in a relationship and the source of his depression of his loss of that girlfriend. The end montage of the video of his memories with the girl, such as walking with her away from the camera, will further send this implication to the audience. The shots of the man’s memories in the end collage will be identifiable via the stereotypical editing patterns inserted onto those certain shots so that the memory shots appear black and white. Furthermore, the original Proof video did not visually make it clear why the man suddenly got happier either, but the lyrics in relation to facial expressions sent the message very well. With my added narrative, the meaning and strength of this message will only be more significant.

The second narrative issue revolves around how there is a lack of visual interest in certain parts of the video, such s the main close-up shots of my face playing during verses. The suggested alternative being that I sing during the shots, while on the floor, lying down, suffering from a hangover type of condition mixed with visual depression.

In response, while this certainly provides more illustration to the video in places where it is probably needed, this suggestion does not sound like it will work. Since the objective is to make my music video appeal to its intended target audience of soft rock young adults, who are not necessarily educated with vast media knowledge, this approach does not seem appropriate. Keep in mind that to media teacher, experts, and even student, this idea would be preferable. Particular media experts would understand the use of improved illustration in this suggested idea and would be appealed by its usage far more than anyone else. But since my target audience does not necessarily consist of media experts with high amounts of media knowledge that a college teacher would have, the use of this idea would probably not make the video appeal to them. An approach involving the man (me) lying on the floor while singing to the music would probably appear to be somewhat ridiculous and would not interest them in the video at all. However, this does not mean to say I don’t intend to consider this feedback at all. I did look at my Animatic, and it is clear that the fact remains valid that the illustration becomes unnecessarily dull and inactive during certain parts of the video. I do now intend to reflect on this advice and change the parts of the video that contain a lack of visual events, mainly during the actual playing of the verses. Perhaps added use of camera movements, or even new shots, maybe necessary to consider, for instance. Some decision will be made further along in the production of my music video. Most of my footage is original, so flexibility in change and improvements is not a problem.

It has been argued that in my location shots, the rooms and places used look too clean, and to really capture the image I want, I really have to trash up my living room beyond the placement of a spilt beer bottle, etc…

This is a valid point to consider. While my location shots were obviously taken when the locations were not set up and ready for filming, it still seems that the overall appearance of the house does not help me to send the message to the audience that the man in the video is a depressed, drunken wreck who is destroying his life around him at the start of the video.one suggestion was, for the inclusion of the messy shirt I will wear in the video, I should get a cheap Primark shirt and gradually ruin it for the filming. This is what I intend to do as well. Another suggestion is to use other props to mess up the living room such as messy clothes, destroyed objects and furniture, etc… this is another consideration for me.