Digipak Conventions

PLANNING - Digipak: Conventions

Typical codes and conventions of an album Digipak feature:

- Band/artist name and the title of the album.

- Copyright information.

- Information on the bands record label.

- The bands website and the record labels website.

- An introduction to the band e.g. names of band members.

- A short text about the band and who they'd like to thank for their success.

- Credit to the people who were involved in the making of the album, e.g. Song writers, Producers,   Engineers, Production Managers and Photographers.

- Images that relate to the album and song meanings.

- Lyrics to each of their songs.

- Track list.

- Barcode.

Detailed Poster Research

Mise-en-scene in Our Video

Our costume hair, make-up and props verse by verse:

“Pour up (drank), head shot (drank), sit down (drank), stand up (drank), pass out (drank), wake up (drank), faded (drank), faded (drank)” - repeated bridge

There will be one male character in a dark room for this part of the video, the costume will be all white. The outfit will consist of black jeans, a white shirt and trainers all in the same colour. The make up for the boy will be very natural and may only consist of some concealer or foundation in order to even out the skin and remove any shine. Hair will be left natural as it is a boy there is not much we can do here. Props that will be used in this scene will be a bottle of alcohol, a glass and a clock on a bedside table.

Verse 1:

Character 1 – small child will be dressed in young clothes, possibly school uniform, and holding a teddy bear

Character 2 – the main boy will be dressed as he was in the previous scene, keeping it consistent but then in the party scene he will be dressed in black with a white shirt once again so that he stands out. His hair will be styled instead of natural to show he has got ready for this party.

Extras (party people) – girls will be in dresses and will have dramatic make up such as smoky eyes and red lips in order to show they have made an effort for the party, boys will be dressed smartly but natural make up for boys.

Props – props in this verse will change frequently as there are many different scenes. We will use a teddy bear for the child to suggest the innocence then at the party we are going for a red theme as we are using a red gel over the camera lens and also use red cups and red fairy lights.

Chorus:

Character 1 - main boy walking into the party with his friends in what he was wearing previously.

Character 2 - the main girl appears in a bath she will have a bare face no make-up but will be wearing a white dress as white highlights innocence and purity.

Character 3+4 - two girls in Baywatch outfits he is visioning as the main girl as though everyone is her, they will have a lot of make-up such as foundation, blusher, bronzer and eye shadow wearing a red leotard (famous from Baywatch) and hair long and down as they run, as if blowing in the wind.

Bridge repeats

Verse 2:

Character 1 - Close up of the main boy so he needs to have even skin which could require minimal make-up such as foundation and concealer, but very natural so that you cannot see it.

Props - This scene focuses more on the mind of the male and is a very dark scene, his conscience talking to him warning him props used will be a doorway using a dark room and just light coming through then the use of a phone as he gets messages through, this is a very minimalistic scene as everything is very zoomed in and closed off and close up. There will be a bottle of alcohol as his use of alcohol needs to be clear throughout.

Repeat of Chorus

Bridge Repeats

First Draft

This is the first draft for our music video. During the production we were able to clearly see strengths and weaknesses that needed to be changed.

Strengths:

-          One of the strengths we had was the footage at the very end of the video when Connor is walking over the bridge and burning the pictures of him and Lily. The reason I thought that this is the best footage we got is because we gained more skills from previous filming sessions so we knew what would work and what wouldn’t. After we added the correct effects, this gave us really strong footage for our video. One of the main features in the video is that there is a sense of mystery and adding this part of the story starts to link other parts of the video without fully explaining what happened. This gives the audience an idea what happens but still leaves them wondering.

-          The running scene at the beginning came out to be quite successful as it creates a desire for the audience to know what is happening. The film is in silence which adds a great effect and makes the audience want to know what is happenening and why.

-          Another strength in our video is in the middle of the video where we have Connor sitting in a dark room drinking a bottle of whiskey. The reason why this was a very affective was due to the editing. Without the editing on the footage, it was very plain and useless. However when we sped up the footage and added different scenes from it flipping between Connor and Lily showed his insanity and that Lily must be the reason for his excessive drinking. The repetition in the video shows that he didn’t just do it once, he does it most nights. This, again, intrigues the audience and adds more to the story.

-          There were a few little shots that looked good, for example, Lily standing in a white dress against a white wall showing her purity. Also the footage of the clock changing time creates an affect and adds to the story showing that he’s been doing this a while and that it’s not a one off.

-          Lastly, the bath scenes came out to be a huge success. We originally filmed the bath scenes; however, we lost our footage due to the camera causing errors on the memory card. Therefore, we had to completely re-film the bath scene, which I believe turned out to be a benefit for us. Although it wasted time, I feel that we were able to come up with better footage which improved the quality of our video.

Weaknesses:

-          However, we did still have a lot of problems with our video. One of these problems was that the scenes in the bridge of the song (‘pour up (drank)’), the quality of the video and editing was very poor. This was due to the lack of experience when filming and lack of experience when editing. We realised straight away that we needed to refill the headshot of Connor as that did not fit in with the video at all.

-          The scenes with the pictures also seemed to be a very poor effect as we realised after we made the first draft that it didn’t fit in with the video in anyway and needed to be removed and then add better footage.

-          The scene with the teddy bear we thought was quite poor due to the quality of the filming. We thought that it didn’t fit in the video and the reason we added it in the first place is because the lyrics had something to do with childhood and a teddy bear relates to that. This footage does not work well and therefore, has to be removed.

-          There were also a few parts of the video that we did like but needed to have slight changes to. For example, the clock scene we thought went a bit fast and needed to be slowed down.

The Final Original Front of our CD

The reasons for why we had to change the back of our CD cover are similar to the reasons for why we have to change the front. The background of the front of the CD case I made by editing pictures of black roses together to create a background. However, after talking to Mrs McKenna, we soon understood that it would be plagiarism; therefore it would have to be change. However, everything else on the front of the CD is perfection; we only need to change the background to something else.

Adding Text to the Video

I had to ensure that I used the same font that we planned to use on our ancillary task which was the font ‘Birch STD,’ I then had to customise the colour so it would match the colour used on our ancillary task.

Marie made another video track and then placed the text over our video, transform it to the correct area of the video and the correct length of times. After this, using different transitions Marie edited the text to appear in the video in the way the group imagined it to. 

Creating the Background of the CD cover

To create the back of the CD cover, I used this wine bottle as a template to put on our case. I will make the bottle black to make sure that the rose and the writing stand out. The bottle is a feature of iconography as we used the bottle throughout our video and also featured it on our Cd cover therefore it is related to our music video and represents the tone and mood throughout. 


This is the gold rose we will use on our case. I chose gold for the main rose as it symbolises wealth and richness which is common amongst rappers and the R&B genre as wealth is always portrayed in their music, their videos and their album covers. The gold also stands out amongst the black rose background and the black wine bottle it will be inside. 


This is the black rose we will use for the background of our Cd cover.
We chose black roses for the back of our case and used a cluster of them to create the whole background. This was because black roses symbolise death which symbolises the message of undying love between Connor and Lily in our video. It also hints towards death which is a feature in our video as we use Lily as an enigma and leave it questionable as to whether she has died. 

I used the clone tool to change the top of the bottle from red to black so that it looks open to make it clear the rose is inside the bottle.

I then moved the rose to hover over the bottle we then used the Lasso tool to highlight the part we want to remove of the rose which was the stem so that it appeared to be in the bottle.

Research into Location

Our location will be quite controlled as the shots take place in Cally’s house, Cally’s road, Connor’s garden and Bluewater. This makes the filming easier to control as we can access Cally’s house and road easily and film as much as we need.

First location: Cally’s Spare room.

We used an empty spare room in Cally’s house. We covered the windows with a dark blanket in order to make the room dark with only a torch producing light. This was successful as it created a deep blue tint that corresponds with our blue and orange colour tones that are highlighted in our research. 




This was the room before we altered the lighting. It was too bright and didn't create the correct mood or tone.











This is how we blocked out the light. We then turned the light off and only used a torch as the source of light.

This is Cally sitting in front of Connor to judge how the close she needed to hold the torch to his face. This is how the footage was created.











This was after we had changed the lighting.

Final product compared to our initial research:

These are print screen from  previous lighting research. As you can see the pictures are similar as they have a unique blue tint and are surrounded by darkness with the light only focusing on their face.

Second location: Bathroom

We also used Cally’s bathroom to film the bath scenes, this was chosen as the marble on the walls produce an orange tone when the lighting is controlled with only a lamp shining through the crack of the door.

The images on the left are the ones before the lighting has been controlled, as you can see they are too bright and they lack a suitable tone. The images on the right are shots of the footage once the lighting has been controlled. We put the lighting behind the door and shut the door slightly so that the light was only coming through a very small gap.

Third location: Cally’s Road and the Bridge

Cally’s road was used because there is a bridge that overlooks the cars beneath us. This location was important as it visually represents time passing and life passing him by while he is stuck in his depression and missing life because of his excessive drinking. 



Fourth location: School Corridor

We used our school corridor to film the phone, clock and teddy bear scene. This was a useful location as we could easily control the lighting by asking the teachers permission to turn off the lights. The location was convenient as we could re-film it easily. These scenes were filmed in the corner of the corridor. We borrowed a desk from a classroom, added a blanket, some supplies and a boys school bag which was borrowed from one of the students. We did set up the lights however they were too bright, therefore we used a torch to highlight the mise-en-scene yet keep most of the scene dark. 

This is a photo of how the desk was set up to look like a boys room, this wasn't shown in the video on its own, we created a pan shot that moved across the location and focused in on the phone. The location was important to create the right tone however it wasn’t a main feature.

This is the clock scene; we attached it to the white brick wall as it is visually successful as the hard brick walls highlight confinement. We turned off all of the lights and held a torch on the clock from the left in order to create a shadow on the right. This makes it appear quite sinister as the clock appears 3D ensuring we get the sense of time passing. The white walls and white clock face link to our desired mise-en-scene as our model wears white throughout and Lily wears a white dress in the bath. 


This is the phone scene that was shot in this location, despite you not being able to see the mise-en-scene it still works as the lighting is dark until the phone lights up, this is successful as the reason for his depression, which can have the colour connotation of black, is because of the drink which is what his friend is telling him to do in the text. The mum’s text comes first which highlights there is a problem, the fact the friends text comes through second and removes the mum off the front screen highlights how he will choose alcohol.

Fifth location: Cally’s Garden

This was shot in Cally’s garden on the patio. The brickwork is successful as it has a slight orange tint to it which relates to our colour scheme and previous research for the bath scene. The ash is shown on the floor which adds to the tone and adds a blue colour scheme that matches the lighter and his shoes.

Sixth location: Bluewater Car Park

Originally we wanted to film Lily running down a corridor in Bluewater, however, we were unable to get permission to do this. Therefore, this location changed. We chose the corridors as they were grey brickwork which would have given the tone of isolation and related to the brickwork behind the clock. The walls and barriers are important throughout as it represents our models situation. We decided to still film the running scene but to try it in the car park which ended up working better than we had planned. It was quite dark as it took us a while to get denied permission. The addition of the street lamps and car lights worked well as it became quite sinister and scary.

This is the running scene the car lights behind her work well and the cars and limited lighting creates the correct tone.

The image on the left shows the angle and shot I had from my position. In the image on the right you can see where I was standing and filming from. This change of position and angles worked well as we can edit them together to create an erratic feel to the scene. 

These locations vary as each shot needed to be different to highlight the passing of time despite the state of our model being the same throughout. This is to highlight the depth of his depression and alcohol abuse. The locations vary from dark and light as this highlights the ellipsis of time. The dark lighting reflects his state of mind and the sinister aspect to why Lily doesn't feature in the video throughout. The daylight is used to focus on the bottle and the burning of the photos as dark lighting would have ruined these specific mise-en-scene details.

Comparing our Music Video to our Story Board

These comparisons between our research and our final piece show how we were influenced and how far we used our research to influence our music video. These comparisons will show how successful our planning was as it shows how we stuck to our ideas and used our research to help create and perfect our shots. 

As the song we’re using is quite dark and depressing, we chose to have our model running in the dark down the road. A running scene at the beginning of the story will attract the audience because it makes them want to find out why she is running or what she is running from. To create the sense of fear, we used a car park as the car behind her is possibly the reason to why she is running. We used the models school uniform to highlight her innocence and her young age. However, we need to re-film this scene as the video is quite pixelated and the camera is not steady enough.

When we filmed this scene, we adapted from the drawing and the story board and tried to keep them as similar as possible. The changes we made were instead of using a small glass, we used I wine glass. We decided to use wine as the alcohol as it’s a deep red colour to represent danger and to have the background pure white to keep the focus on the alcohol pouring. We also blurred the filming to make it a point of view shot that would highlight his mental state, his vision is blurred as he is drunk.

In this part of the video we were unsure whether to have our model with his eyes open or closed. When we drew our storyboard we wanted his eyes open then when we went into more detail we decided to have his eyes closed. When it came to filming, we tried both ways and decided having his eyes open looked best.

This shot was used to highlight his depressive state of mind and his reliance on alcohol. We used a bare room as our research proved this was successful as it put the focus on the model. We used l lighting to surround him in to set the correct mood. We used his arms, hands and head to portray our message, similar to our research as this gesture is used to show the actor is thinking and distressed about what is on his mind. 

In our original plan, we wanted to get an old fashioned clock and video it changing time. However, when it came to the actual filming we found it too difficult to find a clock like the one in our detailed storyboard. Therefore, we went back to the storyboard we draw and found a clock similar to that.

We decided to have this shot to show that she is always on his mind. The fact she is blurring in and out of focus is because he is drunk while thinking about her which highlights the fact that she is his reason for drinking. The other reason we chose to blur her was to illustrate the fact she could be dead as the image of her is blurring like a memory as she is no longer alive this links to the first scene when she runs away from the car. 

This bath scene was chosen as it would highlight the sense of danger and panic as both Connor and Lily would come up from the bath quickly and grab the side of the bath. These actions are stereotypical of panic and fear as they feature in films and videos a lot. Therefore, these types of shots fit with our message and tone of our music video. 

We decided that this shot of Connor will be the same shot with Lily. We chose to alternate between them both in the bath to show how they are both connected and that both of them are going through a hard time. This was decided because we wanted to show that Lily is the reason Connor is depressed.

This shot of alcohol is crucial as it is a noticeable feature of our video and our message. The shot of it rolling on the floor is successful as it shows the alcohol moving and creates a successful visual effect. This will be repeated in our video as it is to show how often Connor is drinking. The fact it is rolling on the floor could be because he is so drunk he has passed out and dropped it.

This shot was important as it included two text messages that showed the audience there was something to worry about as his mum texts him but this is replaced with a text from his friend about a party. This shot highlights how drink is becoming his life and that it is a danger as his mum is clearly worried.

This shot was chosen in the middle of our planning as we needed something that linked to his childhood as the lyrics hint that alcohol was part of his life growing up. Our original plan was to have two children holding the teddy; however, this was difficult to film.

This is an important shot as it visually shows our model drinking which is the most important message of this video. This shot was successful as the dark room represents his dark mood and depression and the spot light represents the fact this abuse is the most important part of him now as he relies on alcohol.

This shot of the bottle smashing was something we really wanted to film as it represents visually his destructive behaviour. We struggled to film this as the shot was so quick however once it was slowed down and put into the video it worked well however the quality wasn’t as good as we had hoped yet the message is clear and the footage is still understandable for the audience.