DigiPack

For the first of our ancillary, we had to create a digipack. A digipack (as explained fully in early blogs) is a extended CD package, which give extra information to the audience and has more pictures,credits, information etc. 


for our digipack we came up with a variety of ideas of how and where to shoot our images. each idea seamed to have flaws and we needed some consistency throughout the 4 images. the denotation 'Indie band' has millions of connotations and there were so many semiotics and motifs that we could use to portray our band. when coming up with the front cover, we were thinking of original spins we could put on traditional ideas that would make our band's cover unique but attractive and almost recognisable. we came up with the idea of putting a spin on the traditional 'mug shot' picture and using this as our primary image. for the inside covers, a shot of the band under the CD seamed natural. this evoked the band and re-enforced who they are, what they do and being behind the CD, allows it to reflect their passion for music. the image on the inside of the digipack, is a shot of 3 of the band members. throughout the entire digipack there would be a variety of shots of the whole band some with certain members some with others. but this shot of the main singer and the 2 guitarists shows who's is at the front of the band. It is also humorous and reflects the jokey nature that the band have towards each other. This not only reflects their age and target audience, but also creates synthetic personalisation between them and their audience and the audience take an instant liking towards these characters. There is a relationship forming between the band and the audience as they can share inside jokes between them. this relationship is extremely important for the band as it forms their fan base. The final shot on the back is simply a pair of converses. i feel that this is directly typical of the band and in the previous shot, one of the band members is wearing converses forming that link between each shot. The intertexual reference to the brand converse shows their diversity and represents how they are also normal, average teenagers. 


below is a breakdown of a template of a CD cover, to show the dimensions and how our digipack will fit together. 

once these dimensions have been applied, our images would be usable for the digipack. This is our front cover -

This is the front cover of our digipack, we have done this as it is quirky and original. This has the parental advisary sticket to show the content and make sure its appropiriate for the audience. These images of the band show their fun side, and the direct mode of address creates synthetic personalisation with the audience and forms a relationship. The coloured t-shirts of they are wearing shows give them colour, and a proffesional finish to the from cover. the title 'back to basics' uses alliteration and is catchy and memorable.

 

In this shot the humour is used to show the connection between the band. The animated background shows how they live a busy life and are 'festival go-ers' and so deepening their passion for music. The bright blue is the colour that comes accross strongest from toms top - evoking the band as calm and neutral. The credits over the top meet the conventions of a digipack, and show that the band themselves wrote the songs. The 'thanks' is shown as they are thanking their family - showing their young band and mention being and school, relating them t the audience and their innocent youth making them instantly likeable. 
The web address as the bottom, also a convention of the digipack, shows how they are constantly trying to promote and that they feel that a good way to stay in touch with their fans is via the internet, as this is the culture of today and so they are in keeping with the fashions and maintaining their relationship with their fans.




The second inside cover looks like this- 

This image of the band shows how them doing what they love. The framing of this show sets it up perfectly with the CD. This continues the indie look of the band, and the garage performance of a new band trying to 'make it.' The alternative look of this makes them appear a well balanced band and gives the illusion they have been together for a long time. the rule of thirds is applied in this shot as the main singer and perfomer are standing on the lines of interest, this makes it aesthetically pleasing and and pleasing to look at.

The spine of the digipack looks like this. this also reflects the garage 'alternative' look whilst showing the band's name. The white font stands out against the wall background. the wall also shows how the band are strong and have strong, cemented connections. 

Finally the back cover looks like this -

The converses reflect the indie look of the band. they evoke the normal teenager look, and against the white background look strong and clean. the burnt orange red writing stands out from the background, and fits in with the garage, underground idea that the band try and present. 
the price and barcode conform to conventions of a digipack and allow it to be sold across strores around the UK. the 'enforced CD' symbol reflects how it is a digipack and not just a standard CD and then producers and songwriters are credited, as well as where and when it was produced. it is als 'copyrighted' so that no other company can take the songs or bands image and the web address is posted along the bottom to re-eforced how fans can follow them on a day to day basis.


Ellie

Filming - Pub

Filming in the pub was a tricky task to do. Not only was it hard to book it on a date we were all free but once we got it, they had put up their christmas decorations. When we finally got the pub booked out, Patrick, Tom and I went down to film. As we had previously done some filming in the pub, we knew roughly what we had to get. The day before we filmed we thought we weren't going to have any extras, but on the day we managed to get 4 extras including Patrick. We all met down there and realised that we only had 45 minutes to get all filming done before the pub had to open. One thing that worked in our favour, as it was so near to christmas, it was really dark outside meaning that we could include shots which had the window in, where as before it was light outside meaning we had to avoid shots with the windows in. As we had such a limited amount of time, we had to get straight in to filming. First of all we did a continuous shot of me walking towards the bar, talking to one of the extras, looking over at Nikki, the other extra come and ask me to move, then i move over towards Nikki. We had to do this as the extras we were using weren't the most helpful so we didn't know if they wer going to be there one shot and not the other. Luckily for us we managed to get two takes of this so we had something to compare. We then went to shots of Matt (the barman) pouring me a pint in a close up, and then him giving me the pint in an over the shoulder shot. Remembering back to what our teacher had advised us, we had to get some reaction shots in there in the form of close ups. So next, Tom filmed Nikki and I talking/flirting with each other whilst doing flirtatious actions, i.e. me winking and Nikki flicking her hair back. We then went on to film the film where we got the darks from Matt and then walked towards the Dart Board. This was split up in to two sections, Nikki and I walking round the corner to the bar, and then from a different agnle, Nikki and I walking towards the dart board. All of the shots we did were mid shots as we wanted to get across that we were actually in a pub. The next shot wa sme walking up to the dart board and throwing a single dart, I would then walk back and give the darts to Nikki and she would through a single dart as well. This then leads me on to the next bit of filming. We then got Matt to come and through 3 darts at the board whilst we filmed the dart board in a close up shot from front and side on. We did this because we had an idea of speading up the darts as if they were hitting one after another straight away. We thought this would make the night seem as if it's going on for some time as a lot is getting done due to the speed up.  This would also give us a variety of shots and something to blog about when we're explaing the speed up shot. The next shots we did were the ones where Nikki and I were sitting down at a table and she moved her hand on to mine. We did this to show in the story that as the night was going on, we were growing closer and getting more attracted to each other. After this we wanted to emphasise the fact we were drunk so we filmed us two walking over to the bar and getting shots of 'vodka'. We then filmed a close up (high angle) of the bar table. Nikki and I would then pick up the shots and slam both glasses down on the table simultaneously. Whilst in the same bit of recording, slammed down 4 more glasses. We didn't show us drinking the shots as we thought it would add effect if we sped up the shot taking, to make it look like we're drinking a lot in a short space of time without taking any breaks. Once we figured that we had got across that Nikki and I were drunk, we filmed us leaving the pub through the front door. When filming i opened the door for Nikki and let her go out first to seem like i was a gentleman to get across the feeling i was being nice to ultimately get with her. After we had done this we needed to film some extra shots, just film anything and everything that happens in pubs. We filmed a couple of our extras talking at a table from a high angle, we filmed a barmaid sorting out the fireplace, an extra smoking outside and another extra passed out on a table.  We also filmed Tom going in to the Gents toilet. These were just extra shots that would litereally just be flashes in our music video to truely show that it was a pub environment. On our way out we thought that we needed to get a shot of some alcohol of somedort, so we quickly got out the camera and filmed from a low angle, the spirit line at the top of the bar. We did this make the alcohol seem most important, adn that's why we're all there. For the limited amount of time we had i'd say this day of filming was a great success like the others. If we had more time we could have made more than 1 take of each shot we did and maybe plan out better extras but fortunately for us all the shots looked good and we didn't need a lot of footage of the extras.

Filming - Ellie's hosue

We had decided long ago that that we would use Ellie's house for the scenes when the girl in our story takes the guy home. The shots we had to get were the ones of Nikki and I walking up the road and in to the house, us going through the front door (view from inside the house),  us two walking up the stairs and then Nikki taking me in to 'her bedroom'. This would be the last scene in the narrative section of the video. We were going to film this in day light when we arrived, but after taking a couple of shots we decided to come back later as you could clearly see day light through the blinds and had no way to blacking it out. Once we came back later when it was dark, we started to film. We filmed the shot of Nikki and I walking in to the house. We did a few takes of this. One where Tom would pann the camera and follow us as we walked up the street, on to the drive and up to the door. The next was each bit individually without any movement. After finishing that shot we had a close up of Nikki unlocking and opening the door as if she were drunk. We only took one shot of this as we were running out of space on the camera and didn't think we would use this shot in the final production anyway. The next shot was coming from inside the house. We had Tom and Ellie at the end of room opposite the front door filming Nikki and I walking in. After doing a shot or two of this we realised, due to the light and the reflection in the window, you could see Tom and Ellie with the camera. To get around this we had to move the camera back a bit so that Ellie and Tom could start recording and then hide in another room adjacent to the camera so they wouldn't be seen. During this shot we knew we had to act drunk so as we walked in. Nikki threw her shoes to the ground and i 'tripped' over the door whilst entering the house. Nikki then did the clasic drunk 'shh' action where she slammed her index finger to her lips in an over exaggerated fashion. The next scene we filmed was Nikki and I walking up the stairs. We did 4 shots of this to see which would be the best angle/view. We had one coming from the bottom of the stairs looking up at Nikki and I staggering up the stairs. We did one from the top of the stairs looking down at Nikki and I from a high angle. The third was handheld and looking through the bars of the stairs panning upwards to give some movement, and last but not least we rested the camera on the stairs whilst Nikki and I individually placed our feet in front of the camera in an extreme close up as we walked up the stairs. The last shot we then had to film was the one where Nikki would take me in to Ellie's room and as i followed, i would close the door behind us. We did a couple of takes of this from a low angle perspective which only focused on our feet which then tilted upwards to see me turn around and shut the door behind us. We also did a couple of which the camera was level just to get a couple of different views for us review afterwards. During this we then came up with the idea of somehow making it more clear and the guy and girl were going to have a one night stand. At this point i came up with the idea of Nikki taking off her coat as she's entering the room, and then once she's in and out of sight, she then chuck an item of clothing at me to which at this point, i would turn around, wink at the camera and close the door. This meant changing our camera angle which wasn't an issue as it also gave us another/different shot to film. This day was successful as we accomplished what we had set out to do, film all of Ellie's house. We came up with good ideas along the way and got a lot of different shots and angles which we could then review and see which fits best in the final video.

Filming - Performance 2/2

The second time round of filming the performance went really well. After reviewing the shots we had done last time we knew exactly what we were doing with the lighting, actions and setting. This meant we could go straight in to filming which is what we did. After reviewing the shots, Tom and I saw that we needed more camera movement in our shots so we planned out shots to fix this. The first shot we did was another shot from outside the garage but making sure the garage was semitrical and obvious it was actually a garage. Also we added all the lighting this time as we learnt that we needed all the lighting possible. This wasn't a problem as as the band was setting up, Patrick, Tom and I were setting up the camera angles. After this shot we went on tho the movement shots. For this we had Patrick walking across the front of his garage following a semi circle we had marked out. By doing this we got the movement in and lots of angels our our band. After a couple of takes of this, we decided to move on to getting lost of high angles of the band. We first did a take of Patrick climbing on a ladder and filming at a high angle in the corner of his garage. We did this to block out some of the shadows as we were having some problems with that the last filming. Also by using the high angle, it makes our band look smaller and less significant which is the image that we were trying to get across. After last filming session, we learnt we needed as much time as possible so we arrived early this time. This then allowed Patrick Tom and I to look threw the shots mid way threw the filming session and see if we had missed anything significant. By looking threw them we had realised that we didnt have enough shots of Tom and Rob together, or Gareth and Rob together. We then went about ways of trying to find a way to get them together in a shot without moving anything around. The only way we figured we could do this was if we used partricks step ladder to get a high angle shot of them as when we tried a standing shot, you could only see the guitarist and not the drummer. To get this looking good we had to move some of the lighting around so that Rob (drummer) wasn't completely black and you could actually see his face. Once we had done all the bad shots, we knew that we had to move on to solo shots and filler shots. We first got shots of the guitarists close up on the strings and then from down the neck of the guitar. This allowed us to get both of the guitarists hands in the shot playing the actual notes of the song and it looked really good when we adjusted the lighting to make it look low key. After the close ups we got mid shots of the guitarists from high angles and low angles to give us a bit of variaty in our final production. When we moved on to the drummer we had research drum solo's on youtube and looked at the camera angles that were used whilst they were playing. The most common one was a high angle from the corner of room. Doing this was tricky due to the limited amount of space we had in the corner of the room. Despite the limited space we actually got good shots of Rob drumming, however on those shots you can't see the full drum kit but fortunately for us he doesn't need that part of the kit during the solo he performs. Tom then came up with a great shot which he had seen been used in the 'Skyway Avenue' video by 'We the kings'. This was the one where tom zooms in and out of Rob playing the drums but mainly clapping the hi hat. This was another low angle shot that we got with great movement. We realised that we would be using the 'We the kings' video for a lot of inspiration for our performance so we researched it and analysised it heavily before going out to film the second time round, and it payed off. The final bits we had to film was the filler shots. Of this we basically got people tapping their feet, band members looking around, jumping and playing their instuments. One of the shots we got which looked really good was the one of Rob tapping his bass drum with the camera side on. Although we didn't film for long we knew this was going to be a great shot to add somewhere in our final production.

Evalution Of A Digipak

A digipak is an extended CD that offer much more material to the buyer that you would not normally get with an average CD or album. The content of a digipak includes much more pictures and images of the artist, bonus material such as photos, songs, extra information about the artist or songs. This allows fans to be able to see what the artist is like beyond the music and beyond the stage. Digipaks often have more than 2 panels like the average CD. They can vary from 3,4,6 or 8 panels making it more of booklet than a CD. The typical features that a digipak includes are name of the artist, album, track listing, booklet, price, bonus material, website, credits recording information, producer/director, time/place recorded, song writer, images, logo, record label logo, barcode and website address.

Elton John Greatest Hits 1970-2002 is great digipak to evaluate as it has nearly all the features that I mentioned in the first paragraph. The front cover is very basic and shows in clear writing the artist and the album. The text stands out because it is dark writing on a white background, which also makes it very easy to read. Also as there is only one picture on the front cover the viewer it forced to look at either the text or the picture. The picture on the front cover is a simple picture of Elton John. It seems to be in the style of an artistic drawing. As he is wearing a white suit that blends in with the background of the front cover, it draws more attention to his face as that is where the colour is especially the yellow glasses that he's wearing and the hair on his head. Finally, there is a sticker in the bottom left hand corner that says it is a special edition 3CD set. It also includes the names of the Elton John's most famous tracks.

The back cover of the digipak is mainly the track listing of the 3CD's. The writing above the line is the track listing of the first 2 CD's which are also the main CD's. Below the line is the track listing of the bonus CD. This is set out like this to make the buyer see how much bonus content they are actually getting it and that it is worth it. Also below the line, the bar code is situated in the bottom right hand corner. Below this, there is copyright information and information about the digipak such as the rights of the digipak, when the digipak was produced and what lable produced it .

When you open up the digipack, you are first presented with a collage of photos of Elton John. The photos are a collection of old CD covers, magazine covers and interviews, himself performing on stage. These are all photos that were taken throughout his career but between the years of 1970 and 2002. Not only are there pictures of him but there are also pictures of tickets to a gig of his such as Wembley Stadium and also a $1 note with a picture of him on it. This collage allows the viewer to see a few of the memorable things that he has done in his career. It also shows his personality more by the type of photos that he has included.

Once these to panels are then opened the 3 CD's are then shown. They each have a photo on them of Elton John at the different stages in his career. You can see this by how different he looks in each of them. The CD slots are white just like the front and back covers. The CD's are black as well. This is the colour scheme throughout the digipak which makes it look very sleek and professional. On the very right panel there is a 40 page booklet containing photos and information about his career. It also contains information about his most famous songs and how/where he found the inspiration to write them.

The 40 page booklet is effectively an inlet for fans to see Elton John not only when he's performing, but also when he's backstage, touring, or just at home. The booklet provides extra information about the artist and the songs with many photos of him doing the thing that he loves most.

Idea for one of our DigiPak's

This was one of my ideas for the DigiPak. After looking at the Avenged Sevenfold digipak and seeing that they were animated characters, i thought that it would be worth a shot if i tried to create something like that. I was looking around on different programmes i could use to create this and found a couple online that would allow you to create your own avatars. I got each individual actor we used and dressed them according to what they were wearing the day of filming. After that it tried to include some intertextuality and binary oppositions using the props each character has. The one on the left has a halo representing innocence whilst the beer in his hand represents drugs and the background behind him represents crime. I tried using intertextuality by using the props on the next two guitarists. The middle-left one is wearing a top hat, much like the gutarist Slash from the band Guns N' Roses. The next avatar to the right has devil horns and a tail, this represents the guys from ACDC as they have one of them dressed as a devil on the album cover 'Highway To Hell'. The last avatar on the right has simply his drum sticks in the way most punk bands have their instuments out like on the album covers of Blink 182 'The Mark, Tom and Travis show' and Bowling for soup's album 'Rock On Honorable Ones!!' The background idea came from a conversation Tom and I had about what we could do for our DigiPak and thought of the idea of a mugshot. Unfortunately this seemed to be a tricky task to pull off so i thought that instead of waste that idea that i could include the background on to this picture. We got this idea by looking at CD covers such as Busted's album 'Busted'. After creating each individual charachter and chosing the right background, I had to combine all the pictures together to get the final product. I did this using simple programmes such as 'Paint' and 'Microsoft Word' to layer them on top of each other to create the final product. I did this by cropping each image on paint and copying them over to microsoft word so i could format the picture and make the background transparent enabling me to successfully layer them on top of each other. I then had to resize each individual avatar to make it look more realistic by having us at different hights. Then finally after correctly getting each avatar inline witheach other and resizing each one, i was then able to layer and save my final version of the DigiPak. This DigiPak i created could be used for the inside cover of the booklet. This image could be spread out over the 3 pages of the booklet.

Filming - Performance (1/2)

The first time we actually filmed performance, i thought it went better than expected. Although for most of it we were still figuring out where things should go and the where the lighting should be, we got some really good shots. As we didn't have a lot of time to film that night we couldn't review any of the shots whilst we were there. This meant that we had to count on patricks camera work to make sure the shots looked good. Me, Tom and Patrick then came to a decision that we should do shots with and without all the lighting just so we can compare the two and see which one looks better on the computer. We first did it with all the lighting but there was only one problem with that, the light was too bright on my face. We then tried it without all the light and that made the performers look better individually but the lighting on the setting was too low key. After uploading it on to the mac, we got people's opinions on which they think looked better. Ultimately the shots with all the light used won the vote. Fortunately on the day, we had done most of the filming with all the lights so we didn't have to re-film anything. We had filmed a lot of close ups, high angles and mid shots. We had full band shots, and a lot of individual shots of each person playing their instrument. We knew we had to get some movement in our shots so Patrick started to walk round the garage with the camera getting different styles of shots of each person as we played the song over and over again. He got some good footage which we are using in our final production. When we came to look at the image we all realised that there was too much movement going on from the actors. We realised that in comparrison to other videos, you don't see as much movement as we first thought. We came to the agreement that next time we filmed, I would have to be always facing the front, holding the microphone lower and not as much jumping, and the two guitarists would have to try and face the front rather than go in to the center and face/dance with each other. We didn't get a lot done in this first session of performance in terms of filming and what we could use, but we did get a lot done in the way of preparing for our next session. We were limited in the amount of time we had as Patrick had work, but as we were using his garage we had to end the day early. We only filmed about 15 minutes of performance this day as each one of us had to do other tasks as well. Patrick and the other band members (Gareth and Rob), helped Patrick fix all the equipment and organise the garage to look like this urban, underground location where our band would practice. Whilst they were doing that, Tom and I were collecting all the different lighting that Tom's dad was supplying us and Tom's applifiers for the guitars to make the scenery look more realistic. The only thing i could say that i wish we did differently was go down a bit earlier to have more time to film but even that was out of our hands because we needed the natural lighting to be dark. Overall i think this first day of filming the performance was highly successful as we found out exactly what lighting we needed and where everything and everyone should be. This then gave us an exact idea of what we needed to do when we came here again so that we could plow through without any interuptions.