comparing my digipak to professionals based on conventions

back page digipak unfinished

I have until next Monday to complete my whole digipak and here I have started my back page. I am still to edit rhyce's face and I need to add Lucys face who is our second actor to the other side of the Digipak.

Conventions of a digipak

After researching many digipaks, I have recognised the conventions in which many of them follow and have. A digipak is a patented style of a CD packaging.

• They normally have a gatefold like a book so below is the template I used in order to create mine with a front cover, an inside page and a back page.
• The front and back pages are the main promoters of the CD and are used to draw in the customers where as the inside pages are more subtle compared to outside packaging.

The front page usually tends to have a large eye catching picture on them and this picture usually has some relation to the song or artist which is true because Lucy and Rhyce are the main actors in my music video and are front page of my digipak! The shot used is usually a mid shot and a some what close up. Then the artists name in large font is included with smaller or larger titles for the name of the album sometimes in different fonts and colours too.

The back page usually includes the track list in clear font, the record label, the artist or albums name, a barcode and then some extra information which I have pretty much covered them all on mine.

DigiPak research

DIGIPAK conventions:

I researched the conventions an found that DigiPak includes:

Images

The artists name

details of tracks

track listings

song producers

song writers

lyrics of the song.

This was a DigiPak of Carly Rae Jepsen and she has used much colour but suitable for the genre which is pop. I decided to research pop digipaks obviously with my music video being the same genre. Pop music videos are usually mostly watched by girls and these colours give of a girly vibes.

The colourful combination of the clothing worn by Carly is a very generic convention of pop artists as they like to be portrayed as fun to be with and quite fashionable. 

She has also used her signature as her name on the cover, it gives it a personal touch and will appeal to her target audience a lot more. An example is, someone may of heard her voice and name over a radio station but not actually seen what her face looks like so if she did not have her signature on there as recognition then people may not know it's her. The design and layout is also very simple but effective and looks lively and fun when you look at it which is what her music reflects.  

I continued to research the front back and insides of different DigiPak. I came across Lady Gaga who is also well known in the pop industry. I found that the back of her DigiPak was good and quite simple even though there looks like a lot of writing. Theres a simple image of her surrounded by the price tag which is on either the front or back usually. The writing next to her face are usually the track listings or details of the tracks. 

The bottom left text is when the song producers and writers are mentioned and recognised. I feel that when i create my DigiPak, i will not be using this feature but will be using some things of this image to influence me for mine. 

All of this page includes DigiPaks which I am moved towards when it comes to creating mine but Taylor Swifts album cover is something which I will be planning to do. It uses simple neutral colours which work for the type of person she is which is country girl. She uses a portrait of her, the artist and her back page has very minimal text to keep it simple and not too busy. 

All three of these digipaks really focus on the artists being on the front cover with their name written across them somewhere followed by the albums name. The albums name is never in a place where it cannot be seen as is placed in a position that you will see when you look at the artist. The way we can catch our audiences eye with out Digipak is that by following the conventions and keeping things simple, the main thing is that the choice of colours must be correct for young teenagers to recognise its a pop music video but it is based on love so the use of red may be used in there. 

Digipak design

 







Here is a basic drawing to what I would like my front page of the Digipak to look like. I would like an image of either Lucy, Rhyce or even them both in the centre of the cover. I will then have written just slightly through the picture 'Rhyce Galer and Lucy Skeggs' in fancy writing to show the main actors names and I am following Taylor Swifts Digipak album cover. I will then have the Album name which is undecided as of yet just under the fancy writing but in a much bolder text and bigger. The back ground for the front cover will also be basic allowing the main focus to be on the image of the actors. I am thinking colours such as greys, whites blacks and maybe some red as its a love music video.

Here's a basic drawing of my back page of the Digipak. I will again have a plain background to follow the theme of the colours. I will have a list of all the songs involved in a straight line down the centre of the page and then at the bottom will include the barcode as this is mainly on the back of most Digipaks which I have ever bought. Lastly, Our music video includes Lucy and Rhyce constantly looking for eachother, I feel that I will include a side view standing picture of Rhyce looking to the right direction and Lucy to the left.

Costume choosing and props

I decided that for our music video, the actors would just wear casual clothing as that's what's worn in love songs a lot of the time to this day. There was no outfit changes throughout our music video either because we got all our recording done in around 3 days. Below is an example of what Rhyce (our boy actor) would be wearing. Just a basic white t-shirt with some basic skinny jeans. This type of clothing is in fashion for the casual day to day look for most boys so they can then feel they relate to this video a lot more with this being the clothing worn by Rhyce. Another thing added to Rhyce's costume was his coat with a fur hood. Most times in which we recorded, the weather wasn't the nicest and also feel that this coat resembles a lot of male teenagers now a days. Our audience was young teenagers so feel that with this clothing's, we attracted them well. These clothes were bought from well known shops such as Topman and River Island.

This outfit on the left is the type of costume I picked out for our female actor (Lucy). This again is casual, day to day stuff and very basic. These pieces of clothing are what girls feel very comfortable in. Most pop music videos these days include these type of outfits or really girly dresses. These type of clothing pieces can be bought from the likes of Primark, Topshop and River island.

 

Here is our timeline so far for our music video and these clips run for around a minute and a half when its all played together. We still need to film in the other minute and a half that's missing but will do so in the upcoming weeks. The last scene will be in the park with the same to actors to keep consistency within the music video.