Digipak Ideas

My initial ideas for the digipak involve showing a clear contrast between the couple in our music video and the single character. I think I will try and keep the cover as simplistic as possible to stay in keeping with my researched genre digipaks.

A rough layout of the album cover could be the top half the portrait of the single character with the bottom half of the couple's portrait. Possibly having the couple's portrait without the faces could be linked to the idea of the "teenage fantasy" and longing for the idea of something rather than the reality.

Magazine Advert Analysis

Starting to look at the conventions of magazine advertisements, in the lesson we worked on analysing examples from various artists. This involved the more artistic choices in the images used as well as the conventional inclusion of artist and album names for example.

 



Genre Albums

In researching similar artists' album covers, there are multiple similarities in terms of colour, composition and relation to artists.

Daniel Caesar 
Rhythm and blues, Soul music, Neo soul

• More abstract photograph, less focus on the artist or "star image".
• High exposure and brightness
• No inclusion of artist name or album name - subverts convention aside from 'parental advisory'
• Inclusion of the parental advisory label

Ella Mai 
Contemporary R&B

• Portrait shot of the artist, conforming more to the theory of the "star image"
• Simplistic. The font creates the idea of being timeless, traditional. Also created by the choice of a black and white photograph. 

Sabrina Claudio
Contemporary R&B, Alternative R&B

• Artist and Album title not included - less conventional
• More heavily edited covers, colour tinted image (second album cover)

Star Image

Richard Dyer's star theory is made up of the following key ideas:

1) The star as a construction 
The star is a construction and not a real person. This is created through various forms of media be it music videos, magazines or advertising. 

2) The star as a commodity
The idea that stars are produced to create a profit. Record labels may create similar stars as they know the trends that will work to generate this profit.  

3) The star as an ideology 
Stars represent certain social groups and views will therefore create certain ideologies. Consequently, fans will often copy their style or even share their views. 

Paradox of the star 
The star must be both ordinary and extraordinary 
The star must be both present and absent

Digipak Introduction

• Show correlation with and compliment the music video or brand of the artist. To do so, possibly use a still shot from the music video as the main image.
• Consists of four panels and a spine
• 300gsm card matt or gloss
• 139.5mm x 6mm x 125.5m

Generic conventions: Track list, cover photo, album name, artist name, CD art or art behind CD, photos of the artists/behind the scenes, reviews, record label details, bar code, parental advisory, hologram.

Semiotics: Ferdinand de Saussure - signifier and the signified. Roland Barthes - denotation and connotation. Stuart Hall - Reception theory, encoding and decoding, dominant reading (negotiated, oppositional).

First Shoots

The first time we chose to film was the Thursday afternoon. We focused on filming some of the portrait shots on our main camera as well as the iPhone app Fyuse. Also, we filmed some close up shots of Julia on the train as the single character which will most likely be a part of the opening section of the video. We had a few initial problems with equipment with SD cards being full and not working in the camera. Luckily we had two cameras so could alternate between the two when necessary. Our second time filming was more efficient as we all had a much clearer idea of what we wanted to film and where. We predominantly filmed the date scenarios and couple on the tube. 

Initial Shooting Schedule

Our music video relies on lots of changing locations, light levels and mise en scene. Therefore we have decided to film in chunks, storyboarding each section as we go along. A lot of our filming will be more circumstantial in that we can't entirely plan who else will be around when filming in public/on transport. Therefore, some of our planning is more of an outline as opposed to exact shot composition and precise location. We will be filming around the Shoreditch area and then on various forms of transport. 

In the next couple of shoots I will use Microsoft Excel to be more organised and have quick access to the schedule on my phone.