Digipak research

What is a digipak?
A digipak is a type of packaging for CD singles or special edition of CD's and typically are made up of a book-style holding the CD inside. The digipak is used to give an idea about the artist and the genre and the theme of the album. This is to gain the artist popularity and to highlight the image of the artist as well as promote them to consumers, thus encouraging sales of the music.

Digipak analysis:

NIRVANA

• The cover is making a political statement about anti-capitalism
• It is one of the most memorable album covers as it is instantly shocking
• It is also a popular cover as it is unique and different which reflects the genre
• There is no image of the band, which suggests that they are not promoting or selling their imageThey are more concerned with the music and not the superficial side of the music industry

 MICHAEL JACKSON

•         The cover is a close up of the artist so the focus is all on the artist
•         The colour palette is very monochrome which makes him stand out more
•        His pose emanates slight sex appeal-making him more desirable to his audience
•        The lighting also makes him look slightly angelic as he is back-lit which creates a positive, empowered brand image for him
•        He is looking at the viewer-direct mode of address which engages the viewer and makes them more likely to pick up the digipak
•        The cover is very disco influenced which reflects and highlights the pop genre

THE BEATLES

•       The cover is a colourful collage by Peter Blake which makes it unique and different from every other album at the time
•       The composition is very busy (spot the icons), it seems as though they are trying to sell themselves as icons as well
•       It is very influenced by the hippie/peace movement as shown in the flowers and the bright colours
•       The artist are featured on the cover, however they are not the main focus which suggests that they are not trying to sell themselves
•       The name attracts the most attention so that the band  and their album are immediately recognisable

BEYONCE

•         The white background makes her stand out
•         Her fur clothing and messy hair presents a wild and powerful image
•        The image of the artist is overlapping the name which highlights that she is popular enough to sell material off of her image
•          She is looking away from the camera so she doesn’t really connect with the viewer, this combined with the fact that the camera is angled up makes her look more powerful and superior to the consumer
•         Also she has lots of skin on show, in particular, her chest which supports the ‘sex sells’ idea and also appeals to the idea of the male gaze

Word it out - Summary of brand image based on feedback and research

Final shot sheet

LOCATION	SHOT
Against plain wall	Close up of lip syncing whole song
	Mid shot of lip syncing whole song
	Low angle shot of lip syncing
	High angle shot of lip syncing
	Lip syncing on sofa-to look casual and relaxed

For our final piece of filming, we will be filming the lip syncing sequences as we finally found a guy willing and confident enough to lip sync. I have planned to film from several different angles as the song is fast paced and when I come to edit, I will have enough footage to match the fast pace. Additionally, it allows me to focus more on advertising the artist as I can cut between many shot of him, to emphasis his role to the audience.

Star Image

As the genre for my song ‘Afterglow’ is indie/rock, I wanted the image of my artist to reflect this genre. To do this, I have created a collection of images to portray the style of my artist in the music video.

The colour palette is quite limited to monochrome (black, greys, white) with the addition of denim to create a very simple but stylish look as I want to embody the subtle edge of indie rock. The purpose of this is to not only accurately reflect the genre of the song but to also keep the focus on the artist as the attention of the viewer will not be drawn more to the clothing than the artist.







For the two girls in the music video, I felt that they too had to reflect the genre through their image too, to ensure that the genre is really emphasised in the video.

I put together two collages of attire for my ideas of the kind of clothing the two characters could wear based on the genre but also taking into account the locations and how people typically dress there. 

Firstly, I created a very simplistic outfit made up of blacks and neutral colours for an edgy and understated look, which sums up the feel of the genre and the track itself. Also, the other collage I made was also made up of dark colours, comfortable and simple items of clothing, however this one has slight pops of colour to tie in with the colourful locations, but to also keep the viewers interested and focused on the characters as they can easily be identified.