Digipak research

A digipak is patented style of packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipaks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipak that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background. The shape of the digipak for DVD’s would more than often a rectangular shape whilst a CD is square shaped. This is what makes them different from an Album cover as it allows the consumer to get a lot more out of the CD as it offers other features alongside to CD such as websites, games, and maybe even interviews. On various faces you would find the front cover, usually a picture of the artist/ band, as it is their debut so they are trying to get their image across. Also the name of the artist/ band in bold, vibrant writing to let people know who they are. The image would match the genre of the band. On the back you would find the track list, record label and a barcode and inside of the digipak you would find different features, sometimes lyric booklets, or even more pictures. Where the disk is kept there may again be an image of the artist/ band underneath just to make them stand out. There needs to be a connection between the different net faces of the digipak so that it looks effective and it all goes together so it does not look a mess. 

I found a digipak which belonged to Blur which has a similar image to my band as they are an alternative rock band. There digipak has animated versions of themselves on the front which is a famous image of theres. the image is bold and eye catching which would grab audiences attention so I would like to have the same effect on my own. On the inside there is a lyric booklet which has a page for each band member and on the opposite page one of the songs with the lyrics. The style of the booklet is also bright, matching the front cover. On the inside there is also various pictures of the band together which gives a good effect, promoting the bands image. On the last page there is different information including copyright information, the producer information, websites for fans, photography and art directors information and also thanks to everyone contributing to making the digipak  a success.

First day of filming

When I first started filming I had some problems with my band as they were not co-operating making the task harder as the band members had a lot in mind of how they wanted the video to look, however I still got the majority of my footage first time which helped me out as I could begin editing straight away  whilst still getting footage. I soon enough put my foot down and made all the decisions myself but did have some inspiration from ideas that the band had given me.

Editing process (effects)

As you can see from the screen grab, I tried an effect which made the band member in the shot rotate, I looked at the pros and cons of using this effect a lot longer than the other effects as I was not sure how effective it looked, however I decided to take a risk and use it. From previous research I found the effect of rotating the screen was very 80's inspired which was a rock and roll period of music which matches my videos genre.

Editing process (effects)

Throughout my editing process I looked through a variety of different effects which I then decided whether to use or not in my final piece, some of the effects that I used were effects called kaleidoscope and kaleidotile which basically mixed a selection of the video up, giving off bright and bold colours, mirroring everything symmetrically.

Another effect I used was a glow, I editing some parts of my video so that objects in the frame would ‘bloom’ or ‘dazzle’.

I also put  glow effect on some of the band members and the little boy character, which matched the music video as the videos theme is very surreal and 'rock n roll' so highlighting the faces of the characters amplified the genre of the video. I wanted the little boy to stand out because he represented the paranoia in the story.

Editing reflection

I have had a successful time editing my music video as I have had experience on final cut express a couple of times before so i was familiar with it. However I did struggle slightly with the lip syncing as my actor in the video was not entirely confident in some parts of the song, however I layered over the lip syncing which wasn't as good so it is not noticeable.

Important decisions I have made whilst editing were the effects that I used, which were kaleidoscope and kaleidotile and also changing the opacity on some of my video. The use of faster cuts were important so that audiences would understand the storyline and genre of my music video. I also found it useful to film more as it added more visual metaphors so again, the audiences would understand the video more.

During editing, I  found everything ran smoothly, I got the rough cut done fast which made it easier and less time consuming when I added other parts in as I knew exactly what I needed and if I needed to add more.

My biggest hurdle whilst filming was the lip syncing as I found it difficult to get it at the right point.

Filming

I decided to film a little bit more last weekend to add some visual metaphors to my video, I filmed various objects which I feel went well with the storyline, such cigarettes and alcohol. The filming I did made a massive difference to my video as I was able to make it faster with quicker cuts and editing.

White Stripes music video

I recently looked at a White Stripes music video, the song was The Hardest Button To Button. In the video the cuts are very smooth and match up with each beat well. As my song is the same genre as the song I got ideas from the video to make my video a much faster pace.

White Stripes- Hardest Button To Button