Research for Ancillary Products: Analysis of Digipaks

Hmm as I first look at this task, I feel that it is a bit difficult. This is because of the genre of our artist, as for the song 'Falling' it is dub step with a somewhat melodic feel to it.

LYKKE LI: YOUTH NOVELS

We heavily compared our music video to Lykke Li, so looking through her digipaks on google images I thought that this one was effective. This relates to the audience and genre of our artist because the use of the darker bland colours is what I wanted to show in my digipak because it suits our music video and the type of music our artist would produce.
The distorted image of the artist works well because it gives a sense of mystery and excitement for the audience. I wanted to portray this because the genre of our artist is not pop but it is completely different.
This digipak does not appeal to all people but only of audiences of a certain taste, which can also be said by our artist because she is not of a commercial style.
I really liked the plain font as it remains consistent through the digipak, the use of the underline is also effective to highlight. However there is no differentiation in size between the artist and the album name.
I admired the use of chapters as it can also reflect emotional states of the artist and suggests that the feel of the songs are different. This is good because for our artist Lilia the song 'Falling' was more dark, and it highlights that for the tracklist the songs don't all have to be dark, there can be some happier ones too and the use of the chapters explain that. So this is something that I may use in my digipak.

BURIAL: UNTRUE

This artist is called Burial and his music is similar to that of our artist. He is signed to the independent record label Hyperdub which is the type of record label our artist Lilia would be signed to. This relates to the genre and audience of our artist because the audience that listens to burial would most likely want to listen to Lilia also and be attracted to the somewhat unconventional dark image of this digipak.
However I think that this digipak is slightly too dark for our artist Lilia, and listening to what our teacher Rebecca said she thinks that it is important to show our artist on the front cover rather than a false character. Although I do like the use of the fonts as they are really bold and easily stand out, we can clearly see the artist's name and the colour scheme works really well as it connotes the feel of the music.
Also I like the back panel of how the tracks are laid out, and the use of the landscape in the backround is effective as it does not look traditional. It also contains the elements needed for a digipak, such as the barcode, logos etc.

ELLIE GOULDING: BRIGHT LIGHTS

 

This digipak is really consistent with the use of the lights on the front and back panel it also reflects the title of the album. The font is really bright and bold and you can see clearly what it is. The artwork of the artist works really well to promote the artist. It is a similar idea for my digipak, because although the genre is dubstep I want to promote the artist because her singing and the lyrics are very important to the music.This relates to the audience of the digipak, because girls admire Ellie Goulding as she is shown to be quite normal  and not too glamorous. She is presented as someone people can relate to and this is what I'd like to portray with our artist Lilia. 

Research for Ancillary Products: What is a Digipak?

WHAT IS A DIGIPAK? 

• a modern approach to a CD cover.
• allows for inclusion of more information about the band / artist.

The function of a digipak is to first and foremost promote the artist. Also it gives the audience an insight as to what type of person the artist is and what they would like perhaps portray as an artist. The novelty / collection aspect of a digipak makes the audience want to buy them more as you feel you are getting more for your money. Digipaks can show the growth of the artist through their career, as artists can change their looks for particular albums to suit the type of music they are producing at the time. An example of this is Rihanna, these are her first, fourth and fifth albums which all look completely different.

Digipaks are mainly used as the novelty, because as a fan you may want a physical copy of the album and may collect these. The good artwork shown on digipaks sells and also it makes the album stand out when on a shelf at a music store, therefore it helps to attract new audiences, who may not have initially listened to that type of artist. Artists like Mika use consistantly bright album covers.

The importance of digipaks is that artists can base success on CD sales, as there is charts for these, even though there is a massive emergence of online downloading. Also the digipaks help to make money for the artist and record company and perhaps even try and minimize illegal downloading. This is because with digipaks they try to appeal to our love of music and the artist, it presents the idea that you are not a real fan of a particular artist if you don't buy their CD.

WHAT DOES A DIGIPAK LOOK LIKE? 

This is a conventional 6-panel digipak. 

• Digipaks use very simple colour schemes of only three colours 
• The right panel (front) shows the Artist's name in a larger font that the album name. 
• There is usually a picture of the artist if it is a debut album, but in this case Oasis already have a large fan base and this album is just for their acoustic material. 
• Sometimes there can be a promotional sticker if it is an exclusive.
• On the left panel (back). there is always a track list and production information that includes, copyright, web addresses and the distributor,
• There is a barcode and record label logos.
• The price is not displayed as it can vary in different shops.  

WHAT DOES THE ADVERTISEMENT LOOK LIKE?

Advertisements are like posters which support the digipak to help promote the artist. I'm using Rihanna again as an example. 

1

2

Both of these adverts are effective because they split the page into three. 2/3 consists of a picture of the artist as a prominent display, which is good because promoting the artist is most important. These adverts are both very simple but tell the audience what they need to know. 

Number 1: This advertisement is good because it shows logos of the record labels. However it is for a single and not an album. It is still good because the song is written at the top in a plain font followed by the artist's name. 

Number 2: This is an advert for her new album Loud. This has the conventions of a good advertisement because it shows the release date and features one of her hit songs from the album to attract the audience. Rihanna is already a brand, so for the image they have used a picture of Rihanna which is similiar to that of the digipak and it is easily recognisable. Also there is the use of the trademark 'R' sign in the top corner.

Adverts can also contain tour dates, quotes or reviews. However one is only chosen because it can make the advertisement look too much and overcrowded

Research for Ancillary Products... Do's and Don'ts

in class we looked at some good examples of ancillary products and also bad ones so that we can see the contrast between the two and hopefully won't make the same mistakes.
The DON'T list...

• Don't stretch images, this will make them out of focus. In the example we saw a picture that was stressed too much it looks almost pixilated and the people in the photo end up looking a bit wrong. 
• Don't use layer styles, this can look very unflattering and can go VERY wrong. 
• Don't use unnecessary effects. Any effects used must suit the genre - it's important that the visual arts don't miss lead the genre. What is meant by this is that if your genre is pop, it doesn't make sense to have the album cover covered in gargoyles, it isn't related!
• Don't place text across the artists face - trying to visualise that statement, it pretty much makes sense why this should not be done - it's tacky and is a pain to try and read let alone look at. 
• Don't use a font simply because you 'like it'. Everything used in the artwork should reflect the personality of the artist and the genre of the music. It should all flow together and look like it's part of the same package. 
• Don't feel you need a separate photo on every panel - be creative!! 

The DO list...

• Use clear font, it will be simple, attractive and easy to read. Perfect. 
• Use appropriate sizes for images and font. It won't make sense to have the letters fill up the entire cover, or have a picture that doesn't allow text to be added because it will look too full or messy. On that note, it is also important to make sure that the font size is readable and the picture fits, it the picture is too small it won't look great either. 
• Use clear photo's that are in focus and appropriate shape for the page, the best solution for this is to use the 'rule of thirds' for composition. It's important to chose a good style of picture to follow genre conventions and a simple house style. 
• Got to be careful of where the font is placed. It must follow genre conventions and be clear from a distance, of course when people come into the shop you want the album artwork to catch their eye - this is the main importance. 
• Follow the conventions of the 3 colour rule and use colour that is appropriate for: images, font, and background. 
• Think carefully about how you use the integrate: font, text and language, image. Placement of text next to an image will anchor specific meaning. This goes on to further detail that there is no need for things like 'thank yous' and inappropriate text that has nothing to do with your album. 

IMPORTANT NOTE TO SELF: Use appropriate logos and conventions, properly positioned: barcode, date, copyright, titles as well as artist name!!

Here is a perfect example of a previous example that we can look up to from previous student work. It consists of a good layout, clear text, beautiful imagery, I think you'd agree it is very creative, clear and simple. Also the attractiveness of it would make it outstanding on a shelf in a supermarket. Very audience friendly work. 

Research for Ancillary Products... Required Look for a Digipak

This is a typical example of a digipak, it is the Jack Johnson album in between dreams. Allows have been placed at the most important parts that the digipak should consist of. Let's work in a clockwise direction on the right side of the spine where the front cover is. The artist's name: needs to be large, clear and foregrounded. It is important that the tex is clear to read, usually best to use the same font throughout the digipak. The next two arrows both point to the promotional stickers, they are usually there to mainly draw attention to a recent tour or a specific detail on the album like bonus tracks etc.
Now moving on to the back cover, the three bottom arrows outline the production information, usually this consists of: copyright; year of production. Web address; record label logo/name and last but not least distributor, producer, and sometimes possibly the price. The last arrow points to track listing. It is conventional to use the same font for the track listing that was used to write the artist name or the album name.

This particular example reflects a very different style of music as you can see there is no artist photograph anywhere on there, this is not the case for most covers, it normally all comes down to the genre. For my artist I will have to use a picture of the artist because it is her first album and I have to create a good promotional package. This example of Katie Melua echoes her visual style as well as the colour scheme chosen for the front cover.

Here is a shortlist of the overall digipak style: uses 3-4 colours max, normally there should be no more that 2 types of fonts, it's impressive for the digipaks to contain some sort of interesting graphic design not just simple extracts from the video. When creating the digipack it is important to reflect on your styles right away, planning proves itself to become a large part of this as later it will have to be linked with the advertisement in the magazine.

WHAT MUST THE INSIDE OF THE DIGIPAK LOOK LIKE?

The graphic design like the visual style (font, colour and design) created on the cover of the digipak, the theme should continue throughout the inner panels also. Sometimes acknowledgements are included this is usually done in a form that isn't too outstanding they are written in short list, very discrete, small font and just simply used for particular tracks of the album. Sometimes a repeat of the tracklist can be included with more specific details about the songs like who played the instruments, who created the rules etc.

WHAT SHOULD THE ADVERTISEMENT LOOK LIKE?

MUST INCLUDE RELEASE DATE! The advertisement usually features an image of the digipak itself.  Always use a prominent display of the artist name and album title. It should generally repeat the same graphic style of the digipak. Often can also include:

• Tour dates
• Review quotes in magazines and newspapers
• Record Label Logo 
• Website

Research For Ancillary Products- What's a Digipack?

In today's lesson we had a massive discussion about the function of Digipacks and what they are and how they are used to entice audiences. We were asked a few questions and answered them according to our thoughts on the subject. The first question we were asked about was: 'What is a Digipack?' The answer to this is: A modern CD cover that enables an audience to feel they are getting "additional values" for their money. Its used to also promote the artist, their brand and image. In doing so, we gain an "insight into the growth of the artist" from the very beginning to present day. Take Rihanna as a prime example, she has transformed herself from being an innocent, fresh faced teen- when she began- into a grown woman who has found her style and brand image. (However she still changes like a chameleon with every album that comes out)
In doing so, this brings me onto the next question that was asked: 'Why are digipacks still used despite CD sales dropping?' In my opinion, I feel that Digipacks are a novelty and any true fan would willingly buy the album pack as it has pictures and behind the scene shots of the artist. It's the exclusivity of the four or even 6 panel CD cover. Therefore, you would collect every album (or as many as possible) because it feels good to buy something that you can keep and get out whenever you like. I used to buy every Spice Girl album when I was younger and it honestly was one of my favourite things to ask for when my birthday came around! (Mainly because I wanted the lyrics in the little booklet to sing along to but lets not get into that now..) I still have them to this day and it just brings back memories of how excited I would get once a new album came out. Moving on..

The next question that came up was: 'How important are the ancillary products to the artists and the industry?' VERY! Without a digipack or advertisement music artist's would never be able to create an audience or promote their single/album. It's vital as without it they wouldn't be known by anyone. Lately, most artists today use viral marketing such as on YouTube to promote their new albums or singles as its a broad and fast way to get their songs promoted to the larger audiences and even create new attractions of audiences.

Research for Ancillary Products... What is a Digipak?

In today's class we have been researching the purpose and convention of a digipak. We are officially moving on to the next part of our coursework, creating the more physical aspects to promote the artist (something frightful to me; photoshop and I don't get on).

The first question we tackled of course was 'what is a digipak'? We discussed that a digipak is a modern cd packaging due to it's availability to allow more information of the artist/band to be included in the final product. "It's all about 'adding value'", this is trying to convince us that the digipak offers more than what you would get by illegally downloading, because it provides something 'extra' with special features. This 'plays on our love of music' as it provokes fans to become more enthusiastic and supportive of the artist by making us 'part with our money'. The function of digipak is purely the promotion, it is generally used as a marketing tool. Sometimes it let's the artist 'grow' when a pile of the digipaks build up, it may make the core fans feel like they have something particularly special from the artist, something different, this explains the higher price but with that price you get a deeper understanding of the background knowledge about the artist and album.

Looking at the current market in the music industry we've also asked ourselves 'Why are digipacks still used despite the sales dropping?' Valeza and I discussed this and concluded with the fact the never the less the real fans of the artist will still spend the money on the digipak because they like to have a hard copy therefore there is still some sort of profit made. Another good point was that a lot of albums compete in the charts, like 'the best selling albums' for this it is also to keep producing ancillary products. Of course iTunes sells whole albums and there can be no need for hard copies, but getting a digipak, people feel like they are getting more for their money. Digipacs as I've mentioned briefly before can also just be a collectors item and with that on the shelf, if it looks interesting enough can attract new audiences.
We also addressed the question of 'How important are the ancillary products to the artist and industry?' This is mainly targeted at the physical aspect of the digipak. It is purely to advertise, to create a unique interesting style for the artist, and again I am repeating myself but I cannot stress that the main reason is people believe it to be more value for money.
I've tried something new in fact, I've created a video, of myself, talking about the difference between a plastic cover CD and my digipak that I have at home. In advance I would like to send my virtual apologies for the 'errs' and 'erms', that was very annoying even for me to listen to, but I'm afraid when I tried to do it again, it got worse. Also I'm sorry for the clear display that my tripod was a pile of dvds and books, this is because I was using my dslr and have not yet purchased a tripod for it. I hope you enjoy it...

OUR FINAL CUT

Looking Back: Pictures of 2nd day of Filming

we traced out our signs with the lyrics of the songs by hand

Stav and Valeza getting the make-up perfect for the artis's 'gothic' look

Valeza getting acquainted with her friends

the Dalston man

the costume had a last-minute change as Valeza didn't want to freeze in the rain, so we added a hoodie on top of the dress :)

Looking back- pictures of first day filming

Jess experimenting with the lighting and making sure the camera is in focus

This is the bird cage hanged up with Luna doing her thing inside, This is the first shot of our video.

filming and lighting we had to switch the batterry several times

practice shots of the artist with posters

Valeza attempting to conquer her fear of birds

...

preparing for releasing of bird

release of the bird

luna likes the railings

Valeza really liked the bunnies. 

once again, no animals were harmed in the making of this video

We were ultra careful

we ended up not using the rabbits :(

filming is messy work

our biggest fan :)

enjoying pizza after a productive day :) 

Looking Back- Day 2 of Filming

This was the second day of our filming where we actually traveled around to our outside locations. These mainly consist of us being safety freaks and actually protecting the tripod and camera. this is the backstage footage of the Dalston Curve garden and us beginning to go to camden and do our lip syncing shots.  We originally had a base track done in camden of Valeza holding up posters of several key words in our video. However the teachers did not really like the idea of this because it was quite a crude way to display the emotion. 

Looking back- first day of filming

here are some videos of our first day of filming at erika's house, we tested out the birdcage and artist against the wallpaper and with the lighting, we weren't originally planning to use most of these shots but some of them turned out really good so we used them anyway. We have also uploaded the backstage video of the famous 'bird release' shot, as you can see it took us a while but we got there in the end.

Production of Music video: Skills Development- Editing

This year we had to edit in a very diverse way compared to last years task as we had to use as many base tracks as possible within our editing. I think we had around 10 base tracks overall and decided to cut them up into smaller sizes in Final Cut Pro, to create a quicker pace in order to keep up with the music. Whereas, last year we just lined the clips up one by one and gelled them together. However, this year we had to remember that this wasn't a movie opening it was a music video. Therefore, we have a limited amount of time to either tell a story or use disjuncture to create a really good quality piece.

At first, once we saw our shots, we were worried as we thought they didn't look good enough for a music video. Once we got into the swing of things it all turned out perfectly and we couldn't wait to finish! (Hence the reason we finished first, just saying.)  Ideas began to flow much more freely once the effects had been added to the video we wanted to carry on until the product was perfect. In my opinion, I found using Final Cut Pro and the other programs much easier this year as once we got the hang of placing our base tracks and markers onto the video it all began to flow. We had a few problems at first, (such as trying to get the bird shots to be placed over a green screen effect) but we got over them as quickly as possible and now we have our finished product which we are very proud of!

Production of Music video: Skills Development- Production

Last year made me realise that planning is absolutely crucial! Therefore, in order for our music video to actually look amazing, we made sure we planned as thoroughly as possible. Even though we had planned our locations, shots, artist and lighting/edit effects well.. We forgot the most important thing: Base-tracks! This was discovered as soon as we initially went in to start our editing. Once we saw our footage on screen it became apparent that our footage looked a little messy and wouldn't fit in well with our concept/theme unless we did something and fast. Luckily, we still had some time left to film as we were ahead of others at this stage. So we went to Valeza's house and filmed some base-tracks of her lip syncing. In doing this, I feel we saved our video from falling apart as it boosted our confidence in the editing suite and we got stuck straight into the editing process.

Jessica and Valeza were absolutely amazing at editing our video with the help of me and Erika feeding ideas and saying if thought it looked well or not. As well as trying to help add effects into the music video and meeting up in our own time to fix it and get the video to the best it possibly could be. This task this year has made realise just how difficult it is to film and produce a top quality music video. It's no wonder artists take forever to realise a video for their songs as its so time consuming but very rewarding by the end product!

Production of Our Music Video: no birds were harmed in the making of this video!

Here are a few videos of us talking through our final video: editing and the type of shots we used and why we used them. 

Producing our Music Video- My Skill Development

I found that in this short space of the A2 Year I have learnt a large amount about editing and filming and have realized it is something that I am actually really good at. This comes as a surprise to me because I did not essentially do much editing in my AS year however I created the music and was the actor in my thriller.

This year I took a lot of part in the actual filming of our music video, the lighting and actually taking a lot of time actually editing the video and inputting ideas (Me and Valeza practically lived in the edit suite). I learnt that with editing continuity is important even in music videos and that quick simple cuts are so effective when done exactly to the beat. Because we had such a heavy bass when the beat drops quickly and jumping to another shot it looked really professional and they complimented each other well.

Also I learnt how important editing actually is, when I look at our original footage and our actual video it makes us as a group feel very proud of what we had accomplished. In editing the brightness and contrast and adding our favourite special effect 'bad film' we saw how polished and sophisticated our clips actually became, this was because we made the lighting look really great and desaturating the colour making it black and white really exaggerated Valeza's features and made all our footage look ten times better. Using the mirror effect also benefited us.It was good that it suited well with the concept and feel of our video.

All footage can be made useful!! At first we were all apprehensive because we felt we may not have got enough significant footage to use for our music video. However we managed to get some random beautiful shots and could repeatedly use this in our video. Some shots that we were not originally planning to use, turned out to be really useful.

However a flaw in our approach to doing the filming of our music video was that we had not filmed enough base tracks, as we stopped recording half way through because we were put off by mistakes. Therefore in order to fix this we quickly went to Valeza's house and filmed two base tracks of the lip syncing. If we were to create our music video again we would have done more base tracks and relied less on the random shots we filmed throughout the day.

The cutting tool was really great because we were able to easily cut unnecessary footage quickly and it could allow us to cut our longer clips to the beat. This way we could delete little shots quickly and keep the best footage in our video. Also by making markers on the actual song we were allowed to maintain our edits in time to the beat, and made sure that our clips wouldn't change on an off beat.

Changing the paces of our clips also provided to be really handy because we used this heavily in our video. Mostly all our footage has been altered in its timing, however our favourite example of this is perhaps speeding up of the candle shots where Valeza is writing the words and the slowing down of the release of the bird.

Altogether I feel that as an individual my confidence around media equipment has grown as I became more used to the camera and comfortable about using it well. Also editing used to be a daunting task but I ended up really enjoying the whole process as I felt like I learnt more each time and feel really accomplished in completing our final music video.

Producing our Music Video- OMG! We should have used the actual artist?!

During our first day of editing, we realised that we had not got as many lip syncing clips as we should have and that some had mistakes or were slightly out of time. However Valeza still did a really great job and we have some awesome shots of her!

We had a brainwave and figured out we could have used the actual artist because I (Jess) know her personally and the performance could have been more accurate / confident and she could have inputted ideas of what she wanted the video to be like... also to even perhaps use it as her official video. Although she may not have walked  around in the freezing weather and the rain so we are really glad we had Valeza and she agreed to be our artist :)

Unfortunately, we had this little spark of genius slightly too late...and had a little rant about it!