FINAL DIGIPAK

MY WEBSITE

Digipak Images- Album Cover

A few weekends ago I took and edited some photos for my digipak. Having looked at current Digipaks for pop artists who have a similar persona to our own I have discovered that they often have 1 theme going throughout the CD material, which is often from one photo shoot. I had been planning to include pictures from shooting in my digipak however, I have been struggling with doing this and keeping it looking professional and as if it was a real product. This is my main issue at the moment with the production of my digipak.

This weekend I tried to face this issue, taking and editing two photoshoot's that I did myself. Again after much research into similar artists, in particular Kesha, I discovered that image manipulation where the image is mirrored is particularly common. EXAMPLES AND WHAT I DID IN EDITING.

Xena Typeface.

18/03//2014

Here is a quick video of what we did in today's lesson.

Our Group Animatic.

Today me and Libby finished our animatic in lesson. We decided not to draw the montage section as it depends what footage looks good when we come to editing. We also haven't included every detail that we will film, as learnt last year in our films that some of the best shots come spontaneously. 

CURRENTLY IMPROVING POSTS.

Adding the final bits of feedback to posts. This will be completed asap.

Dance

 When we have looked at music videos we have seen that a common feature is choreographed dancing. We would like to include this in our video. So we have been looking at some dance videos that we could use some dance moves from.

) )
This is the dance routine that we liked the most and are going to try and learn for our studio scenes.

Artist Name

Today we decided the name for our artist. We wanted a powerful name to match the persona we have created. Originally we were going to keep my original name, Katy, but decided that it wasn't strong enough. To find names we searched a number of things, for example unusual names and mystical names.

 A few we liked were: 

Isadora
Cleo/Clio
Sadie
Flora
Amber

Ember
Flora

Cecily
Aurelia
Tamsin
Rosalie

 Iris

KT

Katie

Xena is the final name we choose. Some of the other names we liked we decided were too floral and natural, which we didn't really think fitted well. We wanted something unusual, which Xena seemed to fit.

We also thought about adding an extra bit to the name like in Marina and The Diamonds or Florence and the Machine, however we couldn't decide on the Xena and the name, and decided that Xena was strong enough on its own.

Star Image in Music Videos and Websites- Kesha.

While designing my website and Album Cover I have been taking inspiration and looking to the artist Kesha as she is in the same genre and has the kind of star image we want to promote in our artist. Kesha is rebellious, punky, sexy, and is a pop artist. These kind of traits are something we have tried to incorporate into the marketing of our artist, who is also of the pop genre.

Kesha's first album "Animal" shows her against a dark background which is scratched and eroded. This shows her style to be quite dark, and that she is quite a grungey artist. This grunge element is something we have been incorporating into the marketing of our artist. Therefore I will be thinking about adding in similar effects in my current album cover design so there is unity between the promotional materials.

This album cover ultimately still has bright features such as the type which is written in glitter. This provides a nice contrast to the dark picture which might suggest a rock them if it was not paired with the text which brings it back to the pop genre of music. 

Kesha's next album is Warrior. This album cover has a completed different color palette however, there is still a similar style to her last album cover. The color of this Album markets Kesha in more of a pop artist way, with the bright bold colors, however elements of her slightly edgier music are visible, for example in the dress she is wearing and background. Also the typography of her name which is clearly shown on all of her products connotes a edgier artist, as it is made up of harsh lines that are very graphic.
When designing my Album cover I have thought about using bright colors also as this demonstrates the music to be part of the pop genre.

Kesha's website has a similar feel to her album covers. With the background being black with areas that have been eroded. This gives a similar messy, carefree and slightly rock and roll image to Kesha.
Also on the website are pops of color, mainly the lime green hints that are present in her name and highlight titles. This in-keeps with the pop genre, but also the color of green is an acid green, further suggesting erosion and decay.

Reshooting.

A few days ago we re-filmed the opening of our music video. We decided during the editing that this part wasn't exactly how we wanted it, and the cakes that we had originally used weren't big or dramatic enough for a pop music video. After getting feedback from the audience and teachers we also decided to include different and more angles of the cake hitting the husband's face.

We also felt that the opening sequence was a little awkward. We had intended to use dialogue, after noticing that this along with intro's were an increasingly common feature in music videos, making them more like mini films. (For example Taylor Swift's-I Knew You Were Trouble and Lana Del Reys' Ride             

However, at the time we struggled with what the husband character should say. Once we watched our footage back from the original shoot it became clear that it needed this element, and we decided that the reading of the clue from a crossword would fit nicely. The added dialogue also allowed us to further develop our artists image. Her not replying and looking bored shows her as having little time for the husband, who does not directly ask her what the answer might be.

This scene shows a huge power status difference between the male and the female character, something that was very relevant for us. During the production of our music video as there has been a lot of controversy towards women's portrayal in music video. (For example Robin Thicke's- Blurred Lines and Lilly Allen's- Hard out Here) As an all female group, we felt that this issue was particularly relevant to us and to the song which describes a young girl leaving her partner, therefore we wanted to draw on this showing her originally as submissive to the male, but only somewhat, as half way through we show her with her Doc Martens on, something that connotes rebellion.                    Another thing we learnt from editing the original footage, was that it was very difficult to keep the tea cups and pot in the same places, to stop this from happening we found that we could place selotape markers on the table that indicated where objects went such as the tea cup and tea pot.

Overall we feel that the re shoot went well and we are all happy with the results. Feeling that this time our footage better reflects our ability and conveys the characters better.

Other things we changed/improved. 

• We changed his costume slightly to fit the 50s husband, adding suspenders and slicked back hair.
• We also decided to add in a extreme close up of the artist and the husband with there heads out of the frame, we thought that this would help add suspense which we often see in music video, where we dont see alot of the artist, just close up fragmented shots.
• We also changed the newspaper he was reading, and this was one of the main reasons we had to reshoot. The paper is now more formal.

Photos for my Digipak booklet.

Planning my backcover for my album.

While shooting part of our music video we went to Lime Street, where there are some sculptures by Robert Indiana. I thought it would be effective to use these on the back of my album cover for the  song names, creating a synergy between the music video and the songs for the audience, also the colors are very bright and bold which i think would tie in well to the pop genre.

I edited the original pictures to make them brighter and to limit the same colors being repeated. I also cut out the backgrounds of the numbers. Some of the edges are still a little rough and I plan to touch up this later.