Research into Existing Digipacks and Advertisements

I have started researching into existing digipak's from famous artists and ones that have become successful and attained them high chart toppers.  Digipaks are most commonly used  Deluxe edition of albums, the design is used instead of the usual hard case. The digipak is more stylish and allows the artist to put more information on the case and promote themselves across the album. It uses the the leaflet inside to get across an image or to contain lyrics for the EP or album tracks. I have noticed the main typical conventions of a digipak are:

Front: The name of the artist and the album title and a related image (most are the artist themselves however many are abstract)

Spines: Artists name and title of the album again, the colour theme of the album usually runs across this too and contain a DVD logo and serial code.

Back: The track list of the album including all the songs in order, any parental explicit warnings, any special features, bar code, and disclaimers from the record label.

Flaps: Either a centered pictures of the artist fitting in with the color theme or a clear background image.

Many digipak do vary in conventions due to their genre of music. For example Rihanna's includes one image spread across 3 of the flaps where as Kesha's contains 2 different images. I have found some examples of digipak's from similar existing music genres to my own music video.
I particularly like Katy Perry's as her theme is continuous on the discs and each image used looks like it belongs to each other and you can see the whole 'candy' and 'fun loving' theme throughout the digipak, she is laid in candyfloss which is a metaphor for clouds she is laid in. This is very effective and works well throughout the digipak as Katy Perrys album was successful and released 4 top 10 songs from it.
Here are some examples:

Katy Perry uses house colours of pinks and blues, which alternatively fit in to her 'candy' and 'sweet shop' theme of the album. The CD discs represent a doughnut and a swivel lolly, all interlocking conventions. The images used are her lying in metaphors for clouds but also cotton candy, she's represented as sweet like sugar, yet poses firecly. It gives off a vibe of the whole album been fun and cheeky. The images used are medium close ups and long shots.

Lady GaGa - The Fame Monster

In this digipak the theme is a simple clear black and white, the font is white and stands out effectively across the grayish backgrounds. Lady GaGa is a pop music artist and goes against the conventions of pop music and uses dark colours which is unusual for a pop artist (you can see this in Katy Perry's album above) However, going against the conventions was a successful attempt as it is effective and has worked well. The black and white images of herself are strong statements and dark looking, especially with the make-up running down her eyes in the back image this also fits with the album title of 'monster.' The front image she is wearing a latex coat, which could be seen as her hiding her true 'monster' identity, her eyes are hawk like and create a creepy sensation. Lady GaGa is known for her wild fashion sense and lives up to her expectations on this digipak and doesn't disappoint fans.
Her hair is very straw like and fake looking as if it is meant to look unrealistic. The font on the CD covers is the same as the title font and is very basic and simple white block, yet effective in capitalization. The track listing is small printed on the right hand side diagonally, this makes the image of Lady GaGa more centralized and makes it clear that she is important and the 'mother monster.'

Rihanna -Loud 

This digipak has a house colour theme of red and blue and white which represents Rihanna's fiery hair colour as well as her personality. The main images are headshots of Rihanna which include a midshot image on the inside opening of Rihanna laid across some red roses. As the album title is 'loud' the red hair and lips fit the name as the colour is loud and vibrant, the text font is plain and simple white with 

Kesha's house theme is 'space' consisting of mainly black house colours with splashes of red, blue and purple. The space theme fits into Kesha's own personality as she is portrayed to be slightly 'crazy' and her own person. The theme also includes colours from the American flag blues, whites and reds which emphasizes her profoundness of her country. The digipak includes many different angled shots of Kesha, from close ups, mid shots and long shots. In all she is pulling a fierce or inviting face or in which involved in a full length pose. All images relate to each other despite been different and have a fully involved colour theme and costume throughout. 

Editing

I have began to edit my footage that I have already filmed. I have taken 9.35 minutes worth of filming for these scenes. I am cutting down each clip in the editing suite to the time I need it to be. I am also matching up the lip syncing to the song as well.
I still need to film Charlie's scenes which is going to be my next filming plan. I am hoping to film the outdoor scenes at any given opportunity weather dependent. As it is December the pavements are icy and it's recently been raining on and off so I haven't been able to film any outdoor scenes. However Charlie has several scenes indoors which I am planning to film over the next 2 weeks. 

filming diary

On Saturday 1st December I was able to film my bathroom and bedroom scenes for Paris. I found problems with filming the bedroom scene, as the lighting was much darker than I expected as I had no extra lights and because it was dark outside (5pm) I had no natural light to use to film with and only the bedroom lights. I feel that when I begin to edit these I will encounter problems with the quality because of the poor lighting and may have to re shoot parts, however I will have to wait and see.

The bathroom scenes where easily shot and shouldn't encounter any problems with these, I am going to start to edit my footage on Tuesday 4th December in the editing suite, I am hoping I can add an effect to these to make it look 'grim' as the mood in the scene needs to be  slightly depressed.

Here is what I have filmed so far: 


The bedroom scenes have very poor lightening and can be seen in the several shots used above, I would certainly like to re shoot these in the day time as well as using extra lighting. Although when using the editing suite and turned into black and white using the contrast, the shots look better and are more effective as well as feeling to the dark mood she is feeling whilst in bed without her other half been there. I would consider using these shots in black and white if I decided further down the line that they are better than the ones I am going to re shoot because they are effective in black and white. 
I have changed the coloring and brightness in matrix advanced primary level, you can see this clearly in a lot of the bathroom shots, I feel that changed the colour has a more professional feel to the music video as previously without I didn't like the colouring and believed it cheapend the video.
Many R&B/Pop music videos within my genre have the brightness changed in their music videos for example in Rihanna's we found love, there is a blue tint used in the bedroom scenes and then used at the skatepark there is a much softer tone used which I think works well within the theme of the video as it is a happier time in the narrative of the video.
I would like to incorporated these editing skills in my further developed music video using the editing suite.