DigiPak research

What is a digipak?

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks 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 digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Dimensions of a digipak:

The most common size is the 4pp Digipak which measures 139.5mm x 6mm x 125.5 mm.


Material used in a digipak?


This CD and DVD packaging comes in double thickness card, hardback or textured cover options made from environmental friendly materials.
Digipaks usually made with 300 gsm card, it can be 'Glossy' or 'Varnished' A 'Pop Girl Band' would use glossy because it portrays their glamour and femininity.
The colours in the digipak also determine the target audience. If I were looking to buy a pop CD I'd look for colours that are bright a feminine such as pink.

Analysing CD covers

So now is the task of researching album covers to give me ideas to what I want my cover to look like, on the presentation I've made I have analysed 3 artists including: Uffie, Lilly Allen and Agnes.

The best album covers of the past decade

View more presentations from Jasmine Siew.

Link to my AS blog - Comparison (exam)

http://jasminesiew.blogspot.com/

Useful Narrative website

http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/keyconceptsgcse/keycon.php?pageID=narrative

Theorists

Whilst doing some research I thought it would be a wise idea to look into theorists for my exam preparation. I found some very useful information on some websites which helped me understand narrative theory.

Barthes narrative codes.

Reality is difficult to understand, and we struggle to construct meaning out of our everyday experience. Media texts are better organized; we need to be able to engage with them without too much effort.

Roland Barthes describes a text as

"a galaxy of signifies, not a structure of signified; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..."

What he is basically saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on. An infinite number of times. If you wanted to.

Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meaning are called narrative codes and that they could be categorised in the following five ways: (ie Answers & questions)

• Symbols & Signs
• Points of Cultural Reference
• Simple description/reproduction
• Action
  

Todorov

Todorov, suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure. They begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is restored.

Here is a diagram of his narrative theory.

A2 Narrative

For the exam I will have to talk about progress form AS to A2 and the narrative of either one, I have incorporated theorists into my work:

Whilst researching to narrative I found a very useful sideshow which has helped my write the following passage.

I've decided to look at the narrative in my A2 music video to knock em out by Lilly Allen. I could give allot more information about it as I am currently doing it now, but also all of the new technology were using such as flip cams and final cut pro which we did not have in AS. although my AS horror film had a more distinct narrative I don't believe I'd be able to incorporate as much technical information such as the four different dollys we tried out which I could use as what went wrong as they were all unsuccessful!

The narrative in our music video involves a young girl and a boy, however unlike a normal pop music video were the women are usually flinging themselves at the men and are all about heartbreak we decided to challenge the forms and conventions of this stereotypical view by having the boy chasing the girl and the girl who is the main protagonist rejecting his attempts of affection. Our music video therefore incorporates Levi Strause's theory of binary opposition he suggest binary opposition occurs with two pairs of opposites. In this case it seems to be the girl if full of disgust and rejection whereas the boy is full of desirability and love. We have also incorporated binary opposition in the two back drops in the photography room. White vs black back drops. The black symbolizes the girl as the dark sinner for rejecting the boy, full of deviance and disbelief whereas the white back drop symbolizes the boy full of love, purity and innocence, after all he only wants her number?

We started of the video with her walking towards the camera with the voice over of her heels. This here is a powerful shot as the camera is at a low angle facing up. Even from the first shot their is power in the woman. Power is shown by the various camera angles and also the misenesene. In the bedroom scene their is a picture of a WW1 poster with a woman saying I can do it. We have used this as it represents out video. Times have changed from traditional norms of the woman being the home stayer looking after the children, woman no longer need to rely on men for food and money. There are systems such as the welfare state and high female employ-ability compared to 30 years ago. Roland Barthes suggests ''there was once an attempt to push women back into the confines of the home and the roles of mother and housewife.'' However as the music video suggest woman are seen as more equals as the woman is rejecting the man, whereas before we'd rely on the man.

Todorov suggests that all narrative begin with equilibrium (where everything is balanced) which is followed by some form of disruption. with the resolution at the end of the narrative. Our music video conveys to Todorov's theory. At the beginning the girls is fine as the lyrics suggest 'Just doing your own thing' the he suggest this is disrupted, as the music video continues the girl is continually being pestered by the boy, finally a resolution is found as Todorov suggests with the girl chasing the boy down the bath with her high heel as to suggest leave me alone, then equilibrium will be again reached.

Draft one - Can't Knock em out

Today Danielle and I stayed up in the media room all morning and editing the video! I'm so impressed with how far it's got so far. I especially like the beginning clip were the group have editing the feet for recurring images. It's really effective!


I love all the quirky little bits aswel. However one think I did forget to do was mute all the clips! so that will have to be done soon as you can hear some rustling. We thought it would look quite effective if we reversed the clip of Oyinda walking towards the camera, so therefore she is walking backwards as if to say like leave me alone. It looks very effective. However I must say my favourite bit I've edited so far has to be the confetti. We also reversed this clip. Instead of the confetti being poured onto Oyinda by John instead the confetti is being sweeped back up using the reverse effect. However like most things we encountered a few minor problems. We realised when we started editing that some of the shots you can see the sides, so we tried to crop them, however when you crop the sides it crops the whole image, so we ended cutting of poor Oyindas head! But we've made this fit in with the video, and it actually look good! Below is our first draft :)

Filming day four - Park (final)

This is our final shoot now! hip hip hurray! although enjoyed filming I just want to start editing all of our footage and see the final master piece!



Today we went to the playing fields as there is a long pathway running through the middle. Although all the leafs have gone it's still a pretty site although it was SO cold!

Firstly we filmed Oyinda walking down the path with John magically appearing closer as Oyinda walks, then suddenly appearing by her face! We filmed this by recording then stopping the camera so he could move forward. When editing this part we will fit each appearance to the beat of the song.



As my previous research into Dolly's (analyzing technical codes label) shows we decided to use a bike as a Dolly. This was an easy, zero cost related method, However how we was wrong. He first started by Oyinda walking forward lip syncing towards the camera. And all of us pushing the bike backwards. It does not look at easy as it seems , you had to control the came, the bike, the music and it was all very shaky and not a nice site!




Furthermore we filmed Oyindas footsteps walking towards the camera, we were thinking we could edit this with a recurring image, as shown in my previous research. (Jordin sparks)



Lastly, and my favourite bit was Oyinda chasing John down the path with a high heel in her right hand! This was a very funny shot. However we needed to film this a few times as we tried to zoom but either did too much or too little.

It was really funny when we started filming as there was a man running up and down the path. Now you may seem that this is an everyday occurrence, however it's really not when you see a 70 year old man in small turquoise briefs doing some weird walk I'd never seen in my life! so although we it was we certainly kept our self warm by laughter. However he did get in the way of our filming a bit! The next strange think we encountered was a dog licking the tripod, and a young boy nearly mowing us over on a bike!


To conclude, I have very much enjoyed filming and am just so excited to start editing!

Filming Day three - Photography room

The third Location we filmed was in the photography room! We had a black and a white back drop with lights so we could get a good lighting shot. This will be incorporated in the performance elements. Here we filmed the slip screens and four screens. The first shot involved glitter! How ever messy and exciting! We filmed John first of all form a side view blowing glitter (supposedly onto Oyinda) we then filmed a front wide shot of oyinda with glitter blowing on her face. Similarly to the Florence and machine video Oyinda pulls a disgust face to show she is not impressed. She was wearing an orange striped stress, this was very quirky and as we used a black back drop really brang out the colours of orange a gold.

Futhermore we filmed Oyinda and John together messing about with Oyinda pushing him away this really fits with the narrative of our video with the girl just not interesting and challenging the forms and conventions. Furthermore a really good effect used was John throwing confetti over oyinda which showed she was really not interested and the boy was trying to impress her so much. I was thinking we could do a reverse effect on this to show that the girl is saying take all of this back I don't want your attention.

Lastly We then different shots of the split screen. so that when editing we can put them together to make the split screen scenes, we filmed John pass a bunch of flowers off shot and then Oyinda picking one up from out of the shot. We also filmed John knocking so when we edit them together it will be as if John was knocking on Oyinda's part of the screen we filmed Oyinda ignoring him.

The next location were of to see is... THE PARK! I cant wait to just edit it all, it's all going to be very exciting!

Filming day two!

Today was the film of Kings Head pub in Enfield town, We asked a few months ago if we could film in the pub and they agreed to it! when rang up again today to make sure we could definitely film here and they were very helpful and gave us any props we needed such as a pint glass which was filled up with apple juice to imitate a pint. We were allowed to film behind the bar, this gave us a really good effect as if the setting was realistic!



We firstly filmed the lyrics: 'so you want to buy us a drink then?, no But i was thinking of buying one for your friend' we had John sit on a bar stall and then Danielle walked over and mimed the girls part of the line and then John pushes her head out the way to look at Oyinda sitting behind Danielle, This gives a comical version to the video. As the video is very quirky anyway it's could to conform to this. We did many shots such as the camera tilting upwards form a point of view shot of John eyeing up Oyinda and giving her a wink.



Whilst in the scene we improvised a nit. We saw an opportunity and took it! The pub had one of those game boxes in, we filmed an over the shoulder shot of John looking into the box. Were going to edit this with Final cut pro using Oyinda in the box singing to John .. 'Go away now' This goes to show sometimes you have to improvise on the day
The next location to film is in the photography room which I'm looking forward to.

Filming day one!

The other day, my group went to Danielle's house to film the bedroom scene, using Danielle's bedroom due to the predominantly pink colour scheme which fits in with the pop genre. The location was set using props such as: magazines, mobile phone,teddy and pink cushions:
The group planned Oyinda's costumes in our preparation notes, she was wearing a dark coloured top cat t-shirt we wanted her outfit to be quirky and stand out against the pale pinks in the background, she also wore long brown socks. (picture below)




My group then filmed Oyinda sitting on the bed lip syncing then a high angled one on
the phone with the lyrics...'coz I've lost my phone' We has to keep in mind rule of third, head composition, mise-en-sene such as lighting which turned out very well near the window. Furthermore we filmed Oyinda pulling the same pose as the women in the poster.This gives power to the main protagonist showing she won't be messed with! it's a very powerful image.


I'm looking forward to filming the next stage!

Technical codes for an effective film

Right so we are nearly about to film and have already practiced filming. However their are a few things we need to keep in check to get good shots.

1) Rule of thirds

The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot – using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it.

2) Framing

Framing is were we focus on an issue than a particular topic. Basically meaning that we lean our attention to events and place them withing a wider context of meaning. Framing is important as it can determine the outcome of how people perceive the object or issue.

3) composition

Composition is basically in simple terms how the elements of an image are arranged. Such as the image below. The camera is placed far back which makes the trees look extremely big and archy as you can see the whole composition, however if you were to take a picture close up the effect would be rather different.

4) Headroom

Headroom is the distance between the top of the subject to the frame. Leaving headroom gives a sense of space and context. Depending on how much room the person or object takes up determines how much headroom is left form the head to the frame. For example if the shot is taken close up the less head room is needed. Below is a diagram of amount of headroom needed for this mid closeup shot.

Changes of idea - walking footsteps

Our original idea was for the four characters to chase down the boys to the end of the path with a comical silent movie effect holding heels and a bunch of flowers of example. We thought it would be a good effect to edit this in sepia.

However We changed this idea slightly. As we now only using a soloist singer we've decided that the main protagonist chase the boy down the path then jumping on his back. This shows that the girl really is in charge and she has overall control. Also with the sepia effect we were thinking at the beginning to have 3 shots of the girls feet walking towards the camera 2 times in a sepia effect, I think this would look really effective and give that extra beat of the heal to the song. Similar to the Jordon sparks video.

Final cut pro!

I recently found out were going to be using final cut pro at school. This will be quite a complicated software to use therefore I've made sure I've done my research into how to using it! Here's a clip on YouTube i found which has helped me understand all the amazing effects you can do!

Four screen

Whilst browsing music videos I came over Florence and the machines video. Our video is partly performance and we have decided to use a plain white back drop so the outfits and colours on our performer will stand out. This video by Florence and the Machine reflect ideas that we may include in our performance part. Her bright outfit, movement and props (heart shaped flower bouquet), stand out against the white background.




I particularly like the part of the video when the boy pops out the box, however it would be allot of hastle to imitate this therefore I was thinking we could do a split screen or four screen. With the new final cut pro soft ware we will soon be using we would be able to make this happen. We were thinking of the boy passing flowers to the left hand corner with a point of view shot of the girl looking discussed, similar to this video (example below)

Dolly shots

Homemade dolly ideas!

So basically we really want to do a shot of the girl coming towards the camera and us going back. This would usually be created via a dolly, however due to our limited resources this is not possible to obtain a dolly. However after much research I've found a few ways we could possibly make a dolly!

Dolly one

This idea involves a dolly on a ladder which creates a tack to go up and down. Here is a video to explain further how it works and how to make it. Although this is a genius idea it sounds to complicated and I don't think our group would have the time or the money, as I don't see anyone donating me a ladder!





Dolly two


This idea of a dolly involves using a skateboard! We would attach the dolly to the skateboard and using a piece of string pull the dolly back. however after trying this idea out in my back garden the resulting film was very bump and often sidetracked. However this is still a good idea we just need a smooth surface. This idea is still a possibility. Here is an example of this dolly:



Dolly three

This idea of a homemade dolly involves a bike! I really think this idea would work as you could hold both handle bars whilst one person perching it on top of the bars. We have decided to use this idea in the park scene with the protagonist walking towards the camera lip syncing!

Walk over shot

In Our group discussion today we were thinking of a way how to create an effect of the protagonist walking over the camera then filming then walking of. After much research into we found a video on YouTube of an AS music video of the effect we want to do!



Who ever is filming will lie on the ground across the path that the protagonist is walking. The camera will be facing the protagonist so it looks like a low angle shot. As they approach the camera the shot will look lower and lower until they step over and the camera will follow the step over, until there is an upside down shot of them walking away from the camera. I think this will be an effective shot as it gives power to the protagonist which also links in with the feminism idea of the women in charge. Below is a picture of an example of how we would film the shot.