Advert In Progress

Today we began editing our advert for the album. As assumed the dark photos taken in the drama studio would not have been affective enough, even with the red neon triangle. Therefore we have decided to take an image which we had initially shot to go in the digipak. Our chosen picture was one from our shoot at the skate-park. We chose this picture because it helped to give off the 'edgy' vibe our band was aiming towards. The clothes worn in the picture perfectly represent the image that we feel our target audience would look up to. Furthermore, the background is that of a grey wall. This highlights the free-spirited, laid-back emotion of the genre as grey is seen as a relatively insipid colour. The faces of the band further present these emotions as each member has a care-free expression. We are planning to get feedback from our peers and teachers about our chosen image to see if we need to pick a different photo or if the current image being used is good enough.

          We framed the photo and placed it onto a black background because we wanted the font to be white. The black background and white font mixed with the grey image creates a wonderful colour scheme. This means that it is very attractive to the reader. We used three fonts on the cover; One urban looking font at the top for the band name as this is the vibe we were trying to create. A smoky font for the album name as it reinforces the connotations of the word 'temptress'. Then finally, quite a simple font for the rest as this is not important information and does not need to be instantly noticed by the reader.

          At the top of the page we placed the band's logo to reinforce the band image. We also added in information such as 'Deluxe Edition' and ratings from revered music companies. We did this so that the reader would know this is not your everyday album. It is a deluxe one with special features with five star ratings from some of the most respected critics in the industry.

          Finally, we added in a web address for the bands' main website, to let the reader know where to find out more information. Then placed social media logos at the bottom right to show even more platforms to follow the band on.

Digipak Photos

Once completing the shoot for our digipak, we narrowed down our choices of pictures to our favourite ones based on the quality of the picture and the composition.

These first two photos would be featured on the front of the digipak. The first one has two male hands in the photo, one being crushed by the woman and the other reaching for the vodka bottle. The legs are nicely positioned within the frame however the males hands look slightly awkward and unnatural. The second photo is pretty much the same shot but without the second hand reaching for the vodka bottle. This brings more attention to the crushed hand which is meant to be the main focus as it can link to the album title 'temptress' as a temptress often has control over someone. More specifically a female having control over a male, which is what we're trying to present here. 

These next four pictures are the images of lips that we will use to put on the CD. The bottom three are probably more likely to be used as they are more in focus than the first one. if we were to use the second or third image, we would completely cut the lips out and put it against another background on the CD. The second one looks more seductive and therefore fits the theme of the album, whereas the third image is more playful which may create the wrong tone for the album. The last image of the lips is a side view of the lips, if we were to use this we would cut out the whole face and put it on the CD, however this may not create the seductive affect that we wanted.

These three band shots are our favourites to place on the inside left of the digipak. We experimented with different backgrounds and positionings of the band members. The three shots all vary in location and positioning of the band members. Therefore we will choose which photo we use when everything else with the digipak is finished so we can see which image works most affectively with the other images included in the digipak.

These three images of smoke are of a really high quality and look very affective. The smoke images will be used in various way throughout the production of the digipak. One photo must go on the back of the digipak where the track list will go over the top. Due to the smoke being less thick in the first one and there also being a blank space towards the left where text could be easily placed, this photo is most likely going to be used for that. also, one of the other two images might be used to go underneath the lips on the CD. Finally, we want to create a 'smokey' font so we may use one of these images of smoke to create this affect.

Digipak & Advert - Second Shoot

Today we were taking more photos for our digipak. We started off in the studio to get the picture of the lips for the CD part of the digipak. We used Becca's lips with a really dark, seductive red lipstick which links in with the colour of the lipstick that Laura is wearing throughout the video, linking the theme of temptation between the two products. This is also one of our important signifiers in the video so we wanted to continue this idea of seduction and temptation into the digipak too.

We then moved onto retaking the photos we already had of the female in heels standing on a mans hand. We looked through the photos we got from our last shoot and we decided we weren't happy. There was nothing else in the foreground or background that suggested a chaotic or unstable life so we decided to take some props like glass bottles of Smirnoff etc. and crushed cans to add a bit more mise-en-scene into the shot. We are much happier with the shots that we got as a result of taking the photos again.

Then we went to a skate park to take photos of the band for the left inside cover of the digipak. We wanted quite a serious looking image for this part of the digipak and we think that we have managed to achieve this in this shoot. We used a few different locations within the skate park including backgrounds with and backgrounds without graffiti so we have plenty of photos to choose from, depending on which background looks most effective.

Here are a few behind the scenes photos from today:

Here we are in the studio taking the pictures of Becca's lips. For these shots we used a zoom lens to
get really close to her lips. We also used the large avalilable lights in the studio.

These photos were taken as we were getting the pictures for the picture of the woman in heels standing on a man's hand.

We tried out various locations in the skate park to take the images of our band.

This was our next backdrop at the skate park. We much preferred this because the graffiti in the background was more like a piece of art and it also had an image of a skull which we thought was quite fitting to our theme and the image of our band. Here are some of the shots we achieved from this:

This was the final background we used in the skate park. We thought that this could turn out to be quite an interesting shot if we managed to get the framing right. Here are some examples of images we got from this:

Digipak and Advert Target Audience Advice

We asked a range of males and females aged 16 - 24 what they would want to see on an advert and Digipak for our bands album. Here are our most valued responses -

"From viewing your music video i think your digipak and advert need to have an urban feel, maybe use a dark colour palette"

"I think any shots you take of the band should be taken in the same sort of location as the one used in the performance side of the video"

"Since your narrative brings forth the idea of addiction and temptation i think you should try to include these themes in both your digipak and advert"

"Make sure it looks professional so try and use a barcode, a disclaimer notice, reviews and release dates and things like that"

"Try and make the style of your digipak and advert fit to the genre of your band"

We will be using all of the feedback we gained to help us produce a good quality digipak and advert as it is imperative to create our ancillary texts with our target audience in mind. 

Advert Photos

For our poster, we decided that we were going to include an image of the band and so we decided to take pictures of our band in the drama hall, coincidentally the same place where we had filmed our music video rough-cut as it's dark backdrop gave our image an extremely dark look. Prior to shooting these images, we knew that we wanted them to form a triangle shape, allowing us to create a neon triangle / light effect which would surround the three band members. To make this effect easier to achieve we used red lighting on the band members. Here are those images which we took.

Due to Jamie's dark clothing, it is very hard to see anything other than his face, hands and shoes in the images. We may have to consider reshooting these photos or possibly using images that we take for our digipak on the advert instead. This is because the advert wont be affective enough with such dark images.

Digipack Analysis 5 - Twenty One Pilots - Blurryface

Here is 'Twenty One Pilots' digipak for their album 'Blurry Face'. Like many of the digipaks we have looked at, the front cover does not feature the band members. Instead it features animated images of 9 circles with different patterns inside of them. We are also planning on using an image for the front cover which doesn't feature the band, however we will photograph a still which will relate to our album title rather than animating one. The Placement of the text has the bands name at the top and the album title at the bottom, this seems to be a common convention therefore we will more than likely follow this layout. The fonts are slightly different as the album title has a line going through it. We are considering using Photoshop to create a smoky font for our album title. When practicing creating the font we have experimented using the smudge tool to also draw a line through the middle of our text as we liked the effect it created.

The colour scheme of the digipak is black, whites, and reds. This is also the colour scheme we used in our music video and so we will also be using this colour scheme for our digipak. From looking at this digipak it has reassured us that this is the colour scheme we would like to go for as it looks edgy which is the look we want to achieve. The use of lines and circles creates a really abstract feel to the digipak, it is also so simple to achieve with a really nice effect. We may also use some lines on our digipak to structure the front cover.

The back of the digipak features the tracklist. The song titles aren't numbered, this seems to be a convention followed by some, whereas other digipaks do number them. When we come to layout our back of the digipak we will experiment with both and see which we prefer. The placement of their song titles is towards the left of the page, it is likely we will also be placing our tracklist towards the left of the page, however we will have it further left due to the picture we are considering to use behind the text. We must also make sure to include a barcode on the back of our CD as well as a disclaimer notice as these will make it look more professional and realistic.

Digipak & Advert - First Shoot

Today we started taking pictures for our digipak and advert. We started off in a dark sheltered area near where we live to take pictures of the woman in heels crushing a mans hand. We had a play around using different lenses and different lighting to see if we could achieve the shot we wanted.  We decided on this shot as we thought it matched our music video as the girl is in complete control in our video.

We used the location shown in the pictures below as it had quite a run down, urban feel to it to match our bands image.  We also later used the dark drama hall in school for another shot as it represented the darkness our main character in the video feels whilst trying to tackle his addiction.

We then headed back to school to use the drama studio to get photos of our band in a completely black space for the advert and also to get pictures of white smoke against a black background. To get this effect we used a vape instead of actual smoke due to the indoor location that we had to use to get the photo. We also had a short time scale to do this in as we were wary about setting off the smoke alarm. We didn't set the alarm off and we managed to get everything done that we wanted to today so it was a successful shoot. This has given us lots of confidence in our ideas and has also given us a good idea of how our digipak and advert are going to look.

Here are a few pictures we took while we were out.