Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts?

When trying to conceptualize a design for my digipak I decided to research other album covers and poster from bands of the same or similar genre. Similar genres would include: Indie Rock, Blues, Folk and Alternative. All aspects of these genres are relevant to my band and my music video. Bands like Arctic Monkeys, Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, are all in similar genres but each have their own unique style. When creating my digipak I wanted to create something that would engage the target audience by using generic conventions of the genre. To get a good understanding of the conventions used, developed, or challenged by professional promotional packages I will be looking at the Digipak for the Arctic Monkeys album what ever people say I am, thats what Im not, and the music video for the song when the sun goes down, featured on the album. The Arctic Monkeys are well known for their music videos usually depicting broken Britain in some manor. Weather it be drugs, domestic abuse, depression, sexism or violence their videos often have a deeper meaning to what would be expected from their fast pasted musical style. These themes are a recurring motif (Goodwin) and thus create a style that has come to be know around their work and therefore the audience would expect their artwork and magazine designs to have a similar them throughout their albums. Most, if not all, of AMs music videos have a darker colour scheme to what most pop music videos have. This is reflected in their album cover which often have relevance to the music and does not show the band members. They also have had semi-famous British Actor/Actress star in there videos. For example Paddy Considine and Stephen Graham, have both started in a music video by AM and both are well know for there gritty independent British film making.

Panel 1
After producing our music video it was our task to create a digipak for our production to successfully expression the themes and tone of the music video. To be able to do this I took a number of stills with my actors in various locations. These included the empty car park seen in the video, some outside locations and the one you see in the final design. The reason I eventually when with this images was because I wanted the sense of realism and passion to emanate from the cover art. Also having the actors look directly into the camera creates a documentary feel to the design, connoting the grief, young love and British identity. This develops generic conventions of cover art, especially in mainstream genres, because it is symbolic and eloquent take on the common design of a simple face to promote the artist of bands look. It is also often the case that bands under contract by recoding companies and record labels, are required to have a simple album cover so that the widest audience would buy the album. But my extension was to connect the audience to the character of the music video on an emotional level. For example Adeles cover for her album 21 has her in a close up picture. The style and facial expression show the public viewer the genre and emotional level of the album. It was my intension to do the same. My music video has a very genre driven visual element to it. Most indie groups do make music videos with a dramatic element, therefore we stayed within the conventions of the indie genre, but still developed it by adding our own visual style. Were therefore made our Digipak continue and enhance that style so that the innocence of the characters and the band were not lost. The lighter colouring of panel 1 is intended to be in contrast to the bleak look of the music video, connoting that even though the dark video is sad and depressing (depending on how you see the ending), there is still opportunity to be pessimistic. And this continuation of a lighter colour scheme is so that the audience feels wormer toward the band when buying or listening to the album.

Panel 2 & 3
Panel 2 and 3 are the inside cover designs for the digipak. They are not meant to be what attract the audience to the album, but serve as a pleasant visual surprise for whoever purchases the album. The intention was to create thematic links between the video and the project. For example panel 2 has the female protagonist standing outside the house you see in the flashback section of the music video. This is intended to create the idea of longing and memories from the past. To someone with a sharp eye they will spot that the pattern from the scarf iconic in the music video is visible in the background. Almost looking like it is park of the door, this further intensifies the iconic meaning and recurring motif for the music video.
Panel three keeps the same theme and idea behind the design, but there are some visual and meaningful differences. For example, we are now looking out of the house, out to the open world. But this time the female it gone, this indicates that she has passed from this world (up to the audience if she has died or simply moved on) and has no more purpose staying. However this time the scarf pattern is much more obvious in this panel. The reason for doing this is to enhance the memory and tragic nature of the female character. Once again, I have chosen to use the performers on my panels to continue the theme of characters and visuals. This also provides a visual link to the music video as the performers used on the digipak are same as in the video. Therefore the audience will be able to make easy and direct thematic links to the visuals and the production.

Panel 4
Panel 4 is also keeping the same style and visual aesthetics as the front panel. The back panel is meant to be opposite to the front in many respects. For instance it has the male character to indicate the connection between the pair. However his face is much more downcast and serious. This indicates the bleak reality of his situation. The fact that he is wearing the same costume as in the music video creates a direct link between the two that the audience can relate to. The font for the title tracks was chosen for its simplicity. This is because I wanted to make this panel as gritty and real as possible, and not disconnected to reality as the others are. Quite often the back panel is reserved for a picture of the band in a group (if they werent on the front cover), but I wanted all my panels to relate and connect to the visual aspect of my music video. This keeps the genre of the band in clear focus.

Magazine advert
My magazine utilises the same style of photo the thematic links, while have a slightly different design. Taking very similar shots from the photo shoot of the two main characters I have attempted to make their faces unanimous with this digipak to make them as iconic as possible. By using the characters on the magazine advert, it will also allow audiences to identify the character in the music video due to seeing him prior in the advert/or on the album cover. Keeping with the recurring theme of a documentary styled production, I have both character looking into the camera, however both in different ways. The male character still has his serious and stern face, while I had my actress have a smile and seam disconnected to reality. I did this to attempt to convey a sense of two opposites: gritty reality and dreamlike uncertainty. The background style was created in Photoshop and is also designed to create the harsh realism while having the sense of being disconnected. Overall, this magazine poster was created to make the audience relate and sympathies with the characters. If we look an example of Kaiser Chiefs advert for their album angry mob, we can see clear links in colour scheme and image style, but they still divert from the album cover.