Digi Pack

Digipak Forms and Conventions

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We now need to have a look at how digipaks  are designed to work alongside videos to support the promotion of a new album.

Consider digipak covers. What do they have in common? What are the forms (technical elements for all CD covers) and genre conventions (designs particular to that genre of the music)?

Here are our notes on the conventions of a digipak. Read them when you get stuck.

Now you must find a digipak cover from the same genre as your music video and annotate it for the design forms and genre conventions. This must be uploaded to your blog. Make it detailed and use the terms from the sheets below. Try and find the back of it too, that would be great for some of the technical forms i.e. barcode, publisher logo etc.

Click for an example analysis

You should focus on: images, graphics, illustrations, font, colour, technical conventions (barcode, parental advisory, album title on spine, tracks on the back), register of copy, mise-en-scene, composition, intertextual references, how does the cover communicate meaning, denotations and connotations, image manipulation, filters, generic conventions, how can it be ‘read/interpreted’ by an audience, star image, metanarrative, representation?

YOU ARE DOING A MEDIA LANGUAGE ESSAY AT THE MOMENT – THIS IS A MINI ESSAY ON HOW MEDIA LANGUAGE IS USED IN PRINT DESIGN TO ENCODE MEANING. WHAT DO THE COLOURS, IMAGES, FONTS, LANGUAGE, PHOTOGRAPHS, FRAMING, COMPOSITION, ANGLES ALL ENCODE?

Your Album Brand & Mission Statement

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Remember the brief?

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video (major task), together with a website for the band and a digipak for the album’s release (minor tasks).

It is important to note from the beginning that you are not making a digipack and website to advertise your music video! You are launching a new album, which contains that song, but which also contains a number of other tracks.

So before you start planning the print and web elements of this promotional package. You need to be clear about the mission statement for the whole campaign. You must think more holistically about the album and create an integrated advertising campaign…

Your Marketing Strategy & Mission Statement

Who is your Audience?

  • Who they are (demographics)
  • What other media they consume and participate in.
  • What their values attitudes and beliefs (ideology / psychographics)

A Call to Action

  • How do you want the audience to engage with your star / album
  • How will they invest time and money in your star / album

Who are the competition?

  • Name three similar bands / artists.
  • What are the trends in album designs of similar stars / bands?
  • What does their website look like?

Your USP (Unique Selling Point)

  • Is your star already established or are trying to establish a new presence in the market?
  • What is your star image & how are you trying to innovate / develop that image?
    • Are you mixing up elements of different genres?
    • Are you trying to re-brand your star?
    • Are you emphasising the ordinary or extraordinary?
      • Remember according to Dyer meta narratives include both.

Your Mission Statement.

  • In 50 words or fewer write an agreed mission statement that includes the central idead that will unify your brand.
    • This will include ideas represented in your music video, but must also bring in a wider range of ideas that you will develop as you make your 3D Moodboard.

TASK.

Complete this mission statement in production groups and copy it into your blog.

This blog post is essential for when you come to complete Creative Critical Reflection 2.

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

Continue reading

Star Image – Representation

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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STAR IMAGE!

How the star/band/performer is represented in your video and on the digipak and website is crucial in constructing the values, attitudes and beliefs of the artist in the mind of the target audience.

REPRESENTATION, AUDIENCE AND OWNERSHIP ARE COMPLETELY INTERTWINED CONCEPTS!

WHAT IS THE INSTITUTIONAL PURPOSE OF A MUSIC VIDEO?

Music videos are made primarily to promote the star, in order to sell their music, in order to make money…well mostly!

They are also constructed to construct a set of desires in the target audience to be like them, think like them, love what they love, be involved in their lives & buy what they suggest.

There are huge synergies between marketing and star image! We don’t just buy a product we also buy into the values of the star image and in purchasing their product emulate them. Media representations of the star image is crucial in terms of raising an audience awareness.

STARS SHOULD BE STUDIED AND ANALYSED LIKE ANY OTHER TEXT!

They are essentially walking talking brands, who use their branding to advertise, publicise and sell to fans. Stars have to remain constantly interesting to keep the fans intrigued – the star image evolves and is constantly reinvented by media companies! In fact Stars could be seen as its own special kind of ‘species’.

RICHARD DYER

Richard Dyer Handout

Richard Dyer is a theorist you need to learn about. He came up with some concepts about how ‘star image’ works in the media. The link to the concepts booklet is in the menu at the top of the blog. Find it, add it to your drive, print it, LEARN IT!

TASK

CREATE A ONLINE CONCEPT BOARD IN PINTEREST/GOMOODBOARD STAR IMAGE (you can use any other collage app of your choice but you must be able to annotate the images you upload to it).

Your task is to take the ‘star’ (performer, duet, band, group…) you analysed when you did the genre analysis and create a ‘concept board’ on how they are ‘represented‘.

Find examples of news stories, incidents, events, digipak covers, music videos, articles, blogs, tweets that all contribute to their ‘star image’. The way they are represented is called their ‘metanarrative‘ (over arching story about them).

Image result for pinterest

And remember, just as you do in your TV drama analysis – you must add ADJECTIVES to how they appear through that particular event, story, picture etc. You can do this task as a group but must all equally contribute to the page.

This is a link to an excellent example. You should have at least 15 – 20 images and comments.

Genre analysis

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TASK (this is collaborative so you can submit the same document but you all have to equally contribute).

Victoria Sponge! One way of remember what ‘genre’ is all about.

Create a Slideshow with a voice-over or a Voicethread focusing on the Repertoire of Elements necessary for your particular band /artist to be generically conventional.   You could also use Screencastify to record your voice over. You can then embed it in your blog. You could  also mention print design.  You can probably already use a lot of your ideas from your song pitch but be careful not to just copy this but instead use it as a foundation for exploring the genre of your song and how this will impact on the video, web pages and  digipak.

Some of the suggested areas of music videos to cover are on this sheet but you should consider:

  • Website of similar artists
  • Album art from similar artists
  • Videos of similar artists

Find generically similar artists.

  • Discuss who they are, what do they wear, how do they style themselves, where do they perform, who are their fans, how are their digipaks / videos similar, what common features are there in their music videos (fast paced editing, hand held camera, filters, locations, authentic/live performances, produced performances etc). Use your performer too in among the analysis.

Use this document to structure your slideshow

Ensure you get the following terms in to your presentation and also your introduction and reflect on the value of the task in the blog:  

  • Repertoire of elements
  • Conventions
  • Blueprint
  • Predictable pleasure
  • Contract
  • Label
  • Target audience

Consider ‘genre’ as you produce your video and it will be so much easier to talk about if it comes up in the exam in Section 1b. 

Here is an example from last year