Preliminary Tasks - CD Digipak

What is a CD 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. Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.
Digipacks have pros and cons:

• They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.
  
• Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.
  
• The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.
  
• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.
  
• Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

As part of the A2 Media Studies specification, you are required to produce two 'preliminary tasks' pieces; in my case these consist of a whole CD case (Digipack), producing both back and front covers and also the booklet describing the band found on the inside of the case itself. Along with that I will produce an A4 sized poster, advertising the band themselves along with the new CD. Firstly I am going to produce the CD case; for I can then use this on the poster as an advert as a large advert, adding diversity to my individual poster (for this is not done as a group). Here are some examples of CD covers from bands within the same genre of music our task is based around;

This is an album cover by the band 'A Day To Remember', a globally recognized band throughout the 'Rock' Industry. I really like this cover due to its simplicity in the sense that the foreground image is the same colour scheme as the text, which relates nicely to the colour of the background. However the cracks accross the Digipack give it a warmer look, taking away the monotonous feel to a simple Digipack and giving it a more realistic feel - something I hope to achieve in my Digipack.

This is a Digipack by Nirvana, now I'm sure you will have heard of them! This Digipack is phenominal in my opinion, the image tells alot about the album before hearing it, a deep feel is abundant. The text is fantastic, with the band name in it's usual font, (known globally, attracting viewer attention) then the album name in a contrasting font, however keeping in relation to the relaxing waves portrayed by the image. I believe the photo relates to chasing dreams, even from a young age, which is something Nirvana have persistantly achieved since they started back in 1987. The colour of the image is brilliant, with a vertical fade in the background image in the blue, and the text staying simple and punchy.

This is a the CD Digipack for Emarosa, although not known as globally as Nirvana, Emarosa are a specifically targetting band, with the singer doing variations to express the singularity of the band, branching out to other target audiences (with bands such as isles and glaciers etc) The image is a confusing one, leaving the viewer to interpret it how they wish - much like the Nirvana image, although due to the lack of realism, this Digipack could relate to any number of thoughts. I really like the colour scheme across the image.

Combining Research - How the 'Rock' genre has changed over the years, how will this effect the production of our Music Video and why?

As stated in an earlier post, the 'Rock' genre has adapted drastically since it first became popular; from the genre name, to the style of singing and instruments bands use. As we are planning to use a song from a more recent era, our music video will have to take into account the ideas and constructs of those from a more recent time, and leave behind the concepts used many years ago. The reasoning behind this is that if we get caught up in old style 'Rock' music videos, our target audience would effectively change; and we would be trying to combine a modern song with a very de-modernised style of video, which would not come across effective at all!
The modernised music video uses a variety of different shots to create a very gripping, effective portrayal of the band and the song itself. This is what we are trying to incorporate into our music video during production, the planning we have made and the production techniques we plan to use revolve around a modernised music video - using a variety of shots from different angles.


The effect on how the 'Rock' genre has changed throughout recent times will greatly effect the production of our music video because it changes the way any producer plans to distribute their work throughout a target or strayed audience. If we were to produce an old-style music video, distribution would be limited to more vintage shops, especially when just selling the video. Modernised distributors sell their productions to a specific audience through technological convergence (through the use of media and new technologies in and ever expanding world). If we plan to keep up with this style of production we must learn and produce techniques used throughout the 'Rock' genre when producing a video, otherwise our production will be highly unjustifiable within the modern world.


 Below are some screen shot clips from music videos by 'Slipknot', a band within the 'Rock' genre. I have used these clips because they show clearly how technological convergence is a huge part of music video production in the modern world and can give you and idea as to some of the lighting effects and mise-en-scene we plan to use in our video.

As you can see throughout all three of the munched screen shot collages, many different lighting effects are used, some of which bring high contrasted attention to specific parts of the video, others are used purely for the viewers enjoyment.


Other note-able techniques would be the use of mise-en-scene throughout the clips. For example, in the third collage titled 'Dead Memories', the third row and middle picture you can clearly see a man as the protagonist within the shot, Light is almost radiating off his body and he is the clear target for the viewers vision. This is done through a range of medial effects, including the manipulation of lighting and scenery, as seen with the black lines almost being pulled out of his body towards to edges of the screen, giving the idea that he is walking down a never-ending corridor. At first glance these techniques may not be so obvious but after careful manipulation of the image it is clearly used to increase the viewers attention to one specific point of the shot.