Above is the final version of digipak with the template lines shown and below is the final version without the template lines.
I have created this specifically and put a lot of thought into it. The front and back cover, which will be seen first by the audience, is intended to have a black and white, grimy and sinister aesthetic which portrays the reality of the two characters within the music video. Once the digipak is opened, the audience is greeted with an explosion of purples and blues which is there to symbolise the nature of the image. This image portrays many people dancing to music and enjoying life for a couple of hours where nothing else matters. The contrast of the outside to the inside matches the contrast of reality to escapism depicted in the music video.
I am now at the point where I have filmed all of my footage needed apart from maybe a few cut away shots which will add to the level of professionalism in this. I have got the footage of the final scene which was filmed in the shed. This footage allowed me too crack on with the editing of the full production which has allowed me to produce my 2nd rough cut which is a clear improvement from the first rough cut. This rough cut however has issues with the aesthetic and the lighting. I will attempt to overcome this issue by making sure I have de-noised the footage and corrected the colour balance levels which I can do by using the inbuilt features within Final cut pro. I have also managed to create a final version of my digipak by obtaining the right photography last night.
Firstly I went onto the internet and accessed the website 'dafont', this website allowed me to browse an entire gallery full of different downloadable fonts. I used this gallery to find a font which would suit the aesthetic and style of my digipak. I firstly looked in the 'script' section of the website and picked out the 'trash' option in an attempt to find a grim looking font which looks almost graffiti like. I chose two fonts which I then downloaded in order to see what they looked like on the digipak. These 2 fonts: 'basterds' and 'road rage' are shown here. I then added both fonts to my digipak and decided I liked the 'road rage' font more due to its aesthetic and how it fit in with my digipak on a whole.
I then searched through the existing footage I have from the rave scene of my music video and found a still frame which I then exported as an image.
I then exported the still frame image and imported it into photoshop. Where I made the adjustments which you can see on the right. These adjustments included reducing the noise of the image as it was taken from a moving video. Other adjustments included altering the contrast and exposure levels in order to give it a purple vibrance and to sort the lighting of the image out.
I then exported the image as a JPEG so that I could edit it in Adobe Illustrator. Once the adjusted still frame had been imported into adobe illustrator, I fit it to size by creating a clipping mask which was the size of the space in which the image will fill. I chose this method so that I avoided cropping it and squeezing the image down which therefore didn't distort the image in any way.
I then had to flip the image horizontally in order to make sure that the image is not upside down when it comes to implementing the physical copy of the digipak.
I then found two vectors on the internet which were both copyright free and used them in the digipak. I used the record label logo and a template for a barcode in order to meet the conventions of this product type.
I then moved on to the editing process of the text itself. I chose to place a gradient fill inside the text but could not decide between two different colour schemes. The 1st colour scheme was a light blue/purple gradient which would coincide nicely with the colour and aesthetic of the photo being used on the inside of the digipak. The 2nd colour scheme I came up with was the Rastafarian colour scheme which contains red green and yellow. This colour scheme, in my eyes, was more aesthetically pleasing and more contrasting to the other colours in the digipak. I felt that due to the contrast in colours this colour scheme would produce it would effect the simplicity of the design and therefore make it too busy.
I then copied an pasted the title and rotated by 90 degrees in order to place it on the spine of the digipak.
I then found the commonly used chase and status logo on the internet and imported the image into flash where I attempted to copy the logo by using the onion skin feature. Once I had my own drawn version of the logo I could then choose the colours within the logo. I had another dilemma at this stage between the previous 2 gradient colour schemes and incorporated both versions into the adobe illustrator file.
I also used the black and white version of the logo, rotated it by 90 degrees and incorporated it into the spine in between the artist and album name.
I then had the issue of facing another dilemma in the sense that I didn't know whether to use both versions of logo or just the Rastafarian colour schemed version. I then decided, with the advice of both my teacher and peers to use both in an attempt to utilise 'the best of both worlds'.
Once I had taken the appropriate images for the digipak front cover, I was then able to edit them within photoshop in order to achieve the right aesthetic to make it work with the digipak.
I was able to reach the intended, grimy and sinister aesthetic by turning the image into black and white by using the inbuilt feature within photoshop.
I then imported the JPEG into adobe illustrator. once this file was in illustrator I created a clipping mask with a rectangle of the exact size in which the image will fill on the template.
I then placed the image into the correct space and found that I couldn't see any of the other graphics as they were now hidden underneath the image. I then had to move the layer the image was on to the bottom and reduce the opacity in order for all the graphics to be seen at the same time.
I am now up to the point where I am getting started on the 2 ancillary tasks despite the fact that I have one more scene left to shoot. I am happy with the progress I am making, however I am slightly worried about the aesthetic of my film as it looks grainy and noisy. I am finding that the footage I got from the club scene in particular is very dark which produces the grain once the exposure is decreased. Me and sir have come up with a plan on how to de-noise the footage which we will do once all of the footage has been shot. Another issue I am facing is actually getting the footage I need, I have not fail;med now for over a month due to my actor's not being able to meet up when its convenient for everyone involved, my deadline for the footage is by the end of this half term so in order to meet this deadline I will need to complete the filming this weekend. Other than these issues I am happy with where my production is at.
