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.
Today we started using adobe illustrator in an attempt to make some progress with the ancillary task of the digipak. I have never actually used illustrator despite being comfortable in using adobe photoshop and after effects and being very knowledgeable in using adobe flash. Because of my prior knowledge on existing adobe products, I found it easy to work my way around illustrator as the tools and navigational panels were similar. However as adobe illustrators function and purpose differs to these other programs I did have some minor difficulties.
The first tool I explored was the opacity tool which I like to use within graphic design as I find that it helps in terms of making certain things stand out and in terms of having images layer up on top of each other without making the aesthetic too busy and keeping a level of simplicity within the design.
I believe that this tool is one of the most important, the colour picker tool. This tool will allow you to change the colour of almost anything on the stage, primarily things you have created but also vectors that you have imported into the stage externally.
This tool is used so that you can change ur font of ur text into something which fits the aesthetic of your graphic. This is helpful as you can quickly decide which font to use as they show examples on the drop down list.
This navigation drop down list holds the tools in order to create a variety of different shapes which can be filled and have an outline with colours of the users preference.
Here is the text tool, a tool used to create text I'm simple terms, this tool can be used with many other tools to create effects and aesthetics. This tool will allow you to include a text content within your work.
The make clipping mask tool, a complex but easy to use tool. This tool is basically a cropping tool but you can make it as specific as you want so that an image fits a specific shape such as a star or even a splatter shape.
This is the layers window this window is one of the most important features within illustrator, this is because it allows you to order and manage what goes where on the stage and also in what you can see or edit on stage. This is helpful as it allows the user to make changes specifically to one component of the design rather than disrupt the fluency of the aesthetic.
This tool is used to arrange your graphics on your stage so that things are in the right order. This can often be used with the opacity tool in order to make things look professional.
As you can see from this test footage I have taken shots from each of the scenes in order to assess the aesthetic in which that location produces and to then see if that coincides with the rest of my production fluently or if it looks out of place. I am initially happy with all of the footage in which I have gathered from the test shoots as I believe that they all look like the aesthetic from each of the locations will nicely coincide with each other, this is down to the quality, the colours used within the shots and the brightness. The club scene is filmed however on a different piece of equipment, a go pro, which is easily recognisable as you can see the quality is slightly worse than the rest of the footage. This however is fine as I believe it will constructively add to the level of verisimilitude as my production is not an attempt to glamourise or aesthetically enhance the rave culture but instead to show it from a real perspective. Kyle's house: I liked the location for Kyle's house because it represents Kyle in the way I want it too. As you can see from the neat and tidy environment found within this house, you can grasp the idea that he is not lazy or a slack character but he takes pride in what he has despite that not being luxury. He is from a working class background alike all of the characters in this production but he is not content at his social class. Luna's house: I also really liked Luna's house as I believed it captured her non materialistic weirdness well, the use of paintings and artwork helped with the depiction of a culturally rich individual who has little time for investment into material belongings in an attempt to impress others. The girly environment is also well captured in this environment which allows the audience to associate the naked woman painting and the texts with the characters sexuality. Jordan's house: I thought that Jordan's house captured the essence of deprivation well but maybe not well enough. The location could be made to look more grim and dirty in order to properly emphasise the fact that the character is disadvantaged economically. I also found that the tv was too big in the living room where Jordan's dad was passed out drunk as it gave off the opposite aesthetic to a poor and deprived working class environment. Club: I found that the club was perfect for my video, this is because it catered for an underground and almost illegal aesthetic by not having fancy strobe lights nor fancy bars and too many good-looking people. From this the audience is then able to associate the underground vibe with a more scary and risky experience with the characters pleasure. Shed: I found that the shed had a good aesthetic with the use of painting dotted around randomly on the walls, the use of old furniture all pilled into one room and the numerous people piled in with smiles on their faces.
Here you can see the messages which was sent forward and backwards between me and my actors with regards to arranging filming times and what props/locations are necessary. I used 5 actors in total and messages with all5 of them are shown below. I also used a group chat within Facebook messenger in order to communicate with my 3 main actors collaboratively so that no information is missed on anyones behalf.
