Digi Pack Plan

Whilst editing our video we also began the process of designing our digipack for our ancillary tasks in order to use our time effciently. After researching other Killer's designs for their products we began to barin storm ideas for our own design. We felt we had to vary some of the conventions in order to portray our story and idea of shadowplay and unlike most Killer's album covers we used a prominant image, rather than just a low key background they tend to use. This made our work more unique and striking. We did however comply with the font conventions as it kept in with the uniform style. Here our the drafts and initial barinstorm ideas:

We really liked the effect of an overlay as it successfully conveyed the idea of the boy's entrapment in his nightmare, represented by the clown. We also wanted to use our uniform colours of black, white and yellow which represent the shadows and lack of light in his life/nightmare, whilst the yellow is a striking colour for details such as text that we want to stand out.

On set we began taking photos on Aisha's camera for our magazine and digipack. Here is a link to all the original photos we took as ideas for our final ancillary products.

With a good idea of the look we wanted to achieve we began manipulating images in Photoshop:

We took this image using a torch underneath the camera, facing up towards Harry’s face. This provided bright lighting and a slighting menacing look we wanted to achieve. We then desaturated the image and increased the saturation of the image. We also erased the background with a faded brush, so that the edges were not too harsh. We then used the circular shape tool to draw a circle around the image, and inverted the image so that we could erase the outer shape. This was the image use for the CD.

This image was used to overlay over Harry for both the cd cover and magazine poster. Editing the puppet posed some difficulties due to the puppets hair, and the original lighting. To produce the image on the left, we had to increase both the contrast and brightness of the image. We also added a faint lighting effect (spotlight) in the bottom left corner of the image. We also erased the background of the image with a faded rubber, to ensure the edges were not too hard. We then placed the image on a black background.

This image above, was eventually used for the back cover of our digipack as we decided a less overpowering image would be the most effective and this was also a convetion we found when doing our research. The image was taken in the woods, where some of the footage was filmed. To create the image to the right, we had to reduce the fill and opacity of the original and place it on top a black background. We also imputted an extremely faint image of Harry in the bottom right corner. We achieved this effect by manipulating the opacity and fill are both to around 20%, so it is extremely faint. We decided to incorporate this because it is unnoticeable, similarly to how the puppet was unnoticeable to Harry.

Audience Feedback

Once we had completed our rough cut we had a group viewing with members of our target audience; young adults who enjoy Indie rock music. We presented our video to the group and received both positive and constructive written feedback once they had seen the video.

The main responses we received were:

• The editing matched the pace of the music well and that there was a good distinct change between the beginning and where the music builds in the instrumental.
• Angry scene (instrumental) was effective and lighting and pace of editing helped achieve this
• The alleyway however did not match editing and most people felt the pace of cuts needed to be faster
• Some shots, such as the strings coming down, were too dark
• There were extra clips in the switch between shadows and no shadows (chorus)
• The pace of editing in the forest could be slowed down
• The clip with lip-singing was too long and needed cuts between
• overall people really liked the idea and concept

In response to this feedback our group have made some vital decisions. We have decided to re-film the alleyway and end sequence as we felt it didn't fit into the uniform look of our video but looked quite amateur. We also decided to re-film the strings section and other parts due to poor,dim lighting. We are also in the process of tightening our editing in some areas, such as the chorus and the forest. We also decided cuts between the lip-singing section would look very effective.


The feedback session was very useful and important to our project as ultimately our target audience's opinion is the most important and helped us look at our video from a different perspective.

Rough Cut

Untitled from Hulya Levent on Vimeo.

Time lapse

Megan took Harry into Dartford Town centre in order to film the time lapse on Sunday however the town was far too dead and so the footage wouldn't have looked very effective! so she returned the next day after school as Harry stood still, in the middle of town for 15 minuets. As it is winter and the days are short it began to get dark however this actually looked quite effective and fitted into our over all mise en scene and style for our video.

we centered Harry in the middle of the frame to give him dominance over the busy movements around him and used this technique through out most of our filming. we also made sure he was at the forefront of the frame despite it being a long shot.

Digi Pack Photos

Whilst we were out filming we decided it would be a good opportunity to take some photos for our digipack in which we have to create a CD cover and promotion poster.

From experience we gained last year and further research into Indie genre conventions we had a good idea of how we wanted the CD cover to look. We wanted to somehow overlay the images of the puppet and Harry in order to portray his inner torment and a sense of being trapped in a nightmare in which the puppet is the dominator.

Here our some of initial drafts just to get a feel for how we are going to manipulate the images in photoshop and the kind of look we want to achieve;

Using photoshop we manipulated the contrast of the photos in order to create a sharper more striking image. We then inputted some text and our choice of font was influenced by our research into previous Killers albums:

We chose the colours according to our research and also the effectiveness of the colours against our the background of the woods which had the potential to be very overpowering. However the yellow was striking and eye catching and so we decided to make this our uniform colour scheme along with black and white which represents our idea of "Shadowplay"

Digipack Research

Before we could even begin to designs our digi pack we needed to fully understand the conventions of a digipack and how they are targeted at their audiences. This required intensive research on the topic. We found that a digipack was described as "A form of jewel case, for holding one or more CDs or DVDs, in which the outer cover is of card rather than plastic." Digipacks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Digipacks are not only used for CD covers but also DVD's.

In order to ensure professionalism in our work it was important for us to use the correct sizing for our digipack. We found this information out from a website called http://www.4bmartinvest.co.uk/fulfilment/pa-digipak.htm which distributes the "Flexi trays" used in digipacks. The information we found out was that the typical size of a CD tray is 135mm x 125 mm. Now that we know the correct size of the tray this enables us to make correct sizing of our images on Photoshop etc.
The word digipack is really just a fancy way of saying what we would call a CD case. In modern society with an increasing competitive market in the music industry and the competition from downloading online, the digipack has become increasingly more important to the success of the single/album being sold. The CD cover has the ability to determine the track's visual desirability and it must make our CD stand out on the rack. It also imprints an image into consumer's mind and makes it recognisable. This puts a huge importance on the design and layout of the digipack. However this also varies according to the market you are trying to appeal to. Here is an exmaple of two digipack appealing to two different markets:

Gwen Stefani - RnB

Faster Days - Indie Rock

A RnB digipack will focus more on promoting the singer of the video whereas Indie Rock will have more effects and stylistic features. Indie Rock colours and mise en scene in photos is often more simplistic e.g. singers will be in black whereas RnB will be much more glamourised. This is just one example of how digipack differ according to their target audiences.

Filming process