Planning Digipak - Miss Miller

Digipaks are a type of advertisement in order to promote the artist. They are typically a 6 side grate fold type of cover. They are often used for CD singles or special edition for albums. They are important as they consist of a wide range of information for the audience to immediately understand  which are all key towards the artists album. There are a range of differences towards digipaks in relation towards jewel CD cases. Some of which include the presentation, with the jewel CD case including a paper protection to prevent damage and help it to last longer, whereas digipaks do not. Within the jewel CD case, all of the detail is solely positioned on the front and back, and often contains lyrics of the songs. I decided to use a digipak instead of a jewel CD case due to its high quality images, usually containing letters/notes from the artist directly to the fans, feels more personal towards the audience, they also usually have bonus tracks, meaning there is more available towards the audience than promoting a jewel CD case. Digipaks have also grew in popularity over the years among records labels and recording artists in the early 2000's.

I have decided to show different elements within the digipak to highlight how many different personas the artist has. This shows a subtle hint towards a journey and different situations she has been in within her life which she wishes to share with her fans. As you can see, she varies in different scenarios within the digipak from a bedroom type of room to then a party scene. This is an effective way to immediately show the representation of the artist. This can appeal to the target audience as the ages vary with 15-25 year olds. As you can see within the plan of the digipak, she is shown in a romantic and party light, which extremely attracts young audiences as they are typically known to be interested in everyones personal lives, due to more information to tell gossip to their friends. Not too much is revealed within the advertisement, which only intrigues the audience into wanting to watch and listen more towards this album, resulting to them purchasing it due to the presentation of the digipak. This can show her busy life style, where she has all these different scenarios going on all at once and only wants to live for the moment and not have any worries or anxieties which then leads to her portrayal of careless behaviour.

I decided to use minimal amount of colour, to ensure it stays conventional towards the genre of soul as the artist representation is very alternative and different to the stereotypical female soul artist. I think mainly using the colours of black and white are effective as it almost shows as essence of  mystery, which can engage viewers to purchase this and they want the full length story. These two colours are also perceived to be very upsetting and depressing, due to the level of colour it does not present and seems very dull and blunt. The front colour was very plain and simple using a certain amount of dull colour. However, for the artists costume I decided to use editing to revert the colour back to its original state. I intentionally planned on the artist wearing red to represent the artists characteristics, which is going to be represented as dangerous and trouble. I also want to include hints of red on certain parts. This will represent her as danger as the colour red is usually related back to things like blood etc. I want to include this on things like her costume, such as wearing a red dress and her lipstick, to show she chose voluntarily to wear this certain colour which is an artist representation. This also allows the audience to instantly see this as it is a vibrant colour compared to blacks and whites, and can then interpret that she is a matured character, as she is wearing heavy makeup and provactive clothing. This also relates to Goodwin's theory of making a successful artist 'voyeuristic representation of the female body.'  The red colour can be seen as subversive to the soul genre as it is a very bright colour, and soul genre digipaks usually consist of dull and dim colours to represent a sad mood towards the alum as a whole. However; I only decided to use one bright colour to give the audience a taste towards her particular characteristics and keep the rest black and white to represent a sad mood. I didn't want to include lots of colours as it can look too happy and ruin the whole element of emotion I am trying to portray and can confuse the audience towards what genre it is specified in, such as pop or dance. Using these colours immediately create towards the audience a mood of sadness due to an incident of danger. Not a lot is revealed which is effective as it leaves the audience questioning what has happened and then purchases the album. For the disc page, I wanted to highlight the hair colour and red lipstick, this would show her representation of physically attractive, which would intrigue the audience towards listening to the album as they can be physically attracted to her, due to the vibrance her appearance shows. I want to include the background as a dark colour such as black to make it conventional towards the genre of soul, as it shows a sense of sadness as when your sad you are represented to be in a dark place.

Within this digipak, there are a range of conventions which can be showed to be conventional or subversive towards the genre of soul. The reasons for this is due to my group and my decision towards the representation of the artist is going to be portrayed differently towards other female soul artists to show her reckless and careless behaviour. These include close ups to show the artists facial expression in more detail to ensure the audience are aware of her particular emotion. This also allows no distraction from the background scenery. This is also conventional towards the genre of soul as as the audience are able to see a vulnerability towards the artist, as she is rawly opening up to them, showing an extreme level of emotion. Another convention include black and white colour. This is used to show a sense of sadness and mystery, which is effective within the genre of soul. The mysttowards this is also effective for a digipak as it can intrigue the audience into purchasing the digipak as they would want to know why this situation has occurred and more towards the artist herself. A subversion towards this digipak is the representation of the artist. She is shown in a very voyeuristic manner (Goodwin's theory) with lots of tight and minimal clothing. The typical soul female artist is shown to be fully covered up to show the respect she has for herself but was still treated badly by her significant other. They are usually wearing things like coats to set a mood of a cold, winters day which sets the tone of the emphasis of a sad day for a sad girl. This shows her extraordinary and different character, this is effective as it is refreshing for the audience.

There is a variety of images presented on the digipak. All of the images are different to show the artists life journey and activities and social events she enjoys to participate in. Involving these pictures immediately allow the audience to learn more about the artist, which can then create a bond, resulting towards an effective digipak. There are a range of camera shots to represent a affluent understanding towards cinematography and how I have showed that through the planning of my work. This also helps the audience to get more of an understanding towards the artist herself, differing in types of clothing and footwear she chooses to wear, her hairstyle, makeup, types of scenery and more. Within the planning of the display of the disc, I decided to use a close up of the artist with a very bland expression on her face. This was used to show in a more zoomed in view, her type of makeup, which is very heavy with exaggerated winged eyeliner, contour around the face and red lipstick. I made the camera shot so zoomed in that it can only show half of the artists face. I have planned this as it is conventional towards the soul genre as it allows the audience to get a clear view towards the expression of the artists face and are able to sympathise as the artist is portrayed to be vulnerable as it is easy for the audience to notice that she is upset resulted from the extreme close up.  

I also planned to use a long shot to show the artist with a boy. She is immediately shown to be very careless and not bothered in the slightest which is shown through her facial expressions with her eyes closed smiling, body language showing her giving the boy her hand to interpret a statement of 'leave me alone' and 'go away.' This is also shown through the distance of the two characters, and also the mans expressions to be sad and putting down the flowers he was going to give to her. This highlights her independent persona, which many young fans can look up to. This is very inspirational as nearly all soul female artist is shown to be distraught over a heart break from a boy, however this album is shown to have the genders in role reversal. This is highly effective as it teaches young girls to live for themselves and not for a boy which will only break your heart and make you feel insecure. This can also be a reaction shot towards the micro element of editing as it shows the boy reacting negatively towards the situation of realising the girl he wants does not want him. Another picture I decided to use was in a party like scene. This is going to show the artist very much under the influence of alcohol. This is a clear representation of a party scene due to the change of dramatic lighting and lots of alcohol bottles and cups all over the picture in a room of a house. This shows the audience how she enjoys to spend her free time and what sort of social group she enjoys to include herself in. She is shown to be very careless with no doubts and very happy. This will be an effective use within the digipak as it will show more about her character, which is very selfish and self centred. The layout of the images which are used are always involving the character. This is to highlight the importance of the artist towards the album.

The language used is very clear and easy to read to ensure it easily grabs the audiences attention without making them confused and disregarded to want to purchase this form of promotion. This language includes important information upon the artist, album name, track list , release date and a personal note from the artist to her fans. These are used to distinctly show that this is a digipak cover, and to inform the audience upon important information upon the artists career. The front and back cover repeat the album name of 'Your Girl.' This is used to make the audience more likely to remember the artist and the album name. This is also used to highlight to importance of the album towards the digipak, as that is the reason it is being made. The language also includes the songs which are going to be involved within the song. This was used to give the audience more of an idea towards what the songs are going to be about, from the title of them and the images involved which subtly give it away without making it too obvious. The type of language used it very basic and straight to the point. Most scenes do not have much information on, but just the artists name in a big font amd also the album name, this was used to make it more memorable and so the audience did not feel overwhelmed with lots of information going on. The back cover included the tracklist, showing all of the songs which will be included within the album to allow the audience get more of an understanding towards what the songs will be about from the titles of all of them. The main language used is on the personal message page, where the artist themself has wrote a thank you paragraph. Within the message, it includes how grateful she is that she can share the album with a wide range of audiences and how much she loves her fans. This was effective as the the album then instantly felt more personal and then more meaningful. The audience are able to realise that the lyrics she is singing are personal experiences she has encountered and how she has dealt with them. This is conventional to the soul genre as it is showing the artist opening up to the audience in an emotional way. The audience are then able to create a bond with the artist as they are learning more about her and are starting to feel like they know her in a more personal way. I deliberately repeated the album name of 'Your a Girl' so the audience are being constantly reminded of it's name and can then stick in their head more as they are able to remember it due to its repetition and large, bold fonts. I think the language used which enables to audience to connect with the artist the most is the personal message. This is due to it being sincere, which the audience appreciate as the artist has actually put effort within the making of the album instead of hiring a range of people to do it for her. Using specific phrases like"Truly grateful" and "thank you so much" shows the audience just how much the artist appreciates her fans aswell as the other way around. The audience can feel like the feeling like they have done something good, fur to how much the artist is complimenting them.

I found this planning technique extremely useful as it helped to prepare me for the day of taking pictures for the digipak. I was able to visualise exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it, showing high levels of organisation as I had before hand prepared myself. I think without planning this, I would most likely be very indecisive towards what I wanted within the digipak and would then only make it less effective as I would only be choosing pictures for the sake of it. Planning allowed me to effectively see how I wished to represent the artist and what kind of glimpses I wanted to include to show an element of her lifestyle without giving too much away. This also prepared me for Photoshop as I was able to draw out how I wanted everything to be placed. This was effective as I was able to play around with different ideas which would only benefit me to upcoming events of photoshopping the digipak together as I would not be playing about silly editing styles or language presented. I feel like I am more aware of the pictures I want to include as I wish to represent the artist in an attractive, careless and rebellious way which I think the pictures I have drawn out will most suit this statement of characteristics. 

I think these pictures which I decided to include we're effective as the audience were able to have an insight towards the personality of the artist. I wished to portray her as very rebellious and careless which is shown through her partying, enjoying the moment and disregarding boys who are shown to be head over heels for her. I think this type of persoanlity has a lot of hidden meaning behind it. As soul music videos usually consist of the female artist being heart broken and truly devastated, showing an artist like Amy can be refreshing for the audience due to the artists extraordinary persona. Target audience ages such as 15-25 year old girls are able to look up to Amy and aspire to be like the independent woman she is. Young girls are able to look up to her due to nice clothing trends and particular and pretty make up looks. For my digipak, I wanted to take the audience on a journey showing the artist being in different situations and how they respond to them. The audience are able to learn more about the character. However, I did not want to include too much detail within it which would give too much away, such as how she got into these scenarios. This would then make the audience curious toward listening to the album for it to be revealed. The audience are able to learn how she responds to certain situations, such as a boy giving her a flowers as a form as a compliment, and her looking very uninterested and not bothered. This highlights her persona as careless, which is the overall message me and my group are trying to put across.