Digipak: Final

Below is the digipak that we have created for our 'Alone In This' music video and 'The Shape of The Earth' album. It features 9 frames;

§     The front

§     The back -song list

§     Lyrics page

§     Three photos of Sky (main character) taken from the video

§     Final picture of Sky alongside a message from the band to their fans

§     CD holder without CD

§     CD holder with CD

Finally, we have also included a spine which contains the album information such as the "The Shape Of The Earth - Alone In This". 

The front, the back and the spine

To the very left, is our front page. This is our album cover. Conventions of an album is to feature some sort of picture or image alongside with the artists name and song title. We had decided whilst we were filming to take some shots so that the music video and album cover will have a link between them. In the music video you see the main character - Sky, walking through a field, with her key props; the parka jacket and rucksack. She is facing front ways as it is the front of the CD, it’s the start of her journey, we have the front view of her, and it’s like the audience is ahead of her. The rucksack indicates she is travelling whilst the coat links with this as she has a big item of clothing to keep her warm throughout the cold seasons. The picture we decided to use was this one of her standing in the woods. This picture is very effective as the key element of this music video is her being physically and mentally alone, therefore the fact she is standing in the woods, alone, with nothing else but her rucksack shows that she is physically alone. Also, with the picture being in the woods this again, shows she is travelling as she is surrounded by nature instead of people, places and properties. Sky is wearing a dark washed out green parka coat which actually camouflages well with the forest and green scenery surrounding her. This almost works as a camouflage of her life. She feels invisible to everyone around her, almost as if she blends in with everything and no one sees her, she doesn't stand out from a crowd at too, she's barely even there. This links in a lot with the title that is placed just above her which says 'Alone In This', linking with the picture, album cover and then with the music video. In order to follow the theme of not standing out we made the white box that the title sits on slightly transparent so nothing is standing out, making sky completely level with the whole cover, there is no higher importance anywhere. Another reason for the white box was to link in with the beginning of the video which was all black and white to continue with the theme of being sad, lonely and life just overall being dull. A really important aspect that we have used in our digipak design is that any writing that we have used within our digipak has a specific colour, this colour is Sky’s coat. We have done this to ensure that everything has a meaning as well as linking to one another. The font colour is a dark green, the exact green of the coat that is hugely featured throughout the video.

Below I have inserted pictures of the front and back cover actually in the process of being taken using our Fujifilm Bridge Camera and tripod to do this.

Between the two frames above is the spine. This is just the strip at the side of the two that states the album name and artist name. We have continued with the same theme throughout the whole digipak therefore have used the forest background with the white box transparent over the top. It's simple yet still informative.

The last frame of this picture is the back of the album. This is the back page that includes a song list, this is a list of all of The Shape Of The Earth's song that are involved on this album, including Alone In This. On the back we have once again, followed the theme of the forest and the white box. The different between the front and the back cover is that Sky has gone from facing the front to us now viewing  the back of her like we are watching her go off and go on her journey to find happiness. The back cover contains a lot more information as this is the main element of this section of the digipak unlike the front cover where the picture was more of the main focus. We had decided to create a QR code to feature on our album alongside with a bar code. This adds to the realism of this digipak. The QR codes links to our website that we had created for 'The Shape Of The Earth’s music video for Alone In This. This code had been created using www.QRstuff.com which allowed us to create this free of charge. In order for this to work you simply take a picture using a smartphone which will then redirect you to our website. The bar code is what will be scanned when the album individually or the digipak is sold. In order to ensure that nothing on our digipak can be copied like the pictures, song names or designed we have had it copyrighted to ensure that this is now our property and it will be illegal for anyone to copy these. The last piece of information that we have used is linking our website and digipak together by stating it at the bottom 'www.theshapeoftheearth.weebly.com' this is so if anyone is interested they can visit the website.

Disk holder - with and without CD
The next two frames that I am going to talk about is the inside of the digipak; this is the disk holder and the CD itself. To the right of this picture is the disk holder, this is the plastic bit that the CD clicks into, to hold into place. For this we have used the tree picture to ensure that everything has a continuous theme running throughout it. We have faded the whole picture slightly out as this would be heavily covered in plastic therefore you wouldn't get a very clear image by this point. The grey shape that is layered over the top of the image is where the CD would fit and then the finger parts around it is what you would use to pull the CD out of its case. The actual CD is then to the left, this is the trees, so when the CD is in the holder it will look like one big picture. This picture isn’t the same as the first two pictures, instead it’s taken from a different scene of the music video, it’s still in the same location however Sky doesn't feature here. This indicates the inside of Sky, we have the front of her on the front cover and the back view on the back cover, therefore this part of the digipak in located right in the centre almost to work as the 'inside' of Sky, showing how empty she is, adding the idea of loneliness and being lost.

Lyrics page

To the left is our lyrics page. Alone In This is the main song of our digipak therefore we have included a page that feature the song’s lyrics for people to read through and learn if they wanted. This helps people to understand the words being said therefore the link between the video and the lyrics. Throughout our whole digipak we have used the images containing the background of the forest, this indicates Sky’s journey when travelling, on this page we have tried to follow the theme of linking our images with the video but wanted to differ from the original photos featuring the forest. Here we decided to use one of the more happier scenes in the video. In the video, the beat kicks in and this is when everything starts to get better, the scenes turn from dull black and white shots featuring council estates to pretty scenery including blossom and daffodils. The image we have chosen is the shot we have overlooking a stream being covered by a blossom tree. This shows that there is some happiness contrasting with the sadness and loneliness. Despite this difference, we have followed the theme by including the white box to once again tie everything together. We have also used the green colour matching Skys coat to ensure everything is continuous throughout the digipak. 

Outer images

To the left are the photos that are featured throughout the opening of the digipak, these are the first images that the reader will see when opening it up. These pictures are from the opening scene of the music video where Sky is in her room, in bed. She's lonely, and all she can hear is her parents arguing. You see her moving around the room and bed looking very restless and frustrated, looking very unaware of what to do. We thought it might be quite effective to get some good close up's of the star character. We chose these images for our digipak as we thought it was a good contrast against the dark dull colours of the forest, although all the images are representing the same message; loneliness.

Inner images

The last two frames are the ones from when things are starting to pick up, therefore the colour of the scenes look happier, healthier and brighter, containing a lot of colour and no coat, indicating the change in season. The left image shows that although Sky is with people, she does still feel alone so we mixed in shots of her alone and with people to represent feelings mentally. Sky feels mentally alone although she is physically far from it. The different with these scenes of her being alone is that although she still looks unhappy and lonely, it overall still looks quite happy as its better and brighter settings. The last image with in located to the right is the last image we have used. This is the 'star image' of the music video. This is one of the climax shots. This is when you see Sky looking truly happy and as though she is actually having fun, because of this we decided we definitely wanted to include this in our digipak due to its importance. We use this on one of the biggest build ups in the song. On this picture, we included a message from the band to their fans to make it quite personal, making the fans know they matter.

Above is our digipak, we have created and put together a small version to show how the digipak opens and works.