Finished Digi-Pak...

When I had finished my digi-pak, this is what it the front and back looked like: 

This is what the inside cover looked like: 

I'm aware that the inside of the digi-pak should have a space for the CD and so this would be in the middle of the right side. For the purposes of the blog I didn't put it on purely so the full inside cover can be seen.

Creating the Digi-Pak...

As part of the practice for next years work, we created a small digi-pak for the lip sync video, as a way of learning how to use the tools we need for next year. We did a dvd cover – the front, back and insides.
Editing the pictures was something I something I was excited about because I’d never used Photoshop before and I was looking forward to learning how to use it. I spent a while getting to grips with what to do, which buttons did what etc, and then started to edit my images. It took me a fairly long time because (even though they weren’t being marked) I wanted to get them exactly right to the image in my head about how they should look.


For the front cover as experimented with different colours and whether it should be in black and white or not, but in the end I decided to have a black and white background with the girl and the writing in colour. This was a tedious job because I had to make the background black and white on a separate layer – selected each part to make it change. In the end I was pleased with the outcome. I like how the dark background makes the colours stand out more and I think it works really well.
I planned to do the background in colour because I wanted to vary the cover, but when I edited the balance and contrast etc and out it in black and white, I much preferred it and it kept in with the theme of the front. I changed the colour balance so all of the clothes look black on the back cover, when in fact the cardigan I was wearing was purple.

 

For example, this was the original image for the back cover, but I first edited all the balance and exposure, contrast and brightness so it was still in colour. Next I decided to see what it would look like in black and white, so I made it very over-exposed and I really like the final outcome. 

I decided to do the writing in red over the top of the images because it really stood out the most and I thought it was fitting with the band being called The Pretty Reckless, and red symbolizing danger. The front is also quite ‘grunge-y’ I think.

Something else I did for all of the pictures I edited was make the eye make-up heavier by using the brush tool and adding extra black around the eyes and then blurring it so it wasn’t as obvious. Also, I used the colour-replacement tool to change the colour of the lips and I think both of these changes were subtle but very effective. (In the picture to the right, my eye make up wasn't actually as black as it looks because I added black using the brush and blur tool, I didn't end up using this picture in the end).

For the inside cover, I wanted it to greatly contrast from the exterior. I used very bright colours and I wanted the pictures to be very over-exposed. I edited the brightness and contrast, and then the exposure, offset and gamma. I used the same pictures on both sides, but one side has very bright exposed colours, almost cartoon like, and the other uses the same picture, but with the offset and gamma changed, so its much more dull – I did this on purpose because it sets in the theme of grunge. I flipped the picture round on the right side so the pictures are almost mirror image but different versions of the same picture I think this worked well.

I’ve loved learning to use all the different tools on Photoshop and I’m pleased with the outcome of my digi-pak.

Evaluating the Lip Sync...

I think we organised ourselves well for this task. We picked a song from a group that everyone in the group knew – this proved to be difficult as everyone had different music tastes, but we found one common ground and so that seemed like the sensible option, rather than making two people or three people have to learn a song.

The song we chose was ‘Make Me Wanna Die’ by The Pretty Reckless and I think we fit our lip sync video mainly around the song. I found it easy enough doing the lip syncing itself, because I’m always singing along to songs – it’s just more daunting when there’s a camera there because you feel a bit stupid when it’s being recorded.

We organised ourselves well, so we knew what costumes or props we had to bring for the next lesson and we printed out the lyrics to learn (if we didn’t already know them), so I think we were well prepared.

The genre of the song we chose is Grunge, therefore we decided to wear all black because that’s mainly what the lead singer wears. We brought in heels too but didn’t end up wearing them.

We planned to go to a different location than the one we actually used – we wanted to go somewhere where they was a lot of graffiti and it was quite dark so it fit in with the theme of the song and the Grunge scene, but we didn’t know where to go, we didn’t have the time to go exploring to find a suitable place and it was starting to rain so we didn’t want to venture too far.

We decided to look around for a location near to college or even on the college site – luckily there was building work going on outside so there were huge tall skips on the car park. We thought that would be a perfect location because the pink skipped was marked with scratches and rust and this seemed really appropriate.

The camera angles we used were simple, but the video we made was only just over a minute long, so we didn’t want to complicate things.  We used a long shot, medium shot and side shot for each person, and then we had the camera facing the front at the medium shot for all three of us when we all sang together.

I was pleased with the location, but there were builders around that looked at us like we were crazy, so it would have been less embarrassing if we were in a spot where there would be no interruptions. Also, I think we were all a bit shy and so I think it would have been better if we had more fun whilst doing it. I also think if I could do it again, I would I would use a bigger range of camera angles to give the piece more variety. 

Overall I think it went well and I was pleased with the outcome after the editing process.

Lip Syncing Task

Here is my lip sync for the song 'Make Me Wanna Die' by The Pretty Reckless: