Creating our Digipack: Step 3

Following the creation of the main content of our Digipack we decided to overlay the images within our Digipack with Writing in order to the inform the audience of our band name, album name and the name of our tracks. We searched on line and researched into the stylistic endeavours of other bands albums and decided to choose a font called 'Baron Neue' from online font website called 'DaFont.com,' which we employed for the digipacks titles as well as song list on the gravestone. We decided to make the font white in order to contrast that of the album cover before adding the titles onto the first and second panels respectively.

Creating our Digipack: Step 2

Following the installation of our initial base background panel images we now began to edit images over the backgrounds. Using photoshop we edited in the images of a gravestone, crosses, a set of hands holding and a set of hands pointing upright. We then reduced the contrast of these images in order for them to blend and keep in tone with the background images. Next we focused on improving the panel consisting of the hands, a pivotal point of our marketing as this was to be the album cover of our product. We enlarged the image of the three hands together (which are meant to be symbolise our films three protoganists) and then centred them in the panel, before adding the other set of hands (which resemble the 5 musicians in our band) which we put at the bottom of our panel.

Creating our Digipack: Step 1

We began the process of our digipack creation by collecting the various different images we had decided to use from our video of Eve, Leaves and The Forest and rescaled them down to the right sizes to the fit the three bottom panels. Following the rescaling of these images we adjusted the tone of them and using the adjustment options and the changed them into Black and White in order to recreate a similar image and tone to that of both the performance section of our music video as well as the edited forest shots of Eve. Furthermore we attempted to add the image we'd used from our music video of the apple, but eventually decided against it as it was not circular enough and didn't look the way in which we wanted to, therefore we imported a more appropriate image from the Internet and rescaled to fit the upper central panel, before layering an image of a vinyl over it in order to mirror aspects of both the Beatles and our own music video.

Audience Feedback: Number 1

I found the different plot lines, pieced together in an abstract fashion, perhaps the most intriguing element of the entire video as it gave the song an abstract edge in conjecture with the aesthetic. The opening shot that suggest mourning figures visiting a grave is contrasted with the plot line of the girl awakening in the forest forced me to consider the relationship between the two occurrences and the dark, almost religious nature of the song, worked perfectly with these mimicking ideas of death and renewal. These ideas of religion and renewal were exemplified most perfectly in the apples hanging from the tree, emoting both ideas of sin and of death. The short feature of this scene made it even more powerful in my eyes as it gave me a glimpse of the theme that was running throughout while still allowing open interpretation. The reverb of the chorus, ‘Gabriel’, was perfectly pitched against the whiteness of the dress of the young woman.  Gabriel is intrinsically linked with ideas of Christianity, further reinforced by the iconographic cross that opens the video, and the purity of a woman in white lying amongst nature is emblematic of the chorus. Perhaps the most jarring part of the music video were the clips containing the band playing live and the dark chiaroscuro nature of the lighting for the frontman was extraordinarily moving and often off-putting but in perfect unison with the darkness of the music playing behind it. Further than this, the black and white and high contrast lighting was reminiscent of renaissance ideas of art and, most strongly, early Caravaggio frescos so this idea of religion and purity is more subtly planted in my mind as I view the video in an even less direct sense but even more powerfully.

Inspiration for our Digipack: Group

Following our Group's Individual Research, we all came together and discussed our various different ideas which proved to be very profitable in terms of deciding what we wanted our product to look like. The group liked the idea of having hands reaching towards something and agreed with the black and white 'Babadook' approach in terms of style, but also had some very valuable ideas which we were able to colaborate together in order to improve our product. Their main ideas were incorporate Religious Iconography and Images from our Music Video within the product

Religious Iconography:
-Crosses
-Gravestones
-Cemetry
-Angels

Benefits: Keep in tone with the themes of our music video, cause controversy due to religious backlash (Like A Prayer, Black Sabbath).

Images from our Music Video:
-Eve
-The Woods
-Apples

Benefits: Help market our music video.

Inspiration for our Digipack: Individual

Prior to the creation of our Digipack as a group we discussed the different concepts we had thought of to create our album cover and artwork and concluded that seperately as a group we would all go off and do individual reseach in order to grasp a more well-rounded piece of work.

These are two pieces of Art that I personally drew inspiration from in the initial stages of forming our Digipack.

Pearl Jam's Album Cover Ten:

Whilst researching for inspiration, I tried to specifically look at bands from similar genres to that of our artist 'The Great Northern,' which led to the album cover of one of my personal favourite bands 'Pearl Jam.' Whilst viewing this album cover I particularly liked the concept of having hands reaching towards something which I believed could be an effective method of marketing.



The Poster for Jennifer Kent's 'The Babadook':

Another piece of Artwork that I drew inspiration from was the poster for 'The Babadook,' as an avid cinefile and collector this is one of my favourite posters and the black and white design relates to our music video due to our desicion to film our performance section in black and white. I believed that bu having aspects of our digipack in black and white, we could also keep in fitting with the dark tone of our video.