Ancillary Text - Digi-Pak

This is my finished product for the digi-pak part of the ancillary text. Throughout this part of the task, I intended to maintain the same kind of imagery in the back and middle covers that I had made in the front cover. This was done by taking additional pictures using my DSLR camera in the same places as the image for the front cover was taken. This gave a similar amount of light and contrast on the pictures so that when it comes to editing, they weren't completely irrelevant images. I used a digi-pak template which I had found on the internet (Google Images) which had six sections; this was so that it was appropriate for the type of medium that was advertised in the posters (an EP). The other two sections of the digi-pak use images taken from the music video, these seem appropriate for the final product as they maintain the dreamy feeling which comes from looking at the other images.

The production of this digi-pak was on the program Adobe Photoshop, this was because it is convenient to edit images and add layers when necessary. Although, these images were all created separately before being put together on this digi-pak template (original images shown on a blog post below). The first one which was made was the front cover which I had created some time before the rest of the digi-pak due to needing time to edit my music video. Secondly, I created the back cover. This was because I had already created a poster previously which used the same image as a background, however this was edited to appear much darker and build a stronger contrast with the front cover. When making this back cover, I did not alter much of the light other than inverting the colours; this made the whole image lighter and create a hyper-real appearance of water. In addition to this, there would be familiarity with the poster as some bigger fans tend to be curious about the use of artwork, moreso when  it comes to Radiohead and their fame in having abstract imagery around their work. When adding the tracklisting, I used a font and colour which would contrast against the image behind it, yet keep a smoother layout for professionalism. Following the research that I had done earlier in relation to digi-paks, I understood the features which would appear on the back of a digi-pak cover. Therefore, the conventional features of barcodes, record label logo's and websites were added to the lower right as they are less important to the consumer than the tracklisting (which appears on the left third of the page).

I then went on to create a middle section which included another picture which I had taken alongside the front and back cover images. This however, did not feature water but rather a tree which looked over a nearby river. The connotations which I had in mind for these pieces of artwork was that each image was relevant to a person who features in the music video. The front cover being the main character who keeps going after the other takes an overdose. The back cover is relevant to the second main character as he hits rock bottom as soon as he discovers that he is in debt with dangerous drug dealers (hence the birds eye view). The middle section was created with the main drug dealer in mind as he is looking over at the two main characters as they drift away into a field of debt and self-destruction. Here, the water is indicating the decay of the characters. I altered the brightness of the middle section so that there was a little amount of greens and brighter colours to be distinctive against the other artwork. I also made sure there was little contrast and adjusted the levels. The final touch was adding the lyrics to Exit Music over the image as this is a conventional feature of inserts; this was placed in a dark blue colour to suit the darkness that the image gives off.

I then created the other middle sections to complete the digi-pak. This began with the blue tinted left cover (pictured top left), which was also edited using Adobe Photoshop. The image was taken directly from the music video as a screen shot, showing the secondary main character gazing out of the window (0:43). This appropriately reflects the band as a large majority of their songs use a slow tempo which features some shoegaze influence. I believe that this image gives a third person perspective on how the listener could be using the digi-pak; also using juxtaposition to create a sense of verisimilitude in those who may have watched the music video before purchase. Once the image to be used had been established, I placed lyrics in the top right (as this is the first area that the viewer will see in relation to the left third rule). The lyrics that I placed here are to apply to other songs which would be included in the EP if released (pasted from Floorpunch - Washed Up at 18). After this, I used a gradient map to change the colour scheme to match the imagery of the other images of the digi-pak. This was made to an indigo colour to be distinctive against the original screenshot, yet similar to the following cover.

The final cover which I made for the digi-pak was another screenshot taken from the ending of the music video (4:39). This shows the main character laid on the floor at the climax of the video. I believe that this applies to the imagery of the other covers as it maintains the dark outlook that comes from the other pictures.  I added a thank you list to the bottom of this image as this is often a feature which comes from within Digi-paks; within this list, I included my teachers and actors who feature in the video. I used another gradient map on this image to make it black and white, usage of the gradient feature helped me edit the focus of blacks and whites within the image to make the perfect tone. There is a lot of darkness in this image to assist the other images in the digi-pak and create a darker focus on the events which happen in the music video. This is also similar to the inserts from Radiohead's single of Just, which features similar events in the video.