Ancillary Task - Digipak Charley Photographs

As I do not need photographs of both of my actors together for the digipak ancillary task; it has become much easier to attain these photographs. I, therefore, today took the required photos with Charley - my main female actress - to then supplement them with Dave's when I can. A video of the photos can be found below, with the larger images provided:

Ancillary Task - Digipak design

In preparation for my new digipak design, I have created a flat plan of the main image that will feature on the front of the pack. The ovals are the characters holding polaroid images and these will alternate between the artist and his partner. I will alter the position of the actor so that the product looks more interesting and less repetitive.

Theory Application: Dyer's Star theory

"A star is a construct of the industry it pertains to, not a real person." - Richard Dyer

This is the idea first proposed by Richard Dyer, the English Specialist who proposed ideas about cinema, though his concepts apply incredibly well to the ideas of Music videos. The majority of successful music videos feature a subject performing the song the video is for. A further internal majority of these use a famous or well-known subject to complete this function or at least act in the video.

Essentially, people are complex. They are the perfect choice for the producer who wants to form an emotional connection between character and audience, but they are very difficult for the producer who is designing for the mass market. By selecting a well known actor to not act, but appear in the video, they achieve that cross-media convergence through synergy that mutually benefits both industries.

This is extremely general, however, as this isn't always the case. The producer of 'I Want Love' by Elton John, for instance, created the perfect balance as his choice of actor is impeccable, bettering the overall effect. The examples above are the more successful uses of stars, but often they are simply included to raise the reputation of the video. To work this way, I deeply considered involving the original artist of my music video, but the logistics were incredibly difficult. The opening scene - now another actor smoking and walking away form the function hall - was originally planned to be acted by the artist where I would contact him and ask for him to film it. Directing from so far away, however, would have been difficult and the result would not have been my own.

The theory further, predominantly applies to the exploitation of people to create images for the audience to enjoy or aspire to and ultimately dehumanises the subject. The main identifier for the occurrence of this is when artists become less-linked to their original medium. For example, Cheryl Cole started as a singer in a pop group and this was her identity. Quickly, however, she branched into other areas where she became a reality TV judge, product advertiser - needless to mention tabloid scandal. Her audience became more focused on her personal life and other exploits that music almost takes a side-line. This is, however, not at all to the detriment of her music career, but benefits her. Stars begin to profit from their status and audiences support their music not fir its quality, but their loyalty to them. This is so much more of a benefit to the industry as they have many stars to their disposal and can exploit them how they wish.

Ancillary Task - Further Digipak research

Upon further research into digipaks, I found a very interesting band who are incredibly innovative in their artwork production. The Brett Domino Trio are very well known around the internet, where they began on You Tube. Unsigned, self-funder artists find it difficult to produce music as it is an incredibly costly process. Brett Domino have used this to their advantage, however, as they have produced two products that revolutionises physical media, bonding a connection with the digital distribution service. Their first product was the 'Songs off You Tube' digipak which literally was just the digipak itself with a blank printed disc. The buyer would then burn the album onto the disc which saved money for both them and Brett Domino. By producing the product this way, Brett Domino cut out the middle man of CD production and created a querky, never before seen product.

The second product is the fully online Reflections album. The album artwork is available entirely online to download and print. It can further be folded and assembled without glue or scissors. This raw, resourceful product would be perfect for my needs as it fits the theme of my project. I made a good majority of my previous design choices to work alongside this raw, acoustic feel and I feel an addition such as this would work great so that is the template I shall be basing my ancillary on. Below is a video that Brett Domino released for the folding of the artwork which would be a nice further project to facilitate the production were it a profitable business.

From Brett Dominos design, I have produced my own template to work from.