Digipak Analysis: Ariana Grande - My Everything

The two main colours used in this Digipak is a combination of black and white. These two colours symbolise the genre of this artist music, Pop and well as R&B. Also as it is black and white colours this could suggest that the audience for her music is a mass audience as it doesn’t denote to one certain audience which would colours usually associated with that age and audience (e.g. a vibrant pink would usually be connotated with young girls). Although there is no clear indication of the audience, usually the colours black and white does infer that it is for an older audience rather than really young as the sophistication of using black and white is usually associated with a higher sort of style.
The typography of the album title ‘My Everything’ is in Italics, and her name on the album is written in a bold so it will be easily recognisable to everyone. Having her name in clear writing in bold therefore means audiences will be able to identify who the singer is. The curly italic writing of the album cover and the contemporary bold font of her name further emphasises the genre of her music, pop.
Having the artist, Ariana Grande on the cover will attract to her fans as they will be able to recognise her straight away. This will also further sales as fans are more inclines to buy something with their idol on it. Her clothe style for her album cover is a short black outfit with white heels. Again the theme of black and white is running throughout this showing again sophistication but also simplicity. The short clothes of the artist relate to the theory of Laura Mulvey’s, The Male Gaze. This is because she is wearing short clothes, it is revealing which not only attracts women as they will aspire to look like her, but it will also attract men.

The actual CD itself is different, as many CD’s usually are plain with no image of an actual person and are usually one block colour with the title of the album on it. Ariana’s CD with herself on it makes it engaging to fans as when they open the Digi-pack they will see her face on it. The pattern on the CD over her face makes her become more covered again enticing the audience to listen to the CD and to purchase it. The winking expression suggests that she is hiding something and as it is on the CD this could relate to the music on the CD, again making audience want to listen and buy it. Furthermore the ‘My Everything’ connotes the mysteriousness and emphasises that she is hiding something, as this could hint that she has secrets about someone.

The font on the back is bold and sans serif so it is clear to read the song titles. The simple yet retro font makes the album and artist come across and stylish and contemporary. The simplicity of the back of the album makes it again easy to read and understand so it is concise to the readers and not complicated. The backs of albums are usually plain as they usually aren’t on show to customers. Furthermore they usually consist of the title names of the songs, so therefore can’t be too complicated as people have to be able to know what songs are on the CD. Furthermore the simplicity and clear font makes it easy to recognise the artist featuring on the CD. The side of the CD includes a strip with her name and album name on it again making it able to distinguish the CD from the side. Furthermore, having the block with all the details and the record label on the back, highlights to audiences that this is a genuine CD professionally made at a high standard quality.

What is a Digipak

A Digipak is a form of packaging for CDs or DVDs usually made from cardboard or plastic to hold one or more discs. The format of a Digipak is a gatefold style, where it is like a book. Digipak's are especially popular in the music industry for CD singles, or albums with multiple discs. They give a product a more professional and certain look based on the intended message of the artist. The CD art work and specialist print finishes such as lamination or embossing can add to the professional look and make it look more expensive.

Health & Safety

As I am creating something with other people in it, I am solely responsible for what goes on therefore I will need strict health and safety procedures and to carry out a risk assessment. Risk assessments are very important as they are a fundamental part to help create awareness of hazards and risk and identify who may be at risk in a situation

Lights : With many lights around there will be numerous of things in the way. Also with the lights being on for a long duration, they will be rather hot. This means I will need to make sure no one touches them as they may hurt when touching and even worse cause burns so these could be a problem. Also with the lights being on for so long, it will get very hot in the studio. If I am filming for long periods of time I will need to make sure me and any models will need to have breaks as the heat could cause problems and make people feel a bit fake. I will have to make sure to keep everyone dehydrated, however this cannot be near the lights so fresh air breaks will be needed.


Electrical Cables : Electrical cables are a huge hazard when filming as these can be trip hazards. These are a crucial hazard that I need to be careful of as they can become caught on corners and can stick up making them easier to trip on. Also if they do stick up and someone does trip this can cause the lights to fall and causing more hazards and they could then fall on someone and cause serious damage. I therefore will need to carry out serious checks to make sure there is no possibility of any trip hazards.


Paint : For one of my ideas paint is a key feature as I need it to be coming from my models eyes. This can be very dangerous as if it is not the right kind of paint and it goes in the models eyes it can cause serious damage. For this I will have to make sure that I am using the correct kind on paint that will not cause irritation on the skin but also that the pain will go no where near the eye. I may need to rethink this idea through in order to cause no harm.

Video Prototype

This short clips was my first bit of editing after my initial filming ideas were all shot. I edited 15 seconds of the beginning of my video to show to audiences to see if I was fitting to their preference.

All of my 10 different members who partook in my feedback, all agreed that the lips were the best past and there were mixed reviews about the speaker. Many of them liked the speaker idea, yet they said watching it from the same angle got a bit boring and that it would be best to change the angle of the speaker once so it has a more exciting feel to it. 

Many of my audience feedback also said that the idea of the model was good but that it was not shot properly. It was not as exciting as the lips and it needs changing in some way. I also had particular feedback that it was not engaging enough. The camera shot was making the artist seem more distant from the audience. This is not the atmosphere I want in my music video so therefore I will need to reshoot this scene with my model

Location

My main intention from the start of the process of my ideas for my music video is that it would be solely based in a studio. This is because I want my music video to be quite artificial and studio based as many pop lively music videos are. The artificial lighting I will use will also give me the best results in definition for my model as natural lighting would not give my video the definition that artificial lighting would. Also as it is in the studio this therefore bring no distractions away from my model.

Not only is it the model that need defining but the most important part is the lips. This is a key feature in my music video. Therefore artificial lighting is key as the lips need to be highly defined. 

After audience feedback the section of my music video with the model signing people were saying how it was not exciting enough and boring. I then got an idea to shoot the model in different locations of her miming and to interchange the locations when editing just like the lips. However when it came to this the model was not available to come to shoots often enough for me to feel happy with the amount of locations I had, making me rethink about a chunk of my video.

Locations in mind:

After lots of ideas, I decided to have just a plain background. For this as the studio did not have different coloured backgrounds, I then thought of the green screen. I had not tested this properly when initial testing as it was not in my original ideas, so I was concerned as I was behind on time for finishing this project. What I would do is shoot how i originally did with the model but place a green screen behind my model and then have a background placed on it. This then gave me opportunity to make the video more exciting with colours and moving images being presented behind my model.

Props

Props is key in any music video. Props make a music video message more clearer and also helps present a certain tone to how the artist wants their music to be portrayed as. Therefore when choosing props I will need to carefully think what ones are best to decided how I want my music video to look.

One main prop that I have in mind to use is an old fashioned microphone. I have actually taken this idea from the actual music video that I am using as my song. The artist has an old fashioned microphone to make the scene of her singing more excited. When thinking more about the video, I thought it would be very boring to have just my model standing there miming. Therefore, I took the idea to use an old fashioned microphone as it gives more excitement to my music video. It also make it look more unique as it is a modern music video but with an retro prop.

Another Prop I will need is paint. For my idea I want paint to drip down the face of my model to represent the tears that are mentioned in the lyrics. I will need to make sure that this paint is suitable to use on my model and have to test this so it will work.

Along with the microphone I will also use sunglasses as a prop. This again will make the video more exciting rather than the model just standing there and singing. This could also make the setting of the video more fun as sunglasses are usually associated with holidays or festivals, therefore putting the model in a exciting setting.

Makeup and Wardrobe

For my music video, makeup is a key feature. So in order to make sure I can film and use my time wisely, I need to think of what makeup each one of my models will wear. For the main chunk of the video it will be solely focused upon the lips, therefore the makeup on the face wont be a huge feature as just the lips will be shown in the shot.
As I do not have a huge budget, or a professional makeup artist, I have been realistic in what ideas I can do and afford for the lips. I went on to google to get inspiration for the video and screen grabbed ideas I thought that I would be able to pull off.

For the main model who is featured in the music model I don' t want her to have a supermodel look.I want her to look fairly natural and like a 'normal' girl. I have decided this as industry's now make unrealistic ideals for girls, and making my model look like just any other ordinary girl without over the top make up.


After looking at different types of lipstick, I decided on doing block (one) colours rather than fancy patterns on lips as it is less time consuming meaning I can film more and have more variety in my video. I looked a a variety of different colours and chose colours that were not similar so the video could be as colourful and bright as possible and also be more exciting to audiences as it would interchange the colours whilst they were lip syncing to the song.

As I have numerous scenes in the video, I want each scene to look different. Therefore makeup on my model and clothing will need to be different. As I said previously, I want my model to look natural as it will portray a message to my target audience, especially the younger spectrum of my audience. Therefore for the majority of the scenes I will want my model wearing as little makeup as possible. The hair on my makeup again will not be in extravagant styles and will be simple. However I do want my model looking nice and presentable so I do not want hair being messy. As I do need to change scene and make the video exciting, I will have the model looking different with maybe something different such as bright makeup or hair in a particular way.

My model will need to wear 3 different outfits as there are 3 different scenes that I am intending to shoot. I want my model to look stylish and up to date so she can relate to my target audience and also be a some what role model to them. I do not want the outfits that the model is wearing to be to bright or out there as I want the concentration to be on the model and what she is doing rather than what she is wearing, however I still want the clothing to be an important aspect and not to be wearing anything.

From my storyboard, the section where the model is dancing along to the song, I want her to be wearing a plain black tshirt whilst also wearing a hat. I have taken this idea from Beyonce's 'Countdown' video where she is reacting along to the beat of the music while the background is changing. The clothing being plain will make the background of the clip pop out. Furthermore the hat will also add a slither of class and elegance, it will also be quite out there and make the video have a more elegant feature about it as big hats are usually associated with elegance.