What Is A DIGIPAK?

A digipak is a patented style of optical disc packaging. Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. 

To the left you can see two examples of what a digipak looks like. In these examples you can see that you can open it to have 3 sides rather than a CD which only has 2 sides. On one page you can see the main front cover with the album title and the artist's name. On another page you can see the disc itself stuck to the page. Then you can see the very back of the digipak which has the list of songs on the album/CD. 

The good thing about digipaks rather than CDs or Vinyls is that it is smaller in size than a vinyl but lighter in weight than a CD, this makes transport cheaper and will also mean that shops can hold more inventory of digipaks. 

Digipaks have become very popular due to the paper feel of it, it gives a nostalgic feel of vinyl. Because of it's popularity, it has a target audience on YouTube where people unbox the digipaks. 

I believe that the artist I have chosen (Astrid S) has not released any digipaks yet. I think this is because she has released many EPs instead of full albums. 

Key Elements of a Digipak
TEXT
1. Name of the band/artist
2. Name of the album
3. Tracklisting 
4. Price
5. Bonus material
6. Website
7. Credits
8. Recording material, producer, where it was recorded and when, who wrote the songs, thanks.

ASTRID S: Existing EP's

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Here are Astrid S's existing albums/EPs. This first one is for the track 'Hyde'. 










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The second one is her latest album 'Party's Over'. I really like the border used around the outside of the album cover and how the border stops specifically for the writing of 'Astrid S' and 'Party's Over'.








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This EP is for her track 'Bloodstream' (the song I have chosen to use for my music video). I really really like this album cover because of the border used, the angle of the image used, the image itself being of the artist floating on water and the colour scheme. 







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This EP is for her track 'Such A Boy'. I really like the border used around the outside of the album cover and how the border stops specifically for the writing of 'Astrid S' and 'Such A Boy'.

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This EP is for her track 'Breathe'. I really like the extreme use of golden face paint used on the artist's entire upper body, it is quite striking and extravagant. 









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This EP is for her track '2AM'. I really like the use of black and white filter/colour correction that has been used over the image. Also I like how the artist is not looking in direct gaze, but instead, she is looking to the left into the distance. 







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PODCAST 2: Production Schedule Update 1

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THE SCRIPT:
Hi, it's me again, Evie, just giving an update on the production process so far since we set up our blogs and I will discuss what I am planning to do for the next few weeks of the summer. As I forgot to mention in the last podcast, I am almost finished with the general and genre music video analyses, the genre music video analyses were in the genre of electropop because I was very sure I was going to pick the artist Sakima. This has changed now, as I said before in the last vodcast because there were other artists I may have chosen instead, these were Jakwob or Astrid S. I decided that I was going to stick with the artist, Astrid S, and her song Bloodstream. I came up with a narrative idea for the music video for this track - this is a boy on a journey of grief, struggling to get through a hard breakup with harsh psychological effects. I was thinking to film the entire music video from the boy's perspective of the breakup since most music videos are from the girl's perspective of a breakup e.g. Tove Lo - Habits. Things may still change but right now that is my narrative idea. In my blog I mention the reasons why I decided not to choose the other artists, Sakima and Jakwob. I also have decided on the casting for the performance footage for the song Astrid S - Bloodstream. I have decided that I want to act the role of the singer, Astrid S, therefore I will be the one lipsyncing in the video. On top of this I decided that I want to film the majority of the performance footage infront of a greenscreen and some outside with a sky background or trees background. Also, this summer from the 31st of July to the 13th of August, I went on a 2 week filmmaking course at the MET Film School located at Ealing Studios. This gave me the opportunity to film some greenscreen performance footage inside Ealing Studios, I filmed this footage on the 11th of August. Since then, I have chosen the rest of the dates of when I will film all this performance footage: these are the 17th of August, the 26th of August and the 27th of August. I have also decided, after looking at many past music video examples, that I am going to film some nature footage to be used as cutaway shots in the video. Since I am staying in a countryside location for the next few weeks of summer, this is very convenient. I plan to film trees, flowers, ponds, plants and forests in a variety of shot types. That is all for this podcast so, see you next time!

Summer Filmmaking Course Experience

This summer, I had the opportunity to go on a proper 2 week Filmmaking course in London at the MET Film School which is located next to Ealing Studios. 

The course was led and taught by someone who has experience in the film industry who has worked in various roles on a film set such as role of cameraman, sound boom operator, director etc... 

Throughout this course I learned many new things in terms of visual storytelling, directing actors, directing, producing, sound, editing and cinematography. I learned how to use a different editing software to Final Cut Pro X which is called Adobe Premiere Pro. 

There were 14 of us on the course all aged 14-17. On the first week we all had the chance to direct our own little scene with two characters to get us more familiar with everything (camera, sound boom, clapper board, with what to say exactly on the shoot). We all switched roles throughout the production of all 14 of these practice filming/directing exercises. On the Friday of the first week, we all had to pitch an idea for a short film. After pitching, we all voted for the two best ideas out of the 14 ideas that were pitched. We split into two groups of 7 to work on each idea. 

Here is my little scene I made for the practice exercise, on the course:
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