Creative Digipak

final product

Digipak

What is a digipak?
A digipak normally consists of a gatefold paper board or card stock. Outer binding with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a cd or dvd attached to the inside. It means the cd comes in a cardboard flip out case rather than a standad plastic hinged case. Digipak-style packaging is often used for cd singles or special editions of cd albums and the tall dvd digipak is used as a premium case for dvds and dvd sets.

A digipak consists of,

1. six panels
2. spine
3. barcode
4. track list
5. disk impression
6. membership postcard/flier band info section/ booklet free image/poster

In a digipak there are many elements that have to be on there, the name of an artist and album title have to be on there, you should analyse the font, size, colour and position.

using a creative task we created our own practice digipak using photoshop this was the outcome :

Finally we took some photos of our singer and we edited them on picmonkey, we then came up with a range of different possibilities and this was the outcome and our final album cover: 

Narrative Theory

Narrative is the way the story is organised.

Elements of narrative are things like time, closure and enigmas, enigmas are problems created that has to be solved. Classical Hollywood narrative elements are thing like linear, linear is the sequence going in order without any flash backs.
An example of a non linear film is pulp fiction it just around all different time frames in the film.

Theory or narratives

Tzvetan Todorov discovered his theory of narrative. He said that there is a equilibrium, an equilibrium is the part of the film where everyone is just getting on with their normal life.Then there is a disruption which ruins the equilibrium, the disruption then causes the enigma, there is a resolution for the enigma and then there is a new equilibrium, the new equilibrium, is different for the characters because they have more knowledge, their equilibrium has changed as a result.


An example of Todorov's theory is the film Scream, Scream was released on the 20th December 1996 directed by Wes Craven. Scream is a film with a girl Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) at home on halloween on her own, watching a horror film, she then gets a phone call from a stranger who she begins to have a conversation with. The enigma happens when he then says on the phone "whats your name" and she says in return "why do you need to know my name" he then says "because i need to know who I'm looking at" this is where the enigma begins.


Theories of Narrative.
Roland Barthes described all texts as complex bundles of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings.According to Barthes texts can either be open with numerous threads to pull, or closed with only obvious threads to pull. Texts can be read in a number of ways theses are known as polysemic texts.

An example of a polysemic text is the film Scarface. Viewers can be see a glorification of violence in the film or as a rags to riches story or even a critique of the values of 1980's- greed and consumption.




Vladimir Propp analyses folk stories, he identified eight key roles in these stories,

1. The Hero
2. The Villain
3. The Donor
4. The Helper 
5. The Father 
6. The Dispatcher 
7. The Princess
8. The False Hero 

examples of Propps theory:

1.  the hero- Luke
2. the villian- Darth Vader
3. the doner- Obi-Wan Kenobi
4. the dispatcher- princess Leia 
5. the princess- princess Leia 
6. the helper-R2D2 
7. the father- Obi Wan Kenobi
8. the false hero- Han Solo           

Roland Barthes 

Bathes described all texts as complex 'bundles' of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings. Barthes said that text can be either open, open means with numerous threads to pull, and closed means with only one thread to pull. He also argues that texts can be polysemic which means they can be read in a number of ways. An example of an open text is 'The Dark Night Rises' and 'Inception', in both films the ending is left ambiguous whether or not the protagonist has survived.

An example of a polysemic text is scarface is it open to a number of different interpretations. 

 it can be seen as a glorification of violence, or as a rags to riches story, or even as a critique of the values of the 1980's, greed and consumption.

These threads that Barthes reffered to are known as narrative codes, the most significant is the enigma code, this is constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience normally by creating a mystery or puzzle that the audience want to see solved, the enigma codes are designed to attract audiences and hold their attention



Narrative music videos: 

Levi Strauss' theory was binary oppositions he argued that a structure of narrative was a dependence on binary oppositions. Binary opposition is a conflict between two qualities or terms, these binary oppositions can form the basis of narratives.

Vladimir Propp was a Russian critic who examined 100s of examples of folk tales to see if they shared. Any structures. His book on this ‘Morphology of the Folk Tale’ was first published in 1928 Propp looked at 100s of folk tales and identified 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions.

The 8 character roles are

1. The villain

2. The hero

3. The donor – who provides an object with some magic property.

4. The helper who aids the hero.

5. The princess (the sought for person) – reward for the hero and object of the villain’s schemes.

6. Her father – who rewards the hero.

7. The dispatcher – who sends the hero on his way.

8. The false hero

Laura Mulvey

Mulvey was a feminist and argued that men objectified women, she also believed in suture, suture is classical hollywood narratives and editing sutures of positions makes the audience react in certain ways making only one preferred reading possible. However unconscious the audience is of that position. Mulvey also argues that cinema reflects todays patriarchal society.

The male gaze   

Mulvey's main theory is that male gaze, she argues that the males gaze is active and the female gaze is passive. Within the narrative male characters they direct their gaze to the female characters. The female characters are in the movie for eye candy they are basically something to look at for men to enjoy the movie. 

Agency

In classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency and he is active and powerful. The Female character is passive an Powerless, she is the object of desire for protagonist and audience. Mulvey also argues that women have two roles in the film one being an object of erotic desire for the characters and as an object of erotic desire for the audience.