Analysis of a digipak

Michael Jackson

I've chosen to analyse Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' digipak because he is by far my favourite artist. Another reason to why i have chosen to analyse this particular digipak is because the album was released during or after Michael Jackson's illness and death. As a result of this it means this is his last ever album which means this is a very special one.

 

Editing Techniques

Recently I have been watching music videos closely andf picking out the interesting editing techniques that I would like to include in our own music video. For example, whilst watching Drake - Headlines I noticed the use of split screens and I think it looks really creative, adds an edge and makes it more interesting so I thought it would be a good idea for me to post it on my blog not only because I like the song and the artist but also because of the techniques used in the music video. I will be practising this effect with a software called Final Cut Express to see whether or not I will be able to create a split screen effect by watching 'how to' videos on YouTube.

Stop Animation Practice

Here is our practice stop animation:



We will not be using this particular stop animation because I don't think it looks professional enough and also because the layout/ theme doesn't go with our song. However, we will be redoing it in a different style.

Stop Animation

This is such a cool music video, everything is made out of jelly beans and stop animation is used throughout. This is the kind of thing i would like to create for our own stop animation in the sense of the creativity because this music video took 2 years to make and we obviously don't have that long to make our videos. So maybe an element of it can be used in our introduction, i think it looks much more professional than the first one we created although it was for prcatice purposes.

Digipak

Definition of a Digipak:

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.

Digipacks have pros and cons:

• They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.
  
• Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.
  
• The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.
  
• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.
  
• Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.
  

Digipacks look great, but if you're just starting out and money is tight, looking for ways to cut your manufacturing costs is important. Stretching your budget to because you like digipacks aesthetically is not a good investment.

(I found this definition on About.com)