ANCILLARY PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT 1 - Digi pak

Alex and I got together to talk about the sways we could incorporporate synergy. Synergy is referred to as, the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
The digi pak has 4-6 frames, usually with a common theme running through the background, writing and style. I have included a picture to show how the folding of paper gives shape of the digi Pak.

Our initial idea for our digi-pak was to have the boys poking their head through the space ship as the front cover, the alien on set for the back cover and pictures of the band on the two inlays. Luckily, on the day of shooting we took many photographs so we had a lot of choice. Because of the video, we wanted to incorporate a sci-fi feel to the digi pak to help for promotions; we did this by using a special font of writing and colours. The symbol we chose for the band is a space invader, which we incorporated into the back cover as a bar code. We felt this could be used as a kind of synergy as when people now see the image they will cast their mind back to Cobalt Rapture. This is the space invader image we used:




The back cover the alien standing within the space craft set smiling. We wanted the alien to be the last thing the audience see so they will remember the music video ad possibly he was the most memorable part of the music video. This further links the digi-pak to the science fiction theme evident in the music video. By using the image the audience will also realise that the band is not regular pop as images of the band are not displayed throughout the digi pak.. The back cover also shows a track list, barcode, record label and small print.
The intended front cover was supposed to be the rappers staring frantically out of the space craft that looks as if it’s rapidly declining down to Earth. However we felt that the front cover instead should be a photo of the rappers with the space invader game over it, to create even more synergy. Some example of the Bestie Boys digi pak covers are:

Still shots from our music video

This image shows some of the affect effects used in our music video. Firstly, we got Ted (the alien) to pretend he was running whilst sitting on a chair to ensure the camera framing was correct. After a few practices the blue screen was taken out and put behind him. Once filmed, we went into using abode after effects in the editing sweet where we found these images and set it as an ongoing background to give the effect as if he were running a long the street. The lighting is dark to reflect his mood of feeling alone and vulnerable in a new city.
I think the cgi worked really well in these scenes as the cartoon like background shows he is a sort of make believe world that seems scary to him.


This image represents how the rappers had made a mistake and our now suffering from turbulence and space craft instability but they are still rapping. The reason for this is not only because it is a music video but it shows that they do not enjoy and are not particularly good at their day jobs but they are truly devoted to their music. From this screen grab one can also deduce a strong sense of band image. The image of the band that we, as a group tried to create was that they are a group of fun, unique and devoted individuals that are not completely conforming to the rapper stereotype, and like to poke fn at the current state of the music industry. This perhaps challenges the conventions of most rap music videos as it is rare to see a group of white rappers getting things wrong and engaging in such a broad range of activities. However, now that synergy is used frequently in music videos today to advertise their outfits and accessories to the audience. An example of this could be fans of Cobalt Rapture going out and buying boiler suites and chains to be more like the band. Another way that our music video does not conform the usual rapper video is that we do not have any females. More and more usually there are half naked girls in rap video to make you feel you want to be more like the rappers as they can get any girls they want. We did not incorporate this into our music video as we felt that the audience should be attracted to the bands sound and personality, and using good looking girls would take away from this. Other music videos of the white rapping genre are similar to our music video. They show the band poking fun at other people and in some cases their own lives; these bands are Blink 182 and Good Charlotte. This is another convention of music videos, as bands are often dressed in a certain way to target their audience and to conform to their genre.
This screen grab is another example of the affect effects used for the pop promo. We used Simon Cowell in the video to illustrate the aliens rise to fame as many people knower days gain stardom from reality TV shows like x factor and American idol. To do this we took an image from the web and photoshoped Ted into the frame.




I chose this picture to show how the costumes and personalities make the rappers conform to a working class, low skilled worker. Traditionally, the blue collar represents low income groups that are on the JICNAR scale as C/D groups. The video was sued to convey that they too have ambitions.


There is a space invader symbol present on every panel of the albums digipak, and is also evident in the bands poster. It was conventional to add this symbol into both promotional packs to give the band synergy. We hope that because the well known symbol had not yet been associated with any bands, it will give the audience as sense of recognition when looking at it. An example of this is the TT symbol Take That have used on all of the band documents.

Our Music Video