Production: Choosing images for the cover art

I have chosen some of the images that were included in the contact sheet that I created.

These are two of the images that I am editing to use as part of my digipak design: 

This first image is of the actor that played the protagonist in my music video. He is in a position which would suggest that he is not quite coherent as his eyes are partially shut, his head is tilted to an angle and his mouth is slightly ajar. The reason that I wanted to capture him in a position such as this was to provoke the idea that he is intoxicated/under the influence of alcohol. I tried to place the subject in the middle of the shot so that I could outline his face and torso in Adobe Illustrator, to then be placed in the middle of the album. The symmetry here may make the album more aesthetically pleasing. I believe that including the actors face from the music video will help the consumer to make a connection between the two. Likewise, the research that I conducted into the conventions of indie/alternative music digipaks shows that it's not very often that the actual artist will be featured on the cover. Because I wanted to have some presence of a character, it seemed fitting that I would use the character from the music video on the album as opposed to the actual artist.

I then wanted to emphasise the theme of alcohol in other parts of the album cover. This is an image of the protagonists hand holding a bottle. During the editing stage of this image, I will alter the outcome of the final drawing by cropping the top of the bottle to make it look like a can of alcohol. This will further emphasise the theme of alcoholism, linking the cover to the contents (the music). Additionally, I knew that I wanted to include the characters ring in part of the cover. A total of 14 shots in the music video contain the ring, most of these being close ups of his hand linking with alcohol (picking up bottles/glasses) and showing his agitation and anxiety. I took this photo of his hand (with the ring on it), holding a water bottle. I made sure to shoot on a white background so that it was easier for me to trace the image in Adobe Illustrator. The shape of the bottle that I got him to hold, shares very similar attributes to that of a can - particularly at the bottom. Therefore, it was easy for me to edit the top portion of the image when outlining to make it look more like a can of alcohol.