Development of Final Idea For My DVD Menu

The ideas and research for my final DVD Menu are developing and the ways in which I have developed my ideas is my creating and mood board which symbolises and represents the features within my DVD Menu. The aspects and features which are represented within the mood board are features such as the colour scheme, textures, images, fonts and existing products, therefore through the mood board this gives a sense as to how my DVD Menu will look and be represented. This mood board will be annotated within Photoshop, which is similar to the mood board which I created for my Movie Poster mood board.

Also this week I am generating my images for the DVD Menu, and these will be taken by me and these will be edited within Photoshop and then placed into the PSD's for the DVD Menu and will link into Encore for the different pages to be linked together, and with the images in place this will make the DVD Menu look original and when people look at the DVD Menu they will be able to see the genre of the DVD Menu.

I have sketched out my menus for my DVD Menu and how I wish for them to look, I have also annotated these images as then you can easily see what the features are within the menu and the actions are explained within the annotation. There are six linked pages within my DVD Menu and these are the Main Menu, Scene Selection (2 pages), Special Features, Subtitles and Audio Setup. By creating these skecthes it has helped me in imagining how my DVD Menu may look and how all the elements and features within the DVD Menu can link together to create a flowing DVD Menu.

Below are some of my annotated skectches for my DVD Menu:



Main Menu Sketch With Annotation




Scene Selection (2 pages) With Annotation




Special Features Sketch With Annotation




Subtitle With Annotation



Week 7: Final DVD Menu Update

On Wednesday I presented my Pitch/Proposal, and this included all my ideas and research as to how I want my DVD Menu to look and how this will reflect my genre of Drama and theme of Fashion. My DVD Menu is continuing on from my Film Poster which I create and this Film for the poster was called Imagination, I believed that as I had created a Poster within a genre which I am interested in therefore I have got an idea as to how I want the DVD Menu to look and I can continue from my poster by creating the DVD Menu for the same film.
I have now started to plan out my final designs and sketches and I am now visually imagining my DVD Menu and how I want it to look. Through the past weeks I have researched into the Genre of Drama and I have gathered all the information such as Font, Colour Schemes and Layout, I have therefore incorporated all of these features within the DVD Menu.
I have also learnt a lot about the codes and conventions within DVD Menus and what the main features within the DVD Menus are, therefore this has helped me a lot in understanding what features are always within a DVD Menu, such as images, moving images, options, sub-menus and rollover buttons.

I am now going to continue to plan my Final DVD Menu with creating a mood board to represent my DVD Menu and I can also start to think about the images which I want to include within the DVD Menu and I am now able to take the images to put into Photoshop to create my final DVD Menu PSD's.

Week 7: Animation Within Photoshop

Today we have been introduced and learnt how to use animation within Photoshop which will help me when I come to create my DVD Menu, as I wanrt to use animation within my DVD Menu. I have learnt how to simply create a moving image within Photoshop these are the steps which I took and learnt to create the moving image:

• Create a Film and Video canvas within Photoshop which is in the correct format to create a page such as a DVD Menu.
• Open your chosen image into Photoshop and copy the image into the canvas.
• Now you are able to simply create a moving image by clicking on Window-Animation and this will create the animation, a timeline will appear at the bottom of the page with various tools which help you create the animation.
• You use the duplicate tool to duplicate the slide and this then creates the animation and you can then click onto the 'Tween Animation Frames Tool' and this will let you choose the amount of slides you wish to include within your animation.

I created an animation of a Butterfly flying across a Meadow, I am glad I have had the chance to use animation and I have been shown how to use it as I am going to include animation within my own DVD Menu.

This is a screenshot of my Animation of a Butterfly within
Photoshop

Week 7: Proposal Update

For the final product of the DVD Menu we are asked to create a proposal/pitch which presents my own idea for the DVD Menu which I wish to create. By presenting my ideas I am showing how my ideas have developed and how they can help create the DVD Menu. My research has helped me in understanding the elements which should be included within the Drama DVD Menu and therefore through showing my knowledge and research I am showing how I have made the decisions for the elements and features within the DVD Menu.
The main features which I have explained and highlighted within the Proposal are:

• Genre Explanation
• Colour Scheme
• Fonts Used
• Textures associated with the genre chosen (Drama)
• Budget to create the DVD Menu
• Similar and Existing DVD Menus
• Target Audience
• Transitions
• Layouts and Plans for my DVD Menu

Through representing all this information for the knowledge of the DVD Menu I am showing reasons and examples why I have used a certain object or feature within the DVD Menu and how all the features relate back to one another.

Week 6: Final Idea Development

Today I have continued with my development of my Final Idea. Today I have completed work which has helped me in developing my ideas for my Final DVD Menu.

The work which I have created and completed within today's session includes:

Contingency Plan: I have completed this plan which will help me throughout the process of planning, creating and evaluating my DVD Menu. Through this plan it highlights the main problems which may occur through these processes and I have listed resolutions to the problems which will help me.

My Initial Ideas: Which is the 3 ideas from the 3 different genres which I have researched into and shown the conventions and features which these DVD Menus may include. The three genres were: Children's Animation, Drama and Science Fiction. I have completed my ideas into these different genres and within these ideas they include, colours, fonts and a basic outline of the menu itself.

Final Idea Explanation and Research: I have completed the research into what I want to be included in the DVD Menu and including the features of font, layout and colour scheme, I have also included some of this information and research in my blog, which shows the research I have created for my final Drama DVD Menu. The explanation for my final DVD Menu idea gathers all the elements which I wish to include within the DVD Menu and I have explained this idea within a word document and highlighted and explained my final idea in detail.

Proposal: I have created my proposal for my DVD Menu in both a word document and a Power Point presentation, within the proposal I have included all the information which the client needs to know  about the product I am creating for him/her. The information include is information such as: Budget, Colour Schemes, Images, Similar/ Existing Products, Font and Designs of my DVD Menu.

Through starting and completing the work above I am happy with my final idea and through the research which I have done and my final idea this will help me in creating my final DVD Menu.

Week 6: Update on Encore and Update for my Final Idea for my DVD Menu

Today we learnt more skills within Encore and today has really helped me in understanding fully the tools within Encore and how you are able to organise folders within Encore. I used Photoshop to create a test for the main page for the a menu and I learnt how all the layers within Photoshop create the Menu with images and buttons to be imported quickly into Encore.

Some new skills which I learnt included:

• How to set up the Film and Video Canvas within Photoshop to create the page for the menu.
• Learnt about the limited space within the canvas and that there are blue lines within Photoshop which show where your text or images may not be seen within the screen.

New Terminology for Encore:

Place Holders: Thumbnail boxes which act like boxes within a scene selection menu, these allow you to add images and film clips into them to add to the DVD Menu.

Through using Encore today it has helped me in understanding the programme in more detail and I was able to recap on the work from last week to make sure that I still remembered and therefore I was able to move onto the next stage in the book to help develop my skills within Encore.

Encore Logo

 Update of Final Idea:

I have written my proposal for my final idea and this included all of my ideas which surround my DVD Menu, these include font, colour and layout, all of this information including designs and skecthes of my different DVD Menu Pages and shows the Client my ideas visually and they are all explained through the Proposal. This has helped me in understanding how I can now start about the creation and visualise the final DVD Menu and how I imagine the menu to be. From all the research and designs into the DVD Menu I can now concentrate on finishing the research and make sure I have good knowledge to show my understanding for Drama DVD Menus.

The next stage for me to think about is the sketches for my final design and the images which I will be taking for the DVD Menu, these are important for the menu as they do help suggest the genre and theme of the movie and show the originality of the DVD Menu.

Week 6: Final Idea for DVD Menu

I have now chosen my final idea for my DVD Menu and I have chosen the genre of Drama for this DVD Menu. I have chosen this genre as I am interested in the ways in which Drama DVD Front Ends are created, therefore through my research I have created a sketch and plans of each page within my DVD Menu. Through creating the sketches I have learnt about how to be creative in designing DVD Menus and that ideas for the DVD Menu have come to me through sketch and planning out the menus.
I have researched into this genre including:

• Font Styles
• Colour Schemes
• Textures
• Images

By researching into these factors which relate to the genre it has helped me in creating ideas for the DVD Menu and has helped me in understanding the concepts within a Drama DVD Menu. Through researching this genre and creating the sketches I now have a good idea of how I would like my DVD Menu to look.

Week 5: Progress of Research for DVD Menu

This week I have looked into the different genres which I was given to choose from to create a DVD Menu base around a certain Genre, the genres in which we were allowed to choose from were Children's Animation, Drama, Horror and Science Fiction, all of which would be independent Movies.

The genre which I have chosen is Drama and I have recently posted information and research on this product and ideas of how I imagine my DVD Menu to look. Before I chose my final genre and looked into the genre itself I have created other initial ideas and these ideas included:

• Children's Animation

Colour schemes: Blue and Yellow, bold colours which would appear to the younger target audience. These colours stand out and therefore will catch the target audiences eye and usually children become fascinated with bright colours, so therefore having these colours within the DVD menu will draw their attention into watching the DVD Menu.

Font: Cartoon effect font’s bold writing (bubble writing effects). These are fonts which children are interested in as they like to write in this style and as it is bold font they can clearly see the font with the colour and understand this style.

Cartoon styled images which will appeal to the target audience and catch their attention. There would also be different characters from within the film and the audience will get to know the characters from within the film by watching and looking at the different menus within the DVD Menu.

• Drama

Colour scheme: Greens and Blues- These colours are colours which blend together nicely and in fashion within the seasons there are colours which are ‘in’, so therefore the blue and green together may represent this.

DVD Menu to include: Links from Main Menu

·        Play Button

·        Scene Selection Link (button)

·        Special Features Link (button)

·        Audio Setup Link

·        Subtitle Link

Features on the DVD menu:

·        Moving Images, clips from the movie on main menu

·        Still images from the movie on the other sub-menus

·        Rollover will be in the shape of a fashion accessory- shoe or bag etc. This will help detect and select the options on the main menu.

·        Scene Selection menu will feature still images from the certain scene in the movie.

·        Layout of scene selection menu: Scenes will be groups in 4’s, e.g. scene 1-4 underneath the picture. The scene selection pictures will spread across the scene and the scene will hold up to 6 pictures for the scenes.

Science Fiction

Colour Scheme: Greys, Blues and Black, these colours are the colours which are associated with sci-fi and therefore these colours within a DVD Menu for this genre as this suggests ‘Space’ which could be a scene where the film is set.

Font: Similar colours to the colour scheme: Bold, complicated fonts as this may suggest Science Fiction, which will link in with the genre of the movie and will stand out from the colours within the DVD Menu.

Images: Still images would be used from the movie, and there will be a moving image of a science related object rotating or moving within the DVD Menu.

Through creating these initial ideas I have also created some sketches which helped me visualise the DVD Menus which I could potentially create. Below is one of my initial ideas when I looked into the different genres in which I could potentially take forward to create a DVD Menu with the three different genres.









This is a sketch of one of my initial ideas for a Children's
Animation DVD Menu

I have also created a Contingency plan which helps in the development of planning, creating and assessing the final product. This is a plan which highlights Potential Problems and Resolutions when going through these three stages of making the DVD Menu, I have completed this plan and some of the points within the plan include:

                                                                               Pre-Production

Potential Problem	Resolution
·         Unable to meet deadlines.	·         You are able to talk to your client for them to help with any ideas which you may not be sure about and that this is the reason why you are behind with the research.

                                                                                  Production

Potential Problem	Resolution
·         May lose work.	·         Back up work which you have started and save into at least two places, on the computer and on a memory stick, or any portable storage. This way you are guaranteed that you work is saved in at least  two places and you will definitely have your work saved

Post-Production

Potential Problem	Resolution
·         Quality within the DVD Menu when finalised.	·         Check when in the process of creating the DVD Menu all the resolutions and features which affect the image and quality are correct for the canvas which you are working with.





Through creating this plan it has helped me in realising some of the obstacles which may need to be overcome through the three stages and therefore has helped me in realising these and how I may be able to resolve these problems if they happened.

For this project so far I have researched into the different genres which were given to me to choose from, I have chosen my final genre which is Drama and the title of my DVD is Imagination. I am now going onto sketch out my final DVD Menu with all the conventions and elements which are included within a DVD Menu and I am going to take into consideration the research which I have found out about my Drama genre and put this all into my DVD Menu and create an Independent Drama DVD Menu, and make my menu original.

Week 5: Introduction to Encore

Today we used a programme called Encore and within this programme I will be creating my DVD Menu, as I had never used this programme before it was very interesting for me to learn about this programme and I have learnt the basics for Encore and I also got the chance to use this programme to explore the features it include.

• Some new skills in which I learnt today include how to create a new project and to direct the project to a certain folder within my documents (today we used a hard drive in which we are saving all our Encore work to).
• I learnt how links are made to buttons within a DVD Menu and I also linked a button and clip together, therefore the clip played.
• I learnt some shortcuts for within using Encore, these shortcuts include saving projects the shortcut by the keyboard is Ctrl + S, this will help me in the future within projects, so as I am working on a project I am able to easily save my projects as I am working on them. Another shortcut was the shortcut of Ctrl+Alt+Space Bar, this lets you view the project so far, for example a video may play if this was the product you were creating. There is also a shortcut for importing files, you can simply right click on the left hand side of the screen where the projects are listed and click down to 'import as' and you can simply open a file from that point.
• Another tool within Encore is the tool for you to be able to check the progress of your project and to see which parts of the project are finalised and which are still in the works.
• When you import a file such as a video or menu into Encore, you can have the option in how you would like this file to appear on the screen, and the best way for DVD Menus is for the file to be in a timeline. You can simply click on this option and then when the file opens it will appear with a timeline for you to see the progress.

In practicing in Encore today it has helped me in understanding the software and programme which I will be using to create my DVD Menu and has helped me understand how to use the programme, so when I start my DVD Menu I now know some of the basics to help in creating the DVD Menu.

Week 5: Research Into DVD Menu

Today we started our planning into our DVD Menus. I have researched into various aspects of DVD menus and which features suit my genre of Drama, the aspects I looked at are Colours, Animation, Textures, Fonts and Codes and Conventions.

Colours:

The colours which I would use on my DVD Menu is the colour scheme of Blues and Greens, these colours work well together and stand out from each other.

These colours is the colour scheme in which I would like my DVD Menu to follow as these colours work well together, I would like to use a blend of these colours in different shades for the effect on the DVD Menu.

IMAGINATION         IMAGINATION

IMAGINATION         IMAGINATION

IMAGINATION         IMAGINATION

IMAGINATION         IMAGINATION

Textures:

Textures which I think will work well on my DVD menu are textures such as fabrics, such as velvet, as this links in with my theme and will give the touch of the them to the DVD Menu. Also any textures which will link into the colour scheme and set the genre and theme of the movie will work well.

These Textures below show some examples of the types of textures which I would like to incorporate into my own DVD Menu

I have edited these images in Photoshop and have used the effects within Photoshop to transform the image. This image texture is the texture which I wish to use within my DVD Menu as this texture blends in with my theme of my movie. The use of the bold title and font style stands out and this shows how the colours stand out together.



Animation within my DVD Menu:

For my DVD menu it shall feature moving images and clips from my movie and therefore these will be my own clips which I will film in the process of making the DVD menu. These clips will be at the top of the main menu and will be placed in a frame for decoration and this will be one of the main features on the main menu and therefore people will be able to see clips from the film for them to get an idea of what the film is about. These clips will play in a loop on the main menu, which means that the whole DVD menu will play in a loop, the loop is about 30 seconds long, and once this time is up the whole DVD menu will repeat itself.

Animations Also Used: I would also like to use animations such as moving images/objects, I would like to include images such as shoes or fashion accessories within my DVD menu, this would be effective as the image could be rotating, an image such as a shoe could be rotating and this will show the theme of my movie and the genre of my movie, by a simple symbol.

This is the research which I have gathered today and this research will be added to and this will help me in creating my DVD Menu.

Fonts:

Fonts which I associate with Drama are fonts which stand out and are remembered for a certain drama and become the signature logo for the film itself.

These fonts below are fonts which show the theme and genre of my DVD Menu and incorporate the sense of fashion and highlight the Dramatic genre within the DVD Menu, so that if you take one look at these fonts they suggest Drama.

 

This font style is a bit more subtle, but still suggests Drama
and shows the 'elegant' side towards the Drama
Genre.





This font style stands out and suggests the genre and theme
of the movie, whihc is Drama and throughout the
DVD Menu this font will continued throughout
and this font may be become the font which
the DVD Menu is known for.





This font style suggests 'Drama', as this font is very similar,
to the font which was used for the Titanic movie, which was a
massive Drama film, this font will catch your attention.



Animation and Still Images within my DVD Menu:

 

For my DVD menu it shall feature still images from my movie and therefore these will be my own images which I will capture in the process of making the DVD menu. These images will be at the top of the main menu and will be placed in a frame for decoration and this will be one of the main features on the main menu and therefore people will be able to see images from the film for them to get an idea of what the film is about. These images will play in a loop on the main menu, which means that the whole DVD menu will play in a loop, the loop is about 30 seconds long, and once this time is up the whole DVD menu will repeat itself. There will be several images within the DVD Menu, for example, one image will appear and another will appear straight after.

If I was able to use moving images I would use them in the same way as the still images, I have researched into both still images and moving images and have researched into existing DVD Menus which use these.

Examples of DVD Menus which use Clips and Moving Images: The Break Up uses moving images within the DVD menu, it uses clips from the movie and these are on a loop in so they will repeat themselves on the DVD Menu. For this menu there were two separate menus in which you could choose a side, ‘His or Hers’ choosing one of these would lead you to a menu which you could choose the different options and the options were the same on each menu. Each menu showed different clips, on ‘his’ menu the clips were of him and on ‘her’ menu it showed clips of her in the movie.



This screen shot is from Legally Blonde 2
and is the Main Menu for the DVD
and this DVD uses various clips from the film being played in
a loop. This is similar in what I wish for my DVD
Menu layout to be, with clips from the film being
played on the main menu.



Animations Also Used: I would also like to use animations such as moving images/objects, I would like to include images such as shoes or fashion accessories within my DVD menu, this would be effective as the image could be rotating, an image such as a shoe could be rotating and this will show the theme of my movie and the genre of my movie, by a simple symbol.

Below is an animation from an Existing DVD Menu:



This image shows the DVD Menu of Bend It Like Beckham and this animation is of a football, which links into the theme of the movie and this animation bounces around the screen on the main menu and plays in a loop.



DVD Menu to Include: Links From Main Menu

• Play Button (Main Menu)
• Special Features Menu
• Audio Setup Menu
• Subtitle Menu
• Scene Selection Link (button)  

Below is the layout of how the scene selections will appear on each page, there will be between 2 to 3 pages of this layout.

Each window will feature a still image from the scene itself, one of the most important parts of the scene and the scenes name will be featured below the scenes image and to choose other scenes these will be listed down the side and you can simply click on the next scene selection buttons to take you to the next scenes within the film.

Scene 1 Scene Name	Scene 2	Scene 3
Scene 4	Scene 5	Scene 5

Scenes 6-11

Scenes 12-17

Scenes 18-22

I chosen the film genre of Drama for my DVD Menu as this is a genre in which I am interested in and I would like to research into this genre to find out what is involved within Drama DVD Menus and how they come together as one. The title for my DVD Menu is Imagination, which is the same name which has followed on from my Movie Poster.