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Evaluation:

Jake Ford – Unit 8 Evaluation:

 I came up with the idea of making an Interactive DVD due to my previous final project last year after making a DVD that was a tribute to a band that I went to see live and for a personal keeping. This time I wanted to make a similar DVD but this time for either two bands separately as there was only time only to do one DVD. The bands this time was either Good Charlotte or Avenged Sevenfold. It was very difficult to decide on one idea, but after researching existing products, this helped me to decide quite quickly. In the end, I chose Avenged Sevenfold. The reason being that from my research, I noticed how much more appealing artwork was created on, “Avenged Sevenfold: Live in the LBC” compared to “Good Charlotte: Live in Brixton”. Both bands have amazing artwork, but what was presented in their existing products, the Avenged Sevenfold DVD stood out more to me.  

I was basing my audience around myself due to the fact that I am a fan of Avenged Sevenfold and I could just describe what things I like to an extent but actually whilst doing research I found out that people who are a little younger than me, that being 15+ may actually watch my product. Any person younger than 15+ may not truly understand what the band is about and what music is at this age. My target audience may purchase music albums from related bands to Avenged Sevenfold, bands like, Metallica & Pantera. All bands have a wide range of visuals for their fans enjoyment, this goes as far as the live experience of both bands. Despite myself not experiencing Metallica play live I am aware that both A7X shows & Metallica shows are similar when it comes to visuals.

I created a Gantt chart earlier in the course year; this helped to refer where I was in the process. Every piece of research work that I have done has been recorded in my production diary blog.

At the pre-production stage I created my own DVD motion background, containing little clips of the band members playing live and with an added filter on them to add effect. My intentions of using this were to make this my menu screen, with added buttons like, “Play Movie” and “Bonus features”. The Bonus Features menu would include music videos to the bands most recent singles with my own thumbnail to stand out from one another, as well a white border around the images to increase the level of attraction to my audience. As I needed the videos to the songs I had to convert the video on YouTube with a YouTube Converter in order to change it to a MP4 format so it would work when I needed it.

At the post-production stage, I checked at home if my DVD worked and to a certain extent It did except from a few issues. After this I finished of working on my DVD cover design and with the help of TLR, they helped put my custom image on the disk. I then made an evaluation and a step-by-step guide on how the process of making my finished product happened.

Looking at existing DVD designs supported me a lot when working on my DVD cover art, I looked at Metallica and Pantera’s album artwork and especially took inspiration from them as the Metallica one contained a very cool looking effect with the skull in the middle and red going around. You can clearly see that I have used this inspiration in my final DVD design cover as Avenged Sevenfold’s signature logo I have made to contain the same effect on it as the Metallica one.

My production went successfully apart from the beginning stages when I went to TLR to see Marcus for guidance and it turned out that I had to recreate my menu screens as the Encore software would recognise the buttons that I placed. We tried ways around this issue but nothing seemed to be working. But Marcus had eventually found a solution, which after I felt comfortable and soon completed my product. As I thought that everything went okay, after watching the DVD at home I noticed that the audio was eerie and would restart itself as the background motion had restarted as well. What I had needed to do was copy the background continuously on the timeline before places it in the software so the software would assume it was one clip and run for a longer duration period. This is what I’d do if I had more time and will look out for in the future. As for the audio, I have no idea how I’d solve that issue as when I was building my project the audio sounded fine.

Throughout this process I kept creating loads of new ideas and decided when the time was right, and things while I can. These things included the bands signature logo used as buttons instead of a white line. I added and created my own DVD intro with help from Marcus. This idea was made before the production stage but due to the annoying issues I just wanted to get a rough outline of my product before expanding on it.

Overall, I am happy with the way my final product has turned out like, despite some issues with audio and background I feel like I have made a successful product and it shows that I have been thinking about my target audience throughout as every decision I made related to, if the audience would or wouldn’t like it.

My finished product turned out to look like the way I had originally wanted. After getting some positive feedback from people aged 15+ which is my target audience. They said that my product appealed to them by the use of different colours included. Obviously the audio problems the audience picked up on and the background not being long enough which restarted my edited audio so they couldn’t hear the full audio.

Comparing this DVD to the one that I made last year, I feel that last year’s was better due to the fact that I felt more consistent in my work and it just felt that everything flowed better in the process of, Research, Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production. It felt like I had more time and as a side project I made a website on Wix to support and promote my overall DVD. If you compare the visuals to each other, I think that the Hollywood Undead DVD had more interaction within the visuals and interaction in general creating a much more immersive product for the user.

I feel that I have learnt advertising skills whilst working on my DVD cover and case designs. The main colours that are included in my designs are red & blue which helps appeal to my target audience as both red & blue are dominant colours and can appeal to both genders. I wanted to add Heaven/Hell effect with the colours, blue and red as the viewer may relate to this in their personal lives and see that good things in life happen as well as the bad. Also, the decision to include soldiers inside of the deathbat logo wings was made due to the fact that the band like to support the American troops and have some songs relating to war.  

All changes added to my product were made to increase the overall appearance of my product. The things I decided to add were chosen wisely and were rightfully placed. The overall finish of my product includes are motion background that runs throughout the DVD menus, signature band logo for button navigation. Music Videos and all videos captured from the concert. My changes had a positive response from my audience and compared to my original idea, the finish one was much more successful.

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DVD Case Design:

In this blog post I am going to show you how i made and tell you how i made my case design for my DVD.

On the back includes the list of songs that the band played, not all but the ones that were captured on video. It also features the band members names and roles in the band.

The front is an enlarged image of the disk cover design.

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Printing my DVD Cover onto a disk:

Today i printed my DVD cover onto a disk. i found my custom made DVD cover and found the dimensions of an actual DVD disk size and made my DVD cover fit that size in order to see what the end result will look like.

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ENCORE: MAKING PROJECT:

Firstly, when i was in a normal lesson I opened up the Encore software to have a few tries of messing around with the software so I could try to remember everything I learnt last year. However, I was confused and then scheduled a lesson in TLR with Marcus to try and remind me of how to use the software etc. 

The first lesson with Marcus was, how I’d put it, an overview of my plan for the project and a good starting point. However, there were some issues we came across. Before putting all the pieces together in Encore, I put everything I needed on a memory stick to transfer over from the PC to the Mac. But, every time I transferred my resources I somehow forgot one or two things. The first time was the Music Video links. I did have a few lessons with Marcus so it gave me a chance to add extra resources that I planned on using. The issue came from trying to import my custom menu screens, but for some reason the programme would not identify them and when we would try to preview the “Movie” the menu screens would not appear. Another issue was that none of the layers appeared in the layer options in Encore, so we could not convert any text as a button. As a result, I booked another lesson with Marcus for a few days later when he had free time, meanwhile he would try to find a solution to the issues.

The next time I saw Marcus, he had found a solution and it turned out that I would have to recreate my menu screens, not altogether but I had to redo the thumbnails and button placements, font size etc.

To get the menu image to change without creating a new version of the menu, then importing it again, we used the”Photoshop” option tool in Encore, so when we would change something it would automatically change in the Encore software. As I had recreated the menu screens, I added a white line underneath the text so that the programme would identify it was a button. Firstly we tried a transparent appearance but that did not work. So I ended up keeping with the white line. We would then go back to it at the end, but at this point everything was better. Next, I imported every resource needed, including, “A7X DVD Videos” - (Custom “Movie”), “Music video links” - “DVD Intro” - and “Bonus Features Menu”. I then converted every text and video thumbnails in both two menus, “Main” and “Bonus” and linked them to the video or back to previous menu that I wanted them to go to; for example, “Play movie button linked to A7X DVD Videos, then linked back to Main Menu”. 

Marcus had very kindly helped me create a DVD intro that i had originally planned to add. We used “Adobe Premiere” and once again with a memory stick, imported my already made video edit to the software. Once I explained to Marcus what my plan was, he showed me how to edit my video clip to create a visual effect. My plan was to have a flash at the end of the clip which would then lead onto the main menu screen. the video was a short version of a live song cut down to a part where the lead singer would punch the air a few times going with the song and to get the crowd involved, and behind him was a massive cube that for every song would have a different visual. This song had a skulls head explode when the singer did the final punch. I thought this would be cool if I could insert the flash effect then and keep the song in the video continuing when going through the menu screens etc. This gave me a really cool idea to make my own audio to include in my project, the audio I made consisted of a few A7X songs shortened down and mixed together to export as one big “Song”. 

When I was happy with my custom audio, all we needed to do was to export the audio as a “WAV” format and import it into “Encore” then make the audio play during the menu screens. as the PC’s in the TLR area did not have “Audition” installed on them, which was the software I used to create my audio, Marcus and I found a PC that did have Audition so i could save the audio as a “WAV” format then place it in Encore. We didn’t do this until we had sorted out another idea I thought about, that being having the band’s signature deathbat logo on the side of the buttons text instead of the white lines. Once again I used the Photohop option in Encore to add the deathbats to the two menus. Once I was happy with the size etc, we converted the logos to buttons instead of the text and changed the settings to have the logos turn blue when hovering over the button and turn red when clicked on the button.

On Encore, before i “Built” my project, i checked to see if everything was working okay. After building my DVD, I bought a disk from TLR to burn my disk on. Now I’m going to deliver out a questionnaire to my target audience to hear feedback on my project.

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DVD Music Audio:

In this blog post I am going to show you my process of making my audio track:

*I am in the middle of making the DVD in Encore, however as I’m working on it in TLR, using a mac, I will take screenshots and explain the making process when possible*

Firstly as i was putting in my created DVD intro into Encore, i came up with the idea to add a audio track in the background of the menu screens. I thought it would be cool if the song in my custom intro would continue on the menu, where the transition between the intro to the main menu happens. 

The YouTube Converter that I’m using is:  http://www.10youtube.com/

The song that the band is playing in the intro is called: Buried Alive. i plan on using Audition to create a combination of one song from A7X albums into one audio track. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNi6-JgCO2o&list=PL_ra-vlGrowS7vpnKs0imd4ga2fpLDJKo&index=4

Other Songs I’m using:

“Shepherd of Fire” Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH6icyzCEVc&list=PL_ra-vlGrowQHakStwk1-W_eDRTNw4QJD SHEPHERD OF FIRE

“Demons” Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2a4dabz23g&list=PL_ra-vlGrowQ0KcayUmdeA-Y60J1TNWgo DEMONS

“Unbound” Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSONlsPstdY&index=6&list=PL_ra-vlGrowQMnyEPxEZ2Enox24unXlLN

“Sidewinder” Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8UpaE0S5bc&list=PL_ra-vlGrowTeKxMYJsNNsLvEn9yp9CPn&index=7

“Fermi Paradox” LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4KNk8LyZ0&index=10&list=PL_ra-vlGrowQ70VHg6hUYbiH3sninIc7l

I’m going to edit each song separately and then combine all my edited versions into one. *As in edit, I mean crop*

I have finished editing and I’m about to put every song together. At the start & end of the songs, I’m planning on putting a fade in/out effect.

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Creating DVD Cover and Back:

In this blog post I am showing off my design for both my DVD cover & back. 

This includes as you can see on the left side of the image below my already made DVD cover. On the right hand side includes the title of the DVD, Who the members in the band are and the list of songs that were captured on video at the gig. 

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Starting in Encore:

Today I started working on my project in Encore. I used a memory stick to transfer some files that i needed over from the PC to MAC.

I had some issues to begin with though as for some reason i could not be able to make my main menu move in the software, however after a while, I figured out how to do it properly.

Another problem was that i couldn’t see the “Layers” in the layers tab, i needed this to convert the “PLAY MOVIE” & “Bonus Features” titles to buttons. Solving this issue resulted to me having to create a line for underneath the two texts so that the software would assume they were the buttons. At first i tried see-through lines but the software would not identify what they were so i changed the lines to read lines and that solved the problem.

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DVD Intro + Starting Project:

In this blog post I will be going over my concept for a DVD Intro:

I made it in Adobe Photoshop and edited one of the video clips that was captured at the gig. This is because there was a short 10 - 15 second long part of the clip that I liked.

I thought that this section of the clip was powerful as when the lead singer is punching the air, the final punch happens and the giant cube’s visual explodes and i thought that could be the part where my main menu appears as the first clips fades.

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Making My Design Document:

In this blog post I am going to explain the subjects covered in my Design document:

My Plan: Make a Interactive DVD based on my own personal experience when I saw the band, Avenged Sevenfold. It’ll be a tribute to the band.

Interactivity: Motion background, the bands music videos and button choices.

Menu Screens: Button choices, motion background all adds interaction.

Mood/Style: My friends footage was further away from my sisters, her having been right at the front where the band had a middle isle and would occasionally look at her. Both my friend’s footage and my sister’s will be included in my product.

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Menu screen: “BONUS FEATURES”:

In this blog post I am going to explain how I’ve designed and made my “Bonus Features” Menu for my Interactive DVD.

I started of by finding two music videos from Avenged Sevenfold and converted them into MP4 Format using, “10YouTube.com” (YouTube Converter). 

I then took a screenshot of the video as i’ll be converting the image to a button once i go into Encore and i’ll be using this image as a thumbnail for the button.

I’ll be doing this process with the other video.

I already made a Photoshop document with all my “Titles” that I’ll be including in this project. Once I opened this up, I made a “Back” Button and two title buttons that’ll go underneath the thumbnail of the music video buttons.

As you can see below is the already made motion background i made before this process, with the music video thumbnail with a white glow around it to stand out from the background colour, and the title text will be white as well. This same visual will be applied to the other video thumbnail. Also, the “Back” Button is in the corner, giving the viewers option to go back to the home screen.

(At the moment I only have two different screens, if i had more, I’d changed the name “Back” to “Home” to be more direct and specific).

In this picture below, you can see my whole concept design on screen. Once I was happy with what i did, i rendered the “Movie”. As i mentioned earlier in the post, i will convert the thumbnail images to buttons in Encore.

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Adobe Premiere: Making My “Movie”:

In this blog post i am going to showcase how i made my “Movie” in Adobe Premiere.

I started off by creating a new project in Adobe Premiere.

After this, I dragged across separately my “Live footage clips” that i already converted from a YouTube converter.

After editing the clips in the first box, the left one. I dragged my new edited clips to the right timeline and i did this for every video. I then found a “fade out/ in” visual so i put that on at the end of all clips to signal that there is a new song.

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CHARACTER MIND MAP:

In this blog post I am posting my work that I did a couple of days ago based on, Character Mind Map:

JONATHON:

Character Description: A guy who steals the main characters RV truck when the three guys abandan the truck, they come back and it’s gone.

The guys are set to do a “Job” to get the truck back

·         Intimidating

·         Selfish

·         Mean

·         Laidback

·         Confident

·         Threatening

CHARACTERS IMPACT ON THE PROTAGONIST:

He wastes the guys time even though they do not need to be at their destination at a certain time. He then humiliates them as his punishment towatrds them is to clean the truck unclothed. He demands them for cash first but as they don’t have cash they are set to do the punishment.

Despite of this The guys are not hugely effected by this but later sees Jonathon’s other character, Ronathon, who gives the guys his boat and after an awkward conversation, he eventually gives them the boat which looks flamboyant and the guys get dirty looks from girls. They meet him again at the end of the film where the guys get their revenge. 

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Scheduling Blog Post:

In this blog post i am going to answer the questions to:

Are you on schedule? Yes I believe I am on schedule as i feel that my work is going really well at the moment and plan on continuing that progress. I have managed my time well as when I’m home, I do related work that will help me with the project a bit later on. All blog posts are up to date with having every lesson that I’ve been working on my project on my Tumblr. Despite having a few days not being able to log into my account.

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Target Audience – Jake Ford:

Demographics?

·       Age: 15+

·       Gender: Teenage Males & Females.

·       Marital/ Family status:

·       Income Level:

·       Education Level:

·       Occupation:

 How do they think?

·       Attitudes: I believe A7X fans are loyal and religious to the band and every fan stands up for each other when they read hate comments about the band. However, A7X don’t care about hate.

·       Values:

·       Interests & Hobbies:  Art, creative, clothing, Music.

·       Lifestyle: They may listen to similar music bands like, Metallica & Pantera or I’ve seen and heard people like A7X and a completely different genre of music. The lead singer from A7X has featured in many different bands songs, some don’t sound like A7X, but fans may like those bands to. In fact, it was Good Charlotte’s song, “The River” featuring Matt Shadows (Singer) & Syn Gates (Guitarist), that made me aware of who Avenged Sevenfold were.

·       Behaviours: From my experience, they’re pretty chilled out. Unlike other fans of other genres of music, A7X fans are less critical on others opinions of things like interests.

  What challenges and frustrations do they have?

Stereotypes who assume the music is too loud and “Screamy” or that all fans of the band are seen as “Goths” and always wear black clothes. These things are what I’ve personally have read and witnessed.

  How can you best reach the audience?

The band have their own Fan Club that fans can connect to online and prizes and giveaways the band gives out, such as. “Give us suggestions for the Fan clubs name and get a video call from the band.

  Which Interactive DVDs are the audience currently watching?

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JAKE FORD – DVD Cover:

In this blog post I’m going to give an overview of my final DVD cover design, including inspiration and the decision makings and why i chose those ideas:

INSPIRATION:

This design above has influenced me as I like how the red going around the skull making it stand out dominantly and the red is on the title combined with the skulls grey colour.

MY DESIGN SO FAR:

The “Deathbat” was originally a transparent image, so I decided to put it onto a black background so it would stand out. I copied the layer 4 times to get the deathbats on the corners of the screen. I then chose to use my Photoshop skills to get the red/blue colours half and half to get a sense of Heaven vs Hell.

FINAL DESIGN:

Overall I am super happy with the outcome of my design. The soldiers were added near the end of the process and the inspiration for those being added were for two reasons. The band, A7X respect the US soldiers and a couple of songs are focused on war. Lead singer also plays Call of Duty. The second inspiration came from the bands, “Hail to the king” album cover where the text of the album’s title gives an engraved effect.

 I thought it would be cool to add the Heaven/Hell effect and with my Photoshop skills i was able to edit the deathbats and made them combine with two colours, different to the other side. One side has, Orange/Yellow deathbats to represent Hell and Fire. The other side contains, Dark Blue and Light Blue deathbats representing Heaven & Clouds.

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JAKE FORD – DVD Cover Design Research:

In this blog post I am going to show my research going towards my customised DVD Cover design:

I have found a few Album cover designs for bands and artwork from bands that are associated with Avenged Sevenfold.

Avenged Sevenfold – “The Stage”

A)“The Stage” – I like this design/ Artwork as it consists of a skull and it’s quite imposing and shows a side of feirce dominance. That is why I would like to include something like this in my Design for my product.

Hollywood Undead “American Tragedy”

B) “American Tradegy” – In the picture below as covered in a previous blog post, I mentioned that I like the formation of all the members, the American Tradegy album cover, I feel has the same impact, however adds more colour and engagement.

Pantera – “Mouth For War”

Metallica – “Murder I May Fame”

C and D):

Pantera – “Mouth For War” & Metallica – “Murder I May Fame” – Both of these artworks have the same appeal to me and impact. I like the use of colour which helps the visuals stand out. I mention on The Stage art that I liked it as it consisted of a skull and so do these. In the Pantera one, I like how they’ve put words in the skulls mouth and you can see fists hanging off the skull which appeals to me.

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Navigation Map:

In this blog post I am going to show screenshots of my “Navigation Map” idea. I was unable to post blogs for a while on my account, therefore i have a few blog posts to copy into.

I am undecided on what each screen will contain but here’s a concept plan:

Main Menu:

Including moving background. “Play Movie” - Will play my video clips from gig. “Special Features” & “Bonus Features”.

Special Features:

Including moving background. Photo Slide-show & Exclusive Content.

Bonus Features:

Including moving background & Interviews.