The Final Chapter

This is probably the last time I will get the write in here before I attempt to print it all off from here and hand it in on thursday at the crack of dawn.
I am, in fact, not in possession of the completed product however :o :o

I have a few things to tweak in the documentation and I need to print off the DVD covers tommorrow. But other than that we are there! Done! Finit! So this will be my final entry I would have thought... SO....

It has been great fun... but chao for now ;)

Looking Back

I think that I have been very good at keeping this blog going. It is the kind of thing that I would have been likely to have forgotten after the first week or so, but I have kept it going and it correlates well with my written reports. WHICH, by the way, I still need to finish of for this time next week. There is just a few final touches that I need to look into. I also need to set up a Poster Day. that is pretty easy for a DVD though - set up my laptop and loop the play-all section of the DVD and then smile at everyone walking past. And maybe give out sweets.

But all in all I think this project has been a success, I wish I could have included all of the videos in the DVD (which I will do but not in time for the assignment deadline) which was the original plan. But the DVD does, however, demonstrate that i can mix videos well and take a project such as this through to completion.

Don't be surprised if I use a lot of this blog pasted into my evaluation ;)

Finishing off the designs

I have been working on the DVD cover today. It is looking good. Once again, I have tired to accommodate all of the options and expressions that were retrieved from marketing research and kept it looking as appealing as possible. It would have been good to have used bright and vibrant colours to draw the user in, but in order to keep in tone with the logo and them of the Church's logo and current designs, I needed to use the blues and rectangles theme.

I have saved the files ready for printing off, but I want to make them look really good and therefore print them off on a colour laserjet and since it is the easter break from Uni, I can't use that prnter for a week or so. I will print it off when I go back on the 31st.

>>remember to print off the covers!!!<<<

I have baught some blank DVD covers for when i do get the printouts.

DVD Officially burned off!!!

We have a master DVD people!! A fully working and generally beautiful creation that took flipping ages to produce!!!!

*pause for the masses of crowds to celebrate*

But seriously, I have burned off three copies and will hopefully get to print on them at some point int he next few days (considering I don't have very long left until the due date). I just need to get the cover completely finished and pronted off and then it will be just a matter of tweaking the documentation to cover these latest developments....

Give Me An Adobe Encore

Ok, i really like Adobe Encore because of the complete control over the DVD creation that you get.... ON THAT NOTE.... I really want to buy the Apple equivilent, it looks SO much better... I can;t remember what it is called though. I wish the university has that (and Final Cut for that matter)... but anyway Adobe Encore is still good, but it does take a while to get it looking as good as you want it.

So basically I have it how I want it (the first menu) but I need to add in the secondary menu (you know how my DVD will have two menus?) I have already made the second menu, but I need to import it into Encore and make it look the same as the last one. It shouldn't take as long now what I know exactly what i have to do but it is ten to five and i think that they are going to be locking up soon so I will need to come back and do some final touches either tommorrow or wednesday....

DVD Menus

So today i worked on the DVD menus in photoshop (you can see them on the final DVD or in the documentation or if you are reading this somewhere else... you can't see them so you will have to trust me that they are good).

I took into account the information and results of the research that I retrieved at the start of the project. With this in mind, I have tired to make the DVD look as proffessional as possible without losing the stylish factor. I have completely gone down the route of branding the project with the CityCoastChurch logo and colour scheme. the CityCoast Church font in century gothic so i have used that throughout too.

My plan is to go down the church within the next day or so and put the photoshop files into Adobe Encore. And from there - make the DVD :)

Surviving D-Day

Ok that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I have have done it :D :D

I can now go away and work on the menu system and the cover for the DVD. Along wit hthe documentation, the last thing I need to consider is the possibility of printing onto a DVD, literally. There are machines that do it and I know that the church owns one that does CD's for thier meeting recordings, my question has to be does that include DVDs? Does it even work with DVDs? It must do surely. I need to remember to ask Simon if it works and more importantly if i could use it for the final DVDs.

Onto the DVD marketing....

D-Day

Today is the day I am determined to finish my youth video.

That is all I am going to write until I have finished it!

MENU PROBLEMS!!!!

Today I thought i would try and be clever and start the DVD menu but there was a problem. I can't get the videos to the university since the files are so large :p

So, using my iniative, i decided to take my laptop (with the videos... not including a completed youth one as of yet) to the church where they have an external hard drive and the software to make the DVD menus (Adobe Encore) and started to make it there. I taught myself how to use it during the Time Based Media module in year 2, so i know that the easiest way to create a design is the use a photoshop document and convert certain aspects of it into buttons. I used a basic template to test it worked and it did. So now I know that when i have all the videos that I need I can come down to the church to make the menu rather than the university. With this in mind i need to go away and make a menu system in Photoshop...

...I also need to finish the youth video...!!

March already!

And here we are in march. Luckily I am reasonably on top of the work-load (for this project anyway....). My aim is to get started on the DVD menu and cover within the next week which means I need to finish the youth video before then so that the menu can work properly. From here I need to finish off the order in which the middle clips progress and potentially change a few of colourings (maybe add a bit of sepia tone? I am thinking perhaps where the guitars kick in on the audio parts).