Premiere - Title Settings

As a mandatory aspect of the assignment I need to use Titles in my DVD Trailer. As this is a mandatory aspect this topic was touched upon in lecture. I have taken this knowledge and spent sometime looking at extra features and techniques in order to put together this blog post.
I began by adding a colour matte and then adding a title in front of this. Adding colour mattes was touched upon in a previous blog post, however to recap it can be found in File, New and Colour Matte. Shown Below. 

There are two ways in which you can add a title over a colour matte. The first is to use a similar method in terms of File, New and Title. These options can also be seen above. The second way to add a title is to use the Title and then Title, New Title and for the beginning Default Still. I will be looking at the other two options later. The next two options are the exact same regardless as to which path you take above. As the title sits on the timeline you need to chose the video settings in terms of the width and height and timebase. As a default these are the same as the settings which we changed when the project and sequence was first created and hence these should be left as they are. This dialog box can be seen below.

The next stage from here is to actually add some text. A larger dialog box appears which is home to all of the settings related to text. This can be seen below.

Lets start by looking down the left hand side of the screen. This shows that the title tool can be used for other aspects as well as text. The two options at the top are very similar to those which can be found in both Photoshop and Illustrator, these are the selection tool and the rotation tool. Following on from this are the text tools. The top left hand corner is the basic horizontal type tool while next to this is the vertical type tool. You then have the area type tool and the vertical area type tool followed by the standard path tool and the vertical path tool. these are all very similar to those which I have previously used in Photoshop and Illustrator and hence take little explaining.

Following on from the type tool options come the pen tool options. This was a tool which I used a lot in Illustrator. The simple fountain pen icon is the basic pen tool which this icon with the - is known as the Delete Anchor Point Tool, this deletes the line between two points. The opposite to this is the Add Anchor Point Tool followed finally by the Convert Anchor Point Tool.

The next options in this tool bar are shapes. Like the pen tool these can most commonly be found in Illustrator and I was hence quite surprised to find these in Premiere. These are quite simple shapes but could come in handy. The final three options in this bar relate to the positioning of the elements on the screen. Align works when there is more than one element on the screen. This is probably not something which I will need to use as I aim to keep the text elements simple like in a DVD Trailer. To try this tool out I created a piece of text and then a shape. I used the Selection Tool to select both items and then the align tools became available. I then used the horizontal left alignment to position the shape to the left of the text. This can be seen below. 

The next set of icons are for the Center options. These can be used on many or a single object. The first option is the center the text horizontally the the second is to center the text vertically. To make the text dead center you can use both icons. You can firstly center the text horizontally and then vertically. 

The final tool in this tool bar is the distribute tool. This again works by changing the positioning of multiply elements on the screen. This can be seen in the random shapes I added below.

So now that I have looked at the options down the left hand side of the screen I am going to look further into the type options. I am going to start by looking at the top tool bar when the type is selected. This can be seen below.

 

 

This gives the basic type options. Starting from the left the first three options are to create a new title and lose what you have already created, basically start over. Roll and Crawl options, this shows that even if you chose a stationary title you can go back and change your mind. Roll and Crawl titles will be discussed later. The final option is to select templates. From this point there is then a variety of options for the font style, bold, italic and underline. The font size and kerning. Remembering from previously that the kerning of text involves normally two letters. Although in this case the kerning seems to adjust the spacing between whatever has been selected. The next option is leading. This adjusts the space between two lines of text. This will be handy for my as I am more than likely going to need to spread my title across two lines. The three lines icons are very common on Microsoft software and adjust the positioning of the title on the page, these options are for left, centre or right.

Tab stops are something completely new to me however this is the next icon in the tool bar. I undertook some research to find out what these tab stops are and what they do. This can be seen below: Sourced: http://helpx.adobe.com/en/premiere-pro/using/creating-formatting-text-titles.html - Accessed: 01/04/2014

 

'Create tab stops in titles

You can apply tabs in a text box in much the same way as you would in a word-processing program. Tabs are especially useful in creating professional-looking rolling credits. You can set multiple tabs within a text box and press the Tab key to move the cursor to the next available tab stop. You can specify a different justification option at each tab stop.

Note: Tabs work exclusively to align the characters within text objects. To align entire text or graphic objects, use the Align command.

Set and adjust a tab stop

Select a text box.


Choose Title > Tab Stops.


Align the “0” line in the Tab Stops ruler with the left edge of the selected text box.


Click the tab ruler above the numbers to create a tab. Drag the tab stop to adjust its position. As you drag, a yellow vertical line, or tab marker, indicates the tab’s position in the selected text box.


• To create a tab stop with left-justified text, click the Left Justify tab marker .
• To create a tab stop with center-justified text, click the Center tab marker .
• To create a tab stop with right-justified text, click the Right Justify tab marker .


Click OK to close the Tab Stops dialog box. The selected text box contains the tab stops you specified.


Note: To make tab markers visible whenever selected (rather than only when the Tab Stops dialog box is open), choose Title > View > Tab Markers.

Delete a tab stop

In the Tab Stops dialog box, drag the tab up, down, or off the tab ruler.'

 

The final icon in this tool bar relates to where the title is situated in the video. Although normally you would set the play head to the position in the video you want to add the title if you were to change your mind or want to experiment with the title on different backgrounds this is how you would do it. You simply slide the time code either left or right to move back or forward through the clip.

 

All of the above are the basic type tool options. The side bar along the right hand side of the screen are the title properties. These are split into six different categories, these are Properties, Transform, Fill, Strokes, Shadow and Background. These are probably the most important aspect in relation to title as this is where I can set the fine details to enhance the titles appearance. At this point it is worth noting that I have been using the tools I have been explaining in order to make a trial run of my DVD title. I have so far used the tools set along the top of the dialog box which I previously mentioned. My trail title so far can be seen below. Showing this now will indicate just what an influence these title properties have on the overall look of the title.

 

 

The transform icon in the properties menu looks at mainly the size and positioning of the title. This aspect is very similar to in the top tool bar however it allows you to go into more detail. This is all self explanatory and can be seen in the below screenshot.

 

 

As you can see the next option is Properties. This section looks in more detail at the font in terms of actual font, font size, kerning, tracking, leading, aspect, underlining, slant and capitals. This can all be seen in the below screenshot. I decided to change the leading, underlining features and slant. This can be seen below.

 

 

The next option is Fill. This is the first chance Premiere gives you to change the colour of the type. This really surprised me as I personally feel the type colour is really important. Within this fill section there are three main options. These are the type of fill, whether that be solid, gradient, Bevel, Eliminate or Ghost. The fill colour and then the opacity of the fill. I decided to use the Bevel fill. The exact settings I looked at can be seen below.

 

When looking at this and comparing it to the way I would like my titles to work I think I would be better off having a white colour matte as this gives me more scope to use pink in the title which works best with my colour scheme which I have used throughout. The image below shows my trial title using the effects shown in the above screenshot.

The next tab in the title properties section is Strokes. This aspect allows you to add either an inner or outer stroke. I personally only really like the outer stroke and hence this is the area which I have been experimenting with. From this I was then able to set the type of stroke, the size of the stroke, the fill type and colour, opacity and finally then either add a sheen or texture. The screenshot below shows the settings I changed. Ideally I wanted a white stroke however this just didn't work well and hence I have used a black stroke for the purpose of this however when I come to create my DVD title I will need to look into ways that I could make this work. As I have mentioned above I think my best option is going to be to change the colour of the colour matte.

Next is the option to add a shadow. This has fewer options that most of the other title properties however some of the editable shadow options include Colour, Opacity, Angle, Distance and Size. The screenshot below shows the editable options for the shadow and then finally my trial title with this added.

The final option in the title properties section is Background. Not surprisingly this allows you to add a background to your text. I personally see little point in this option as you already have the colour matte option or have selected the scene you want the title to run in front of and hence I am not sure why you would want to then change this. The background option includes the fill type, colour and opacity. I feel this option would be improved if you were able to set the size of the background so that you could add a small background around the text rather than set the colour of the whole screen. I don't think I will be using this setting in my final DVD trailer and hence I have not added this to my trial. The screenshot below does however show the editable options which the background has.

As I mentioned above there are another two default title options, these are Default Roll and Default Crawl. These give settings over how the title moves across the screen. So what is the difference between roll and crawl? The Default Roll allows the title to roll across the screen from top to bottom. The dialog box below allows you to edit the way the roll works.

 

As you can see from the above screenshot there are two options for the default crawl. These are crawl from the left and crawl from the right. These are self explanatory.

From experimenting with the title options I now feel a lot more comfortable about adding text to my DVD trailer. I feel that I will now be able to add some effects to make the title stand out better and have also learnt that the title settings allow you to draw shapes using the pen tool or use the default shapes already saved.



Premiere - Presets

Again in the effects folder I came across presets. Presets are simply another set of effects which you can adjust or set to create a given look or feel. I found some quite interesting presets, thee could be used within my assignment, these are as follows:

1. Bevel Edges Thin
2. Fast blur in
3. Fast blur out
4. Solarize In
5. Solarize Out
6. Twirl In
7. Twirl Out 

As you can see some of these presets relate heavily to each other in the form of In and Out. This relates to whether the effect works on the beginning or the end of the clip. For example Twirl In would be added to the beginning of the clip while Twirl Out would be added to the end. 

Bevel Edges Thin: This preset creates a border around the edge of the clip. This setting also comes in Thick however after adding this to my clip I felt it stood out too much. The settings in Bevel Edges give you the opportunity to change the size of the edge, the angle of light, the light colour and finally the intensity. This can be seen below along with the Bevel added to the footage.

The next two presets I looked at were Fast Blur In and Fast Blur Out. These are similar to transitions however they are attached to one clip rather than the two. The blur would be set at the start of a clip were as the transition was applied between the two. This preset worked really well and looked effective however I feel this would be too much to use on every clip. Selected various clips may work better. I also question how this would look with a transition as well, would this be too much? These are all things I will look into when applying some of these settings to my own assignment. 

Solarize In and Solarize Out are slightly different to the other presets I have looked at. These presets again add an effect to the beginning or end of a clip, in this case the effect is to completely change the light and colour settings (solarize) the clip. The before and after of this can be seen below. I don't see a use to this preset in my own assignment however I can see uses for this in a sci-fi film trailer. 

 

Before 

 

After

The final preset I explored was Twirl In and Twirl Out. These presets again add an effect to the beginning or end of a clip, in this case the effect is to Twirl. I feel this is more of a Powerpoint style effect and hence in my opinion this looks unprofessional when used on video clips. For this reason this is an effect I wont be using. The image below shows this added to a random clip I had.

Premiere - Video Effects

Within the Effects panel in Adobe Premiere you can find settings which add effects to each video clip. This is known as Video Effects. I am going to look into and experiment with a variety of these effects to give me some ideas as to what I could do with my DVD trailer. The screenshot below shows this Video Effects panel.

As you can see from this screenshot there are a vast quantity of effects to chose from. I am going to look into all of these effects and then write about a select few.

Adjust - Levels:
This is the first effect I have looked at, my reasoning behind looking into this effect is that both Photoshop and illustrator had similar settings and hence I wanted to compare these. To add this effect to my clip I simply dragged the Levels icon over to my clip. I then used the Effects Control to adjust the settings to this. The screenshot below shows the editable settings.

The settings in this panel adjust the colours in the clip. You could use this effect to add a certain colour tint to the whole of a clip or even just part. It could also be used to brighten or darken a clip. If this effect was used correctly it could work really well however it could also make the clip look unprofessional if it wasn't used effectively.

Blur And Sharpen - Camera Blur

This folder houses all the sharpening and blurring effects. I have decided to look at the Camera Blur. This is added to the clip in the normal way. I was then able to change the level of blur I wanted to add to my clip. This can be seen in the dialog box below. I personally don't know why you would want to blur out whole clips however you can use the Toggle Animation button which allows you to set points along the timeline of the clip. You can then adjust the blur percentage as the clip progresses which seems more useful.

Blur And Sharpen - Sharpen

As I previously looked at a blur tool in this folder I decided to look at the sharpen effect. This simply sharpened the clip. Like the blur effect I was able to change the percentage to either increase or decrease how sharp the clip was. I actually really liked the effect this sharpened clip gave and I would like to use this in my final DVD trailer. The screenshot below shows the sharpen effect in the Effects Control panel.

Channel - Blend
This effect was something I hadn't ever come across before. It involved blending two clips. The screenshot below shows the settings which I could change for this effect.

You can see from the above screenshot that I was able to select which clip I wanted to blend with, I was then able to decide what mode to use. In this case I chose colour. I then set the percentage and now my two clips where blended using colour. When looking at the two clips you can now see how the colours have been blended to look much more similar.

Colour Correction - Brightness/Contrast
This video effect is a standard effect across the Adobe suite. This effect simply allowed me to change the brightness and contrast levels of my video clip. This effect would enable me to make my DVD trailer brighter and hence I may look into using this effect. The screenshot below shows the editable settings of the Brightness/Contrast effect.

Colour Correction - Colour Balance
This video effect is similar to Levels. This effect allows you to change the percentage of colour used in the clip. For example you could change the Shadow Red setting to add more red into the image. This is not something which I particularly like and hence I probably wont be using this effect in my assignment. The screenshot below shows the editable settings for this effect.

Distort -Mirror

This video effect is slightly unusual as it effectively mirrors the chosen clip. The Effects Control panel allows you to adjust how much of the clip you want to be reflected in terms of a percentage.  This effect could be useful if you wanted to duplicate a scene or have footage which is meant to appear as a mirror. In terms of my own trailer I don't see how I could use this effect however with the right footage this could look really effective. The screenshot below shows the editable settings for this effect.



Generate - Lightening

This video effect is more like an add on than an actual effect. This effect adds strokes of lightening over the top of the clip. This effect would be perfect to create a stormy scene or work well with sci-fi films.  This effect has a wide variety of settings which you can change to edit the look of the lightening. This is in terms of where the lightening bolt starts and ends, the amplitude and segments to name just a few. The screenshot below shows the editable settings for this effect and then a preview of this in action. 

Generate - Lens Flare 

This effect is very similar to that of the one above. This effect adds a camera like lens to video clip. I am now 100% sure where I could add this effect however it does make the clip look less polished and I do like this. The main two settings which you could change to create this effect are the size of the camera lens along with the brightness of the flare. The screenshot below shows the editable settings for this effect and then a preview of this in action. 

Image Control - Black And White

This effect is similar to the previous which allow you to change the colour of the clip. This effect turns the clip black and white. This create the impression that the footage is old. This effect has no other settings to change it is simply black and white or original colour. The screenshot below shows the Effects Control panel and the clip.

Keying - Ultra Key

This effect is very different to any which I have experimented with before. It allows you to alter the colours of different aspects in a clip including different shadows, highlights and transparencies. This is something which you could tailor to almost any video clip and hence I aim to use this effect in my own DVD trailer where possible. The screenshot below shows some of the settings you can edit along with the video clip. 

Noise And Grain - Noise

This effect adds a pixelated cover over the top of the clip to give the impression of noise. The settings for this effect allow you to edit the percentage of noise added to the clip. The screenshot below shows the settings and this added to the clip. This effect is good however I question how and why I would use this for my DVD trailer. 

Perspective - Basic 3D

This effect changes the perspective of the clip. By adding a swivel and tilt to the clip you can change how the clip appears on the screen. You can then change the distance from the  image to determine how far back the clip appears. This can make the clip appear to be on a cinema screen. This can be seen in the screenshot below. This could be used in my DVD trailer however I think I would prefer to have  the whole trailer set to the same effect rather than having this effect added to one clip for example. 

Transform - Horizontal Flip

This effect works by flipping the image horizontally so that the image appears to have changed position. This could be used to change the effect the clip has on the audience. This could be used on almost all clips and could be used to make room for titles or credits. I feel this is an effect which I could use for my DVD trailer. The screenshot below shows the settings and a clip.

Utility - Cineon Converter 

This effect works by allowing you to add either lighter or darker scenes to a clip. This could be used to make a daylight scene evening. I personally feel this effect works better than the previous one that I found which effectively did the same job. This has a range of settings which you can change including changing the percentage of internal black and white points to darken and lighten the clip. The screenshot below shows this.

As you can see there are a huge variety of video effects which can be added to the clips of a premiere production. When creating my own DVD Trailer I aim to use at least some of these effects. Which effects I chose will be mainly down to which clips I end up using as different effects seem to suit different clips.

Premiere - Codec

When looking at Photoshop and Illustrator it was important to look at the different file types and what these meant for the image. Codec is the equivalent for Premiere. I had very little knowledge of Codec before using Premiere and hence it was important that I did some research into what this means and what variations there are.

"Codec" is a technical name for "compression/decompression". It also stands for "compressor/decompressor" and "code/decode". All of these variations mean the same thing: a codec is a computer program that both shrinks large movie files, and makes them playable on your computer. - http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/multimedia/f/codec.html

There are 5 main types of Codec. These are as follows:
Mov
Mp4 / Mpeg
WMV
H.264/DIVX
MKV
DV
HDV

It is often required to convert a piece of film to a different file format in order to play it on your PC. For this reason these file formats are often converted between each other.

For the purpose of this assignment I have been required to submit my Quicktime file encoded with DV Codec. For this reason I am focusing on this aspect. DV stands for Digital Video. Premiere gives us the option to work with either DV or HDV. HDV is High Definition Video, it is possible to create my trailer using HDV however I would need to convert this before submission. I personally feel that I am better off using the required DV from the beginning. Digital Video uses a Lossy compression technique but leaves the audio uncompressed.

It is worth noting these different media file types as I will be importing different clips and film footage throughout my Premiere production.

Premiere - Motion Pictures Movie Advertising

After looking into DVD trailers it became apparent that all of the DVD trailers had an initial frame which showed the authorisation to advertise at the given age rating. This is something I wasn't aware of and hence within this blog post I aim to look into this further and discuss what this means when making my own DVD trailer.

Although you would have thought that because the film had an age rating the trailer and advertising material would automatically be acceptable however this isn't the case. An American company known as 'Motion Picture Association Of America' review all marketing used for a film to ensure it is suitable for the given age rating. Anything from the following list can be authorised by this company: theatrical, home video and online trailers, print ads, radio and TV spots, press kits, billboards, bus shelters and posters. This gives the film more credibility. When undertaking my research I became aware just how common this is. More information on this can be found at: http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/movie-advertising

To me this seems very over protective, I personally feel that a film specified for children would have a suitable trailer just by common sense however when reading deeper into this company it would appear these trailers are rated for use in Cinemas. All of the many trailers we watch before the start of a movie have been deemed suitable for the viewers of the film to follow. This aspect makes much more sense. The image below shows the rating screen which is shown at the beginning of the movie trailer and the source of this image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDcaZ3StTfI

 

This is an element I am going to add at the beginning of my film trailer.

Premiere - Current DVD Trailers

Now I have looked at some initial ideas and created some brainstorms which show my own ideas I have decided that the next step is to look at DVD trailers which have already been created. I want to pick out the strong points in these and then the weaknesses and take inspiration for my own trailer. I want to stick to my own film Genre as this seems to make most sense and will give me the most inspiration. I may even concentrate this even further to only look at films which include the actors in my film as these trailers could then also be used for clips in my own trailer. Below show the DVD trailers along with my thoughts and comments on various factors.

Sex And The City 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5-aOpznm44

This is the first DVD Trailer I have reviewed. This is based on the fact that it is most like the film I have created and hence I hope to be able to find some inspiration from this. I will start by looking at the good aspects of this DVD trailer. The first aspect which I like about this trailer is the music. This is relatable to the film and hence works really well. The very first frame in this trailer is the authorised preview screen. This is something which I had forgotten about completely and hence something I will have to use in my own trailer. This trailer uses huge amounts of film footage. My DVD trailer will show a lot less of this naturally because my trailer can only be 1 minute long however I feel this means the footage I need to pick has to be more specific. This trailer tends to start with the bad aspects and then develop to the happier more exciting plot. This was separated with a text frame which has the release date. This works well and I feel that I could use this idea. I don't feel that the ending of this trailer is as good as it could be as it ends on a strange note. I feel this trailer lacks comedy and I would somehow like to incorporate this into my trailer. Overall I feel that the sequence of this trailer could be used and that this has confirmed that my choice of music is key.

The Holiday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzUb1fOVjYU

 

The Holiday is the second film I have looked at, this is based on the factor that Cameron Diaz is an actor in this film. Like with the previous trailer this is also a lot longer than my specified time and hence I would need to cut out a lot of the in film footage to make it work. It does however also have the authorised preview screen. The first thing I noticed about this trailer is the change in music. Neither of the songs are common however they change based on the mood of that aspect. Like the Sex And The City trailer this trailer also puts the emotional/sad part at the beginning with some slow music and then changes to the up beat music when the vibe changes. This seems to work really well however I question how well this would work with only one minute of trailer. This trailer does show more funny clips which makes it more appealing to me. This trailer ends by showing all of the cast information and the release date. This does seem to work but would then mean that I wouldn't need to separate my trailer with the release date in the middle and this is hence something to think about. 

Friends With Benefits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJS-wWqVAyk

 

Friends With Benefits is the third film I have looked at, this is based on the factor that Mila Kunis is an actor in this film. Like with the previous trailer this is also a lot longer than my specified time and hence I would need to cut out a lot of the in film footage to make it work. This trailer starts with the authorised preview frame, I now see the importance of this as it has been used in every trailer so far. This is my least favourite trailer so far as I feel it goes into too much detail about the film. The trailer shows all film footage and little of anything else. The song choice is good although not particularly noticeable or recognisable and I feel that it could be improved with a catchier song. This trailer tends to show the basic information about the cast and release date throughout the trailer rather than in one section and I personally don't like this. I feel having the information on a blank frame is more memorable than having it on the screen with film running in the background. Overall I don't feel that I will be taking much from this trailer. 

 

Dear John:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLkTKkNXDp4

 



 

I used this film in the other two aspects of my existing products and hence I decided to use this trailer.Like with all of the previous trailers this is also a lot longer than my specified time and hence I would need to cut out a lot of the in film footage to make it work. This trailer starts with the authorised preview frame. This trailer uses a mixture of film sounds and a background song. This does work well however I think it would be a hard element to achieve as I would need to get the volume of each just right. This trailer acts as a timeline as to what happens from the beginning to the end of the film. As I have mentioned previously I do like this however I feel that a one minute trailer probably couldn't accommodate such a feature. The end of this trailer is really good, it has clear frames which hold all of the film information. It finally ends with the release date. I feel this is one of the most important pieces of information and ending on this note seems like a good idea. 

 

 



The Other Woman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxuwBXPITEk

 

 

This is a very new film trailer and that is one of the reasons I decided to use it. I wanted to compare this new film trailer with those above which are at least a couple of years old. The second reason for choosing this film trailer was the fact that Cameron Diaz is a staring actor. This could mean that the trailer has footage which I could use for my own DVD trailer. This trailer starts with the authorised preview frame. This trailer uses music in places but leaves room for the film footage including voice overs. There are also a mixture of songs throughout to go with the different themes. This works based on the length of the trailer however I don't feel this would work with my one minute slot. The final song in the film is a very well known song in the charts, this plays while the film information is playing and hence you now associate the song to the film. I feel this is a good idea however I think I prefer the background music used on the previous trailer. This film trailer is funny and hence it catches your attention very quickly, so much so that this is actually a film I now want to go and watch! This is one of the only film trailers which I feel has used a colour scheme on their film information frames and I feel this is an aspect I would definitely like to use.

 

Overall I feel that these DVD trailers have given me aspects which I can use in my own trailer but also elements to steer away from. I see the importance the song choice can make along with the idea of incorporating the films colour scheme. Making the trailer memorable is key and this is often achieved using entertaining clips. I also now know that I need to use the authorised preview screen and this is something I need to look into further. 

Illustrator Evaluation

Now that I have created and acted upon feedback for my Illustrator Disk Cover. I am at a stage where I am happy that it is completed. With this in mind I have decided to evaluate my product. The main aspect I will be looking at is what works and what doesn't work, what I like and what I am not so keen on. I will also look at changes that I would make if I was to undertake this task again along with an evaluation of how I spent my time and if I would change this in the future. Below is a final copy of my Disk Cover for reference.

I am going to start with the aspects that I like and don't like about my disk cover. My favourite aspects are the clouds. These were an element which I was unsure about to begin with but looking back now I am really happy with effect these have created. I feel that these clouds helped me with the rest of my disk cover as these created a slight fantasy feel. This meant that other elements didn't have to be perfect and this could be justified. The way I created the clouds also worked really well. I pen tool worked best for the simply outlines while the brush tool worked better for the solid clouds. I feel the opacity difference also makes these stand out on the disk and adds a level of diversity.

My second favourite element is the film logo. This was my second logo and I was unsure if I was even going to go ahead and create this but I am glad I did. This was one of the self taught elements in this stage of the assignment and I feel it has worked out really well. The techniques I used were new to me and I hence found this interesting to create. The overall look of this logo is really good and I feel it even makes my company logo look unprofessional. The colours I used on this logo work really well with the overall look and feel of my disk and for all of these reasons I am most proud of this element.

This leads me on to my least favourite element. This is my company logo. I did initially like this but after I saw what I could create (being my film logo) I feel this looks too simple and unprofessional in comparison.

Looking at other elements on my disk cover I feel the title stands out in a positive way. I wanted to stick to a similar style with my title on all three of my elements for this assignment and I feel I have achieved this without them being exactly the same. Each product needed the title to look a certain way and stand out on different backgrounds and this is hence why these have differed slightly. I do however feel they show consistency. I feel the colours I have used follow my colour scheme and stand out well on the given background. Although this is a very simple element I feel it makes the disk stand out and grabs the attention of the viewer.

Along the lines of consistency follows the image of the three actors. This is the exact same image that can be found on the front of my DVD inlay, I feel this pulls the two elements together perfectly. I didn't want to add too much of the DVD inlay to this as I wanted them to be separable but still noticeably the same. This was something which I found hard as I felt like I was trying to make them look the same but different too. I resized the image and I feel this is a good quality aspect of my disk.

I added some text onto my disk as you can see above. This was something I always wanted to add but something that wasn't on any of the disks which I had previously reviewed. I took what I thought were the most important pieces of data from the DVD inlay and added them to my disk. I feel this is an aspect which I am happy I did add as these are elements I would really like on my DVD disks. It is so much quicker to look at the disk to find the running time than it is to search the back of the inlay. I used the same font that I have used throughout for this information and I feel it is big enough to still be easily read. This text is wrapped around the legs of the actors. I feel this looks good and also hits some criteria.

The final stage was to add my logos. I positioned this to the left of the Hub as I stated in my designs. I feel together these are easy to find rather than having them dotted around in various places. The only logo which differs from this is the DVD Audio. I don't have a real reason behind separating this logo I simply played around with different positions and simply preferred this logo in this location.

I have deliberately left out a couple of features from the above. These were features which were added from my feedback and hence I wanted to evaluate these separately. The two elements I added based on the Week 6 feedback are the legal information round the bottom of the disk and also the purple bar through the middle. Both of these elements were suggested by Jamie. I had completely forgotten about the legal information needed for the disk and hence this was added through the need rather than the want however now it is added I feel I have made it a feature of my disk cover. I like the way I was able to increase the size of the text at each end of the sentence. This makes it stand out without over powering. I don't feel this information needs to stand out too much as it is simply small print but I am pleased how well this has fitted into place. The second element was the purple bar. This was an aspect in one of my initial designs however I had dismissed it based on the fact that I thought it would be hard to incorporate some of the tool into such a simplistic design. It was an aspect which I really liked and an aspect that Jamie said looked effective. For this reason he suggested that I tried to bring this into my final design. I am really pleased with how well this had fitted into place and the fact that I have been able to mix my two designs to create what I feel is a professional final piece. I feel the colour also helps to tie in the different colours of the girls dresses which makes it look like it was meant to be there from the beginning rather than an extra.

Overall I feel that my disc looks professional and consistent with my DVD inlay. If anything I feel that I am happier with this than what I was with my inlay however I do still feel like this element has some weaker features. I am really pleased with how each aspect has come together and how various elements stand out more than others.

With this in mind I am going to look at what I would change if I was to undertake this task again in the future. The main aspect I feel I would change is the company logo. I don't hate this element but I don't particularly like it. It is very simple and for this reason I would have liked to try to create a different version of the film logo for the company logo. Although I would vary these I think the general idea would so consistency and improve the overall look of my disk. I feel this is the only real aspect which I dislike from my disk and hence the only real option I would change. I may look into different background ideas if I had the chance to create this element again although I do really like the background I have created.

The final aspect I am going to review is the way I spent my time.  The most time consuming element of this task was the film logo. This used new skills and techniques and it arguably took longer for this reason. I feel the overall look of this element is of high quality and hence I feel I spent my time wisely. The clouds I created also took a substantial length of time to create and perfect. I feel these play a big role on my disk cover and I am happy that I can justify the time I spent for this reason. I would spend more time creating my company logo if I could undertake this task again. This element was quick to create and I feel this is reflected in how the element looks. In terms of designing and preparing for this element I feel I spent more time trialling different ideas than I did initially designing them. I feel this worked better than with my Photoshop work as ultimately the way it looks on the disk is key. It may look great on paper but completely different on the disk and I feel this was time well spent. Going forward into the final stage of this assignment I would like to spend much more time trialling than actually designing.

To summarise I feel that I am happy with my final product even though there are elements which I feel could be improved. I feel that I have learnt a lot in regards to time keeping and how to spend my time which I could take forward into the final stages of my assignment.