28 Days

OK, so the DVD of choice for this week is the movie 28 Days staring Sandra Bullock. The movies is about a woman who struggles with alcohol abuse and the challenges she faces while being forced to live and participate in a program for those who struggle with substance abuse issues.

The beginning of the movie opens up with a standard industry motion graphic for the Columbia Tristar DVD Company. Once this introduction of the company who produced 28 days is finished… a wipe transition occurs in the background. The wipe is composed of numerous squares and rectangles moving into the scene and then moving to the background.

The squares and rectangles continuously move through out the DVD menu beginning from the middle and appearing as though they are moving forward and then backward a few seconds after. They seem to slow like they are suspended in the air, however, the background music to the DVD sounds like a wind chime with subtle hints of win and a constant piano rhythm. So, it would seem that the squares and rectangles might resembles parts of a chime lightly blowing in the wind.

The various shaped boxes have colors, somewhat like city lights at dark in them, they are all blurry but basically blue in color. But, the blurriness makes it impossible for me to make out if they represent anything or are simple design patterns.

Continuing back on the transition into the menu, the second noticeable feature is the number 28, which wipes in from the top left side of the screen, settling on the top left section. Then the word “days” joins it wiping in from the top right side of the screen and meeting up with the right side of 28. Both 28 and “Days” are in a light blue color and they are both in large font, however, the number 28 is the largest font of them all.

As the word “days” is wiping in, a still picture of Sandra Bullock from the movie fades into the bottom left of the screen. Her picture is in normal colors from the movie, however, the main color pallet of this DVD menu is blue and various shades of it.

Moving on, the last to appear are the menu buttons, they fade and wipe in from the right middle section of the screen and settle next to Sandra’s picture. The buttons are simple horizontal boxes with a glow around them and white text in the middle. They are masked because inside of them you can actually see the background of the DVD menu (which I think looks nice). There are five buttons, play movie, audio set-up, subtitles, scene selections, and special features.

When you mouse over or choose a button, the entire button glows a pasty while color; this makes it hard to see the text and covers the background within the button but seems manageable. When you click on the button to activate it, it turns a pasty green color and quickly jumps to the next scene.

That is it to the DVD menu of 28 days; the last detail to blog about would be the reload of the menu. It last for 29 seconds and the music simply lowers and disappears for 2 seconds while the menu button that is selected jumps for 1 second. The music doesn’t seem to cycle, the reload is clearly visible and it doesn’t seem like great effort was placed on hiding the load.

Apple Pro Training: Lesson 16

In this lesson I learned about creating transitions and found the information to be very useful. Many of the transition options provide me with a way to closely match my menu design with the transition design. I have already worked a bit with transitions, so some of this lesson reinforces what I already know, but, I can always use and will always need to research and study so that I can continue to improve myself and my design abilities.

Apple Pro Training: Lesson 15

In this lesson we learned about creating menu elements such as drop zones and button shapes. It all seemed a bit complex but in time I will become more efficient with this chapter; just need a bit more time. Overall I am confident in my knowledge of the technical side to DVD interface design, I just need to work on the DESIGN part a lot more!