DV Info Net

DV Info Net (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/)
-   Wedding / Event Videography Techniques (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-event-videography-techniques/)
-   -   Clip for wedding DVD menu. (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-event-videography-techniques/69016-clip-wedding-dvd-menu.html)

Jose Luis Alcaraz June 6th, 2006 03:45 PM

Clip for wedding DVD menu.
 
Hi all!
Here is a clip for the main menu of a wedding DVD. Its a new way im trying ,something like a "resume".

http://rapidshare.de/files/22397890/DVD_Menu.wmv.html

comments are welcome!.

Peter Jefferson June 6th, 2006 04:41 PM

Looks alright if thats your style, IMO its more of a highlights piece than a menu clip. Afew things to take note are -
(all personal opinion, some people may disagree and thats cool)

Duration - After 1 minute i turned off.. DVDs menus IMO should be a short teaser with an urging for the viewer to press play. Give them SOMETHING but not too much. U dont want to reveal all your secrets early on and dissapoint the viewer by showing them all u have to offer too soon .

This went on for too long and showed too much of EVERYTHING, making me have no further interest in what was to follow. After the first minute or so, the music turned me off and the footage, irrespective of the wow factor element, left nothing for the imagination for later. The piece as a whole is great, but for a menu i think its too much and a tad too long. Try for 1 minute or 2 at the most

Music- not my taste, sounded like Queen )its been a while since ive heard any of their music.. 9years a while..lol and even though i like their music, that track just didnt "feel" right...could also be another reason i turned off.

Text - nice animation, font may be slightly difficult to read though

Edit- Very nice. Great overlays and clean syncing. Works really well.. Would be better as a highlights piece IMO and i can imagine how much work went into cutting this together. Problem is, if the rest of your piece doesnt follow the theme and style of the menu, youre losing consistancy. I imagine youre not using all these kind of effects thoughout the whole piece, so id ease up on them just a tad (for the menu) as like i said, youre revealing too much early on and your leaving nothing for later. As a highlights piece, i think its great, and IMO i think you woul dget a better response from the client and viewers if u sold it as such.

Afew tips i learnt along the way with menus -
Detail - Show as much as possible without losing the "whats going to happen next" element. You dont have to show faces, but if u cut across sveral shots showing the brides prep (as an example) your not revelaing too much, but your emphasising things hat most people miss.
Music- U dont want anything too powerful too soon. It breaks the flow of a piece. Think of it as a chart... u want it to go up and down but not to high up and not too far down. Theres no equilibrium if your music selection starts of with some grunt then winds down to romance. Its all about pacing, and music is probably the most difficult element to decude upon
Duration. The shorter the better. the couple will look at the menu afew times, but then the wow fctor of having a menu will fade away. give them to option to "play movie" as soon as u can. 1 to 2 minutes for a menu is ok, and will leave more capacity on the DVD for more important things.
Text- Basic and big. On a plasma HD panel, MPG'd text can look rather disgusting, and fine detailed fonts can look like poo on a high end display. Keeping it big and simple allows the codec to compress the contrasted areas around and within the font a little better, without edge artefacting
Style- tryto keep the menu to the theme of the actual piece. U dont want to say "hey wow look at this.. isnt all this so cool.. now hit play for more" and when they do, they dont see all this flashy stuff... again this flows with constistancy and expectation.

in the end no matter which way u go about it, im sure ur clients will be happ ywith the results. I liked it, i just think it would work better as a highlights piece or a bonus feature clip.

cheers
p

Monday Isa June 6th, 2006 06:45 PM

Hi Jose,
Great job on the clip, it was very unique. I agree with Peter on the duration of the clip. It is quite long for a menu. Also you put all the best parts in the menu. I would shorten it down. I use 30 sec menus max with clips that didn't make the highlight cut, but were still good clips. Keep up the good work. I like the look and feel of your menu, and your pushing yourself in your creativity and skill level. Take Care

Monday

Colin Pearce June 6th, 2006 06:57 PM

Great song by Queen, but so inappropriate for a wedding. I hate it when people choose songs about 'what would happen if I lost you' for a wedding. Very impressive video, but far too long for a menu.

Peter Jefferson June 7th, 2006 01:17 AM

i think the worst choice in music for ANY wedding would have to be george michael, careless whisper... LOL

Steven Davis June 7th, 2006 06:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson
cheers
p


Hey Peter, I bet if we took your posts and put them end to end, they'd make a very imformative book. I learn something each post.

Craig Terott June 7th, 2006 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Davis
Hey Peter, I bet if we took your posts and put them end to end, they'd make a very imformative book. I learn something each post.

Yeah, but it would take his editor over a year to fix all the typos. :p

My favorite is "the" spelled as "teh". he he he lol

Tom Tomkowiak June 7th, 2006 07:52 AM

Jose, not to gang up on you, but I did watch it all the way through and I also think 3:43 is 'way too long for a DVD menu. Impressive job assembling the whole thing and syncing to the music (which I also didn't care for), but personally, I'd make it one of the scene selections rather than part of the menu.

One thing I keep in mind when setting up the DVD menu is that parents & grandparents will be among the receipents of the wedding disk, and some of them still have no idea what 95% of the jillion buttons on the remote are there for. I keep it as simple as possible, but even that's no guarantee.

My best example is that a few months after the wedding the father of the groom called to ask if I could burn him a disk with just 2 specific scenes on it. I said sure, but asked why. He said he really enjoyed watching those scenes, but to get to them he had to watch the 40 or so minutes of video before the scenes came on. :-\

Now this is a guy with a computer, digital camera, big screen tv, college degree -- but he didn't know all he had to do was tap in 32 or whatever on the dvd remote, and it would go right to that scene..........

So, Jose, as I was watching your menu video, I was thinking of this guy and others like him who might think they had to watch all 3 minutes and 43 seconds every time they inserted the disk before they could do anything else.

Peter Jefferson June 7th, 2006 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Terott
Yeah, but it would take his editor over a year to fix all the typos. :p

My favorite is "the" spelled as "teh". he he he lol

hahahaha yeah im a dyslecix bastard... lol Thena again there is teh (cack) spellchecker option which i cant be bothered with.. lol

as for teh ( =)~ ok i'll shut up) book, your giving me dirty thoughts now...

Peter Jefferson June 7th, 2006 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Tomkowiak
Jose, not to gang up on you, but I did watch it all the way through and I also think 3:43 is 'way too long for a DVD menu. Impressive job assembling the whole thing and syncing to the music (which I also didn't care for), but personally, I'd make it one of the scene selections rather than part of the menu.

One thing I keep in mind when setting up the DVD menu is that parents & grandparents will be among the receipents of the wedding disk, and some of them still have no idea what 95% of the jillion buttons on the remote are there for. I keep it as simple as possible, but even that's no guarantee.

My best example is that a few months after the wedding the father of the groom called to ask if I could burn him a disk with just 2 specific scenes on it. I said sure, but asked why. He said he really enjoyed watching those scenes, but to get to them he had to watch the 40 or so minutes of video before the scenes came on. :-\

Now this is a guy with a computer, digital camera, big screen tv, college degree -- but he didn't know all he had to do was tap in 32 or whatever on the dvd remote, and it would go right to that scene..........

So, Jose, as I was watching your menu video, I was thinking of this guy and others like him who might think they had to watch all 3 minutes and 43 seconds every time they inserted the disk before they could do anything else.

People are funny creatures..
irrespective of what they think they know there will always be something that they hadnt considered, the above being a prime example.. too much money and not enough sense in most cases...
Common sense is not common in this industry... u must always assume that your client or their families are stupid (yeah i know thats rough but its true)

Play Movie, Scene selection as well as a scene selction index list on the back cover usually stops the dummies from crashing too much

Tom Tomkowiak June 7th, 2006 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson
hahahaha yeah im a dyslecix bastard... lol Thena again there is teh (cack) spellchecker option which i cant be bothered with.. lol

hmmm, I always figured the spelling was because you have to type while upside down in Aus.

Peter Jefferson June 7th, 2006 09:50 AM

nah mate, its all the beer and feral kangaroos.. lol

i just type too fast for my own good..lol i dont like losing my line of thought coz i type slow so i type real fast to keep up with my thoughts, hence the shocking typing.. coz half the time i cant be bothered proofreading what i wrote

Sheldon Blais June 7th, 2006 11:25 AM

Clip was too long for a DVD Menu, but I was impressed with the special effects. What editing program did you use?

Jose Luis Alcaraz June 7th, 2006 01:02 PM

Thanks for all your comments... im learning every day :P

I made all the clip with Premiere Pro 2. Some scenes from the wedding video was passed trough Magic Bullet, but this clip is all made with Premiere only. The "save preset" option is a great feature for saving time and repeat effects you like.

I did this "moving" clip because many people say the video was a little slow (i like slow motion and classical music a lot but its like people prefer the summer's song in order to enhance a video...).

I agree this clip is so long for a menu, but the idea is to put the menu and the resume in one only piece. When the text for options ends to appears, the first option is clearly marked with 2 red bars, so i think people will find the way to go ...anyway is only a test.

For those saying all better scenes are in the clip... i must say they could see the entire dvd because all my scenes have plenty of beautifulness and extremely good taste... yes so is. (im joking of course) :D

Peter Jefferson June 7th, 2006 10:38 PM

dont take what we say as an insult mate. ur work is great. as a resume piece, i stil thik it would carry more weight if u included it as a "recap" clip selectable from the menu, with 1 minute of extracts taken from THAT to be the actual menu. The client would feel that there is more "content" this wayu as well.

I know what u mean about slow moving edits.. hell im working a 4 hour afghan italian wedding now... LOL


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:52 AM.

DV Info Net -- Real Names, Real People, Real Info!
1998-2024 The Digital Video Information Network