6) Designing the Spine

I used the rectangle marquee tool to select the area of the spine I wanted to define and output this shape as a new layer which I called "SPINE Background" I filled this with black and used the horizontal text tool to add the title text and rotated to fill the space along the spine. I labelled this "SPINE Title".

I added a 15 certificate to the bottom of the spine which I titled "SPINE 15 Certificate" and had sourced from the internet. I also noticed when researching that its common for an image to be added to the top of the spine, this is normally a repeat of the front cover so I duplicated the layer "FOP Scarlett Johansson" and titled to "SPINE Scarlett Johansson" and resized and repositioned at the top of the spine.

I had added the 3 DVD backgrounds in at the start of the project all titled respectivley; "FOP Background", "SPINE Background" and "BOP Background", this posed a problem when adding scarlet to the spine. I had kept these 3 layers at the very bottom of the layer order and then thought about where the other layers were to be positioned as sometimes they overlap on the overall image, for example if I had the "SPINE 15 Certificate" immediately after the "SPINE Background" the "FOP Background" covered it slightly, as all the backgrounds overlap to ensure there is complete coverage. 

This meant the "SPINE Scarlett Johansson" spilled over the edges of the spine, If I scaled the image to fit completely on the spine it would be too small to see so I decided to use the eraser tool to trim her down a little.

Also looking at other DVDs I noticed a DVD logo is normally present at the very bottom of the spine, I sourced this logo from the web and added to the spine and title it "SPINE DVD Logo".

I felt this covered all elements required for the spine and moved my focus to the back of the DVD cover, although later I'll need to add in the production logo once its created.

5) Designing the Front Cover

After selecting the images for the main characters I started to focus on the design of the DVD, I had found a city scape background I thought I could blend quite well, it was black and white theme and very sinister in appearance and went well with Scarlet Johansson's image in a detective style coat, gave me inspiration for the story and made me think about the blurb that needs writing on the back.

However the image wasn't large enough and the skyline had dark clouds that ideally needed extending I could have scaled the image but would loose too much of the picture and the detail so decided as the top of the picture had dark stormy clouds I could add and blend to these, giving me the extension I needed.

I liked the following picture;

However it was too blue to blend with the city scape background so I changed the camera raw filters to make it blacker by changing the saturation, blacks, whites and shadows of the basic settings to achieve a darker look and also adding a vignette to the corners. The cloud in the middle looked a little dark and stood out too much, being in the middle, so I tried to lighten it using the dodge tool and after playing with it for 2 hours dropped it onto the city scape - it looked awful. So I went in search of ideas on-line. 

Using the weblinks on the VLE I found a tutorial that I thought looked really interesting, creating a text poster, check out the link.

I thought this was visual powerful and used basic skills, which is the level I am at so wanted to try it. I scrapped the city scape, the clouds and even the picture of Scarlett Johansson. 

I started looking for portrait's of her looking head on, and found this;

I cut the selection using colour range after watching a tutorial on better selections, this allowed me to extract Scarlett more easily as the picture was on a plain background, I inverted the selection then went onto use refine edge options. I increased the smooth, feather and contrast options to make the selection better and decreased the edge option,  I made sure decontaminate colours was checked which gave me a pretty good selection then output this to a layer mask which I named "FOP Scarlett Johansson"


I changed the image to black and white by pressing "CTRL+U" (which is a short cut to "Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation") and decreased the saturation, I then changed the levels by pressing "CTRL+L" and moved the darks, lights and midtones until I was happy with the image. I used the burn tool specifically to make the right side of her face even darker than the left.

The result;

I used a rectangle marquee tool to create a rectangle selection that covered half SJ's face and snapped to the middle of the front cover using a guide. I then pressed "CTRL+SHIFT+N" to create a new layer from this selection, which I named "FOP Title Text". I used horizontal type tool too create the title, I chose a bold text and adjusted the leading to keep things tight to maximise the view of the face. I adjusted the title and resized until it filled the space required. I then made a selection of the text, as the tutorial advised, by holding "CTRL" and selecting the T from the layers window, which I thought that was pretty clever. I then deleted this from the "FOP Title Text" layer. ultimately allowing you to see the portrait through the text after the actual text layer is made invisible. I could delete this layer but after wanting to make adjustments to the leading/size of the title text realised its a quicker process to go back through the history and adjust the wording rather and re-delete the "FOP title layer" than start again each time. Think I will leave this layer in the final product for that reason but just invisible.

I then used the brush tool and selected white colour to go behind the letters that were hard to read and making sure the "FOP title layer" was active - having done this to SJs face once or twice in error, and brushed where the letters were hardest to make out;

Overall I was pretty happy with the front, however this only covered half the DVD and left a severe edge at the top and bottom of the front cover. I looked at black and white grunge background textures on-line to try to find one that I could maybe gradient out at the top and bottom. I also looked at other DVD covers on-line to try and find inspiration and to see if there were any trends and even tutorials on how to fade out images but this wouldn't work as I needed the hard edge to make the letters legible, if I faded out behind the text the letters it may not be.

Having looked at DVD covers on-line for inspiration it also started to make me focus my attention on the back cover and spine and the elements that were required for these.

4) The Characters - choosing images

I have started drafting up the front cover and hadn't thought too much about the theme but have based the characters upon actresses I like, I searched the web for pictures that I found interesting and would work well for a front cover. My initial aim is to remove their portraits and composite them onto a dark city scape background, so I chose pictures with plain backgrounds so I could easily select the image I needed. 

The two pictures I chose to play with were of Jennifer Aniston and Scarlett Johansson, I found that they had done a similar hair product advert, therefore the lighting was similar in both pictures which may work well if both are to appear on the front cover:

I'm typically into photography and modelling and these ladies have such classic looks. The photos themselves inspired me, the one of Jennifer for her look, its difficult to pose in this position and takes a clever photographer to capture her intense expression, I thought this would be a good photo to play with because it would demonstrate good attention to detail; Her hair flicks in strands so would be interesting to see if I could make a good enough selection of her hair and make it look natural.  

The one of Scarlet again because it was on a plain background that would make it easier to select and replace,  I also liked the way they could be made to appear to be looking at each other on the front cover.

Scarlet's look makes me think of a modern day detective, would be good for the story line and Jennifer has a look that could be portrayed as cunning, therefore a twist to have her play the villian.

Heres a rough look at how the first crop and layering went; 

It's rougher than I'd liked but as a first attempt felt happy I could improve using destructive retouching to blend into the background. However the hand circled above doesn't look good at this size and looking at positioning and the scale I may have to reduce the size of both images. I think I'd like to try to remove it and use the clone stamp tool and the patch tool to reconstruct the coat or other methods should I learn them. Looking into tutorials on you tube I found the following useful;

easily remove objects   and compositing

3) DVD Cover - creating the template

When starting the DVD amaray case, I created the template by using guides and dragging them into position for the spine and the gutter; I created a canvas 279 x 189mm and set up for printing by selecting CMYK colours and 300dpi resolution. I used the following template for the correct sizes.

Ideally need to think about characters, themes, preliminary story and blurbs for the back cover. As well as the industry icons, a good start is to research industry standards for UK films and see what I can find....

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/industry-services/video/labelling-regulations

I added several layers for the background of the spine and the back and front, as a base to start working on with the intention of changing these at a later stage, playing with the gradients or other techniques I pick up while progressing through the assignment.

I then added a text layer for the title along the spine and positioned this again for future updates once I had worked through the theme further. Lastly I added a small background of a city scape, I liked the photo and thought the cover needed more than just characters or blocks of colour as it adds a setting to the story.

Here's a look at it so far;

2) Ideas and Concepts

I chose to design my assignment based on a film rather than a game as I am more of a movie fan than a gamer. My initial ideas were around an animated kids film or a romcom as I thought these would be easily relatable and along the lines of films I like, I also didnt want to overcomplicate it as the main point is the design process as apposed to the movie's story. Therefore getting content and ideas for the covers and the trailer would be achievable.

I looked at various DVD covers for both animation films and romcoms and liked how a lot of examples showed multiple images on the cases, this was common place in a romcom as they typical like to get every character on the front.  

I also noticed how good this would be for retouching and building the images myself and would lend well to a romcom themed movie as I found lots of examples of layered images whereas a kids animated film would require a lot more creativity because I would have to use existing images and although Disney and Pixar have created plenty, it would feel like I was copying rather than creating my own work as the characters wouldn't be originals.

I want to show good examples of the skills I have learnt in photoshop and other software rather than over complicating the assignment. By creating an animated movie I think I would spend a lot of time making it believable and realistically a new movie rather than focusing on the exact areas of my assignment as I would become too interested in the creation process.

This helped me decide on a romcom themed movie and here's an example of the kind of images I would like to create for the front cover; 

1) Welcome! Assignment Brief

Welcome to my blog! this is part of my assignment for Digital Imaging Software which is broken down into 2 parts. The first is to design and create a DVD case and Disk Cover as well as a short teaser trailer for a movie or a game. The second is to complete a detailed and technica log throught the design process of how and why I made decsions on technical and detailed aspects of the assignment. I have included the formal brief as per our module guide as I find this useful for reference.

 

 

Assessment part 1 (60% of Module Grade)

 

The brief is to create a DVD package for a film or video game of your choice.

 

Stage 1 (30 % of Assessment 1 Grade)  

 

Create a DVD case wrap for an Amaray-style case. This must be created in Photoshop. You will be expected to demonstrate at minimum that you can set up a Photoshop file with correct size, DPI, use selection tools, filters, layers, layer transparency, levels, guides, and apply effects to photos. You must submit the full Photoshop workspace PSD file and a render in an appropriate format.

 

Stage 2 (30% of Assessment 1 Grade)  

 

Create a DVD on-disc label including a logo. This may be created in Photoshop and/or Illustrator. You will be expected to demonstrate, at minimum, use in Illustrator of the pen tool, type tool, placing images, brushes, clipping masks, guides, layers, transparencies, text wrap. You must submit the Illustrator workspace file and a render in an appropriate format.

 

Stage 3 (40% of Assessment 1 Grade)  

 

Create a short (1 minute) promotional video for your finished package. This must be edited in Premiere, and you may import previously created elements from Photoshop or Illustrator. You will be expected to demonstrate, at minimum, setting up a Premiere project with the right frame size and frame rate (and widescreen), importing images, audio and video, trimming clips, adding transitions and effects to clips, and adding titles over clips. You will submit this video as a rendered movie file encoded with an appropriate code. 

 

  

Assessment part 2 (40% of Module Grade)  

 

Assessment 2 consists of a project logbook detailing how you achieved the work. The log book should take the form of an online blog. This logbook should go into considerable technical detail of the principles used and the reasons for the technical decisions you have made. The logbook will show your complete proeject design process through images, annotations, sketches, notes, references, etc. It will also act as a design log where you record: 

• What you are doing for each stage of the project. 
• What works and what doesn’t. 
• Why you have made decision x, etc. 

You should consider the logbook not only as a record of the actions you have taken, but an ongoing evaluation of your progress. You should also ensure that you also consider:    

• The success of your final designs in terms of what works and what doesn’t.
• What you would do differently next time.
• What you would spend more or less time on next time, etc.