Advice on background and audio

[stantheman1976]

I'm putting together a DVD of a high school beauty pageant I filmed, "Beauty and the Beau". Any of you guys ever done a DVD like this? I'm trying to figure out what's best to use for the main menu. Should I use a still image or maybe just cut a few clips from the video to use as the background? I want to have some audio in the background of hte menu also, but I don't know what would be best to use? I could easily take the Kenny G CD that was being used for the pageant and use it, but then I'd have to worry about copyrights. Give me some ideas here guys.

[guns1inger]

To be honest, the simpler the better in the instances. If the running time is more than around 70 - 80 minutes, then save the space for the video, don't waste it on the menu. Most people aren't going to give a toss about the menu- they want to see their kids or their friends. To them, any menu is just an annoyance.

This is from my experiences with Dancing school concert DVDs

[Afterlife]

This is more of a creative question lol.

Anyways here is an idea for you.

Have it start with a intro movie small clip of the opening of the pagent, im sure you how video footage of this. Would be ideal if it was center front row footage or from the back center, that way you have crowd and cat walk with maybe one of the girls on it. Have this short clip lead into the final image as a still background, then have like a play all button in the middle.

Or make a menu where they pick the model, or whatever.

I personally would stay away from music in menus, Its going to constantly loop and is usually real annoying unless its a commercial dvd with commerical footage. If your going to use a motion menu, maybe the only sound you would want is the audience - cheering, screaming etc.

Good luck

[ozymango]

Is this just for yourself? If so, use whatever music you like (and don't tell us, so you don't violate any copyright laws! ), but if you intend on sharing it with anybody else at all, check out some of William Cushman's royalty free music. He's posted on this site many times about his stuff and it's all good, you can check him out at ghostnotes.blogspot.com. I'm sure something he's done would be useful and appropriate.

As for menus, I'm not crazy about motion menus myself, but this is a personal judgement call -- if you find a clip that you think works great as a motion menu, then go for it. Me, I've done a few concert DVDs of a musician I like a lot (with permission), and usually there's some "snapshot" or image within the footage (as I edit) that sorta strikes my fancy as a menu background image, so I copy it for later. That becomes sort of my "theme" image and I get my ideas for fonts and color choices based on that ... hard to describe, more of a gut thing.

What I'm starting to do now is have a short opening clip, maybe 30 seconds, as the DVD "intro" that sets a "mood" for my concert (like people gathering, some cutaways to the marquee, that sorta thing), then go to a static menu from there with some music looping in the background (softly!). Something like that may work for your beauty pageant, assuming there's some kind of a "theme" imagery you find in your footage that makes for a nice intro.

I know that's not much specific advice but I hope there's something in there that helps. Good luck and have fun!

[stantheman1976]

That's all good advice. Thanks for the input. My wife teaches French and this was a French Club sponsored event. They sold copies to raise money, so I do have to worry about copyright.

[mikiem]

"I could easily take the Kenny G CD that was being used for the pageant and use it, but then I'd have to worry about copyrights. "

All sorts of potential issues there I think, but not impossible if the event had authorization to use the music in the 1st place. Assuming the DVD is to benefit a non-profit. if you're willing to navigate channels regarding the publisher, could always ask.

Otherwise for background could always go with recorded midi -- tons of that online. Or could look into one of the versions of acid -- most come with small loop libraries and the cheaper versions aren't that hard to figure out.

"Should I use a still image or maybe just cut a few clips from the video to use as the background?"

Don't personally like taking anything from the video that viewers will see later, & I think that's the trend with commercial releases as well. The exception I think is heavily edited footage blended into graphics. Could use video that didn't make the cut, but I think in this sort of thing behind the scenes shots (even if recorded/photographed after the fact ) might be recieved the best by your expected viewers. Something that would add a personal touch, & invite them in to the experience.

But my own 2 cents worth anyway...

[stantheman1976]

I ended up using a nice artful image with roses for the main menu and did 3 fancy text selections, Select Chapter, Play All, and Credits. The credits is a short clip with my contact info. The scene selection menu just has thumbnails for each chapter and I used nice lettering for it also. I put a 30 second clip in the background of both. I used canned audio from Ulead Video Studio 9 and it worked very well for the project. These are for profit, so I didn't want to use anything that was copyrighted. I don't think they had permission to use the Kenny G music in the first place, but other DJ's use his crap all the time so I doubt it will hurt anything. Overall I think it turned out really good. I showed it to my wife who is the best judge of my work and she liked it, so all is well. Thanks for all the input guys. [/img]