The Avengers – DVD Menu
I like this DVD Menu a lot. It’s creatively excellent in terms of use of motion graphics throughout, showing a great introduction to the menu from 0:00-0:13 of what looks like, a blueprint of a ship or aircraft, which is high quality and well detailed. As the viewers options pop up on screen (‘Play’, ‘Bonus Features’, ‘Scene Selection’ and ‘Set Up’) compilations of each main character are displayed in a slideshow-style format, giving the viewer an insight into each character in this film, I think this is a great feature in this DVD menu, it is both interesting and cool. This menu also has music playing throughout, fitting the genre of the film, action. Unfortunately the viewer from this YouTube video doesn’t select any option from the menu, so we can’t see the cut-away menus from the options displayed, but we can see the slide-show that plays for just under a minute, and ends with all the characters lined up next to each other, which I like a lot. In conclusion, I feel this is a great DVD menu design and fits this film perfectly.
Batman: The Movie (1966) – DVD Menu
Despite this DVD menu dating back to 1966, it’s very advanced and visually intriguing. When watching, I immediately thought it was for the Batman cartoon (up to 0:08 when the cartoon transforms into a film shot), this is due to the mass-use of cartoons and bright colours. The menu options pop up at 0:12, and I really like how they’re displayed, I think it’s graphically excellent along with comical, as each option has ‘Bat!’ in front of it (‘Bat Scenes!’, ‘Bat Languages!’, ‘Bat Features!’ and ‘Bat Movie!’). Whilst the options are displayed on-screen, the viewer is displayed short scenes from the film, which I find is a bit of a giveaway, but is effective in keeping the viewers attention, as I watched the whole video on YouTube with interest, great feature. As the YouTube viewer clicks the option ‘Bat Scenes!’, a colourful cartoon pop up with ‘Bat Scenes!’ appears on screen and transitions into the scene selection menu (the same happens when the viewer clicks on ‘Bat Features!’ and ‘Bat! Languages’ later in the video), which is easy to read and looks simple to navigate. Each menu in this DVD is colourful, cartoon-styled and simple to navigate. The use of bright colours and comical music sets a comic mood, I felt like I was about to watch a comedy, not an action film. I find this to be a more exciting DVD menu and one of the best I’ve seen, it keeps me intrigued in the film and menu itself, the only downfall could be it keeps the viewer away from watching the actual film and lures them into exploring the DVD menu for a short while, but other than that, great DVD menu design.
Spyro the Movie – DVD Menu
This menu design displays a short insight into the world of Spyro, with good imagery and music, it gives the viewer a small impression of what kind of film they’re about to watch. It’s a simple yet effective menu design, showing only the options of ‘Play Movie’, ‘Language Selection’ and ‘Scene Selection’, with small previews of each scene after clicking the ‘Scene Selection’ option (0:44), it’s an opportunity for the viewer to skip ahead in the film to a scene that he/she likes the look of, and if they decide not to select a scene, there is the ‘back’ option next to the several scenes displayed.
Taken – DVD Menu
This menu is simple and straight to the point. It is simply just a still image of the main character with the four menu options available; ‘Play’, ‘Language Selection’, ‘Scene Selection’, ‘Special Features’ and ‘Coming Soon’ underneath. No music or graphics are used in this menu, it has a dull, sepia feel, giving nothing away to the audience regarding what the film is about. I personally like the menu as it doesn’t distract the viewer away from watching the actual film, simplistic and straight forward, it has all you need to enjoy the DVD experience without any sparkly effects/features, excellent.
lewisrdixonboa 