1. Salford City College
Eccles Centre
Creative Media Production
Use of text: Here im going to analysis the DVD menu from Shrek 2 0.00-0.30
(Title, Credits, animated captions, stings,
indents, interactive menus, web banner)
Brief description: As we watch the interactive DVD menu we can see all the mina characters from shrek 2 all
What do you see? talking in their own square. Each square is a link to either playing the movie, special features
and scene selection. This allows the audience to see who will be featured in the film and what
they sound like making them noticeable just by their voice. The most popular character
‘Donkey’ is in the centre of the screen making the audience focas more on him then the other
characters. If we look we can also see that the important characters are at the top of the
screen such as Shrek himself and his wife Fiona. Not much happens in the opening of the DVD
menu apart from we hear the characters speak to one another allowing you to think about
what option you want to choose.
Techniques used: The colour green is used quite a lot in the menu due to the act shrek is a green ogre and
Animation, Visual Effects, Colour Rendering, therefore once again reminds the audience of what film they are watching. The green also tells
Graphics, Movement us that shrek is going to be the character who the movie evolves around and who the
producers want us as an audience to watch and love the most.
The movement is very minimal in the DVD menu and resulting in only tiny movements from
the characters on screen e.g. hand gestures. The camera however stays in one place also
making us feel like we have to choose an option because there’s nothing else for us to do or
watch.
The graphics in the DVD menu are made through an animation software called fluid animation
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which specifies in animation making it very cartoon like but also adding some real element to

2. Salford City College
Eccles Centre
Creative Media Production
it. It also allows the makers to make the film 3D.
Advanced techniques: Not many of these effects are used in the DVD menu which means the makers wanted to keep
Blur, Sharpen, Distortion, Rotation, Opacity it plain and simple due to the fact they want you to watch the film and not get too tied up in
watching the opening menu. The only technique used is sharpen which has been used to
amplify the colour green because that’s what the main character (shrek) is the colour off.
Technical comments: The video format of this clip is at 360p which isn’t a very good quality clip as we can see the
Video Format, Screen Ratio, Resolution, clip is very pixelated and doesn’t show a lot of detail, however if we put it to 480p then we can
Frame rate, Compression tell a massive difference in the detail. The colour becomes more brighter and the characters on
the screen become more detail allowing us to see small features such as their eyes and noses
which we failed to see before.
The frame rate of the clip is 24 frames per second which is very common for programmes and
movies. This adds just enough detail for the audience to enjoy the film without noticing any
faults. However films now have started using more frames per second such as 48 which has
been used recently in the new film the hobbit. A animated film like shrek dosent need more
frames per second because the animation is done through a software on the computer and
doesn’t require any makeup. Any mistakes that are seen can be fixed o the computer.
Just like any other clip the higher the resolution the slower the buffering but the lower the
resolution the faster the loading speed on the clip. The shrek clip is of low resolution so
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3. Salford City College
Eccles Centre
Creative Media Production
therefore is very fast at loading.
Motion Graphics and Video Compositing Unit 64
Glossary
Motion graphics - Graphics that use video footage and/or animation technology to create the illusion of motion or rotation, graphics are
usually combined with audio for use in multimedia projects.
Compositing video - When there are several different clips of video are layered over one another to create a single image.
Interactive Menus – DVD Interface or Interactive Menus on a web page
Ident – The ‘call sign’ of a channel or production company to identify themselves on screen, usually shown before a programme.
Animated Captions – Animated Graphics layered over an image / video
Web Banners – A form of web advertising that is embedded into a web page. They are used to attract a viewer to their website. A Web
Banner usually a mix of motion graphics and video
Video Format - 3 Main Formats HD, PAL, NTSC. HD is the highest resolution (720 or 1080 vertical lines in the image). PAL is the UK
Standard definition image (576 vertical lines). NTSC is the US Standard definition image (480 vertical lines). Now in the
digital age we now look at video format in terms of pixels (i.e. High definition 1080; 1920 x 1080 or 2,073,600 pixels)
Screen ratio – Standard TV ratio is 4:3; this means that for every 4 units wide it is 3 units high. It is likely that the screen ratio will be
Widescreen (16:9) in a cinematic sequence.
Resolution – The amount of detail in an image or signal, such as Standard TV Definition and High Definition. See Video Format.
Frame Rate - The number of video or film frames displayed each second (frames per second; fps). PAL frame (standard UK TV) is 25
fps, NTSC (standard US TV) is 30 fps, film is 24 fps. This means as NTSC updates more regularly there is less strobing
(jerkiness).
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Eccles Centre
Creative Media Production
Compression – The use of Codecs (WMV, DivX) to reduce the file size of a video by a variety of methods. This sometimes means a loss in
image quality (a “lossy”). Codecs are found in Video Cameras, DVD players / recorders, Editing Packages, Video upload
sites)
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