Linking buttons to videos

Once you have clicked a video button, it was essential that the video actually played. This was ensured by the coding of each button. For example, 'scene 1' 'outtake 1' and 'play movie' buttons, were buttons that needed to be linked up to the appropriate videos. This was done by telling the system what file needed to be played. I made sure the videos were saved as SWF files. I coded the buttons so, once clicked, the software would recognise the file and play it.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

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Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

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Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

This was another tricky part to the building of my front end because without these links the videos would not play and my front end would be extremely pointless.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 28

Linking different forms using buttons

The different forms needed to be linked together to make the navigation of the front end usable. This was done by linking the buttons to different forms. For example, although the scene selection button was on the main menu screen, once it is clicked it takes you to the scene selection screen where there are more options.  

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

This relates to the technical elements because it was a tricky part of the process in building my front end. I had to select the appropriate buttons by remembering the instance names i gave them. Then I had to import these into the correct line of code and declare it.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 27

Creating a gallery of stills

I created a gallery of stills screen for my front end. The gallery of stills screen works like a screen with buttons. The buttons are replaced with images. As you hover over the image they enlarge and as you move the mouse away from it it resumes to its normal size. This fitted in with my client breif with the design becasue I planned to include a gallery of stills and I carried out that plan. It also fitted in with the technical elements and the target audience. The gallery of stills is a form of about twelve driving related images. They hope to raise awareness of safe driving. I created the gallery of stills by adding in a new form to the front end. The new form had no buttons just still images. I made sure I used the different button properties to ensure that the images had the 'over effect'.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

The gallery of stills page relates to the target audience because it is driving related. All of the images are associated with driving and this is likely to relate to the people who use car parks regualarly.

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

The stills for can relate to the meesage of the film becasue some of the still images are related to the hazards around driving, therefore getting the message across.

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The gallery has a few technical elements such as tusing the 'over' technique and the coding used to produce the form. This form included one button only which was a back button to return to the extras screen.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

The imapct of this screen was not humorous and did not necessarily apply to this section of the client breif.

New skills reference: Skill 17

Using the over/hit/down properties

In this lesson I explored the over,hit, down properties. This is where buttons have different properties and features. For example, if I was acquire a button with the 'over' feature - when I hover over the button it will indent and clarify that I am hovering over it. This fitted in with my client breif because it was a technical element used. Furthermore, it fitted in with the client breif because it linked to the design of the front end. An example of using the different properties of buttons was the gallery of still form. The gallery of stills form consisted of about twelve different images that were driving related. You can use the mouse to hover over each image and it will bring up and enlarged version. 

To create the over property - once the button was created i had to click on the button and holf F6. This enabled the button to make have a summary pop up over it explaining what the button did and a preview of where it takes you.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

The button properties are not related to the target audience.

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

The button properties are not related to the message of the film.

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The button properties relate to the technical element of producing the front end and the design. I needed to format each image by double clicking on it and choosing the relevant property to acquire to each image.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

The button properties do not relate to the impact of the film on the audience.

New skills reference: Skill 25

Importing music files into Adobe Premier Pro

In this lesson I learned how to import and use mp3 files into Premier Pro. I did this so background music would play as you navigate through the front end. This was done by importing the file into the library and encoding it in the same way you would a normal scene or outtake. This met the design aspect of my client breif because it follows th same structure in my sketches and it was previously planned. I felt that it also linked in with the impact of the audience and the target audience section of the client breif. This is becasue by playing relevant music to my audience it would help get the message across and also relate to them. The music playing in the background creates a different mood to the front end. Although the colouring and background can already do this, i felt that music was quite a nice addition to the front end and it gave it a more light-hearted theme.

This was the code to enable me to import music in Adobe - I had to replace the "sub menu music" to the actual file name of the music clip for it to link up to the appropriate button.

3. Code to play music: (music file has to be in the project folder):

var channel:SoundChannel

var snd:Sound = new Sound(new URLRequest("SubMenuMusic.mp3"));               

channel = snd.play(1000,3);//1000 ms after start of sound, 3 times

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

By using music in my front end I can relate to my target audience. However, this only becomes appropriate if I choose a relevant song to my target audience.

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

Importing music files into the front end needed alot of coding so it would play in the relevant screens. I need to declare the music at certain times and make them "false" at other times.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

This has a more positive impact on the audience watching the film and makes it more light-hearted. This hopefully gets the message across more easily.

New skills reference: Skill 21

Creating a drag and drop puzzle in my front end

To meet the interactive side of the front end I needed to ensure I included a drag and drop puzzle. This was basically a picture split up into four separate images. I used fireworks to do this because I was able to slice up an image and save it as four different files. The user has to drop the images into the boxes to complete the picture. This met the interactive side of my client breif, the target audience and the design. The target audience are of a young age and they are likely to like this peice of interactive software. The drag and drop was included in my extras part of the front end. The extras form included the quiz and the drag and drop puzzle.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

 The drag and drop puzzle relates to the drivers who regularly use the car parks. The idea of the drag and drop puzzle is to peice together a picture about safe driving. This is therefore related to people who regualarly use car parks becasue this raises awareness.

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

Creating a drag and drop puzzle does not really relate to this section of the client brief.

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The drag and drop puzzle has alot of different technical elements because it involves alot of different aspects of design. This includes designing the background, fonts of the writing and the boxes that each section of the picture is dragged into.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

I feel the drag and drop created a more fun theme to the front end and it made it more light-hearted because it was a good intereactive game to include and divert the attention away of telling people how to drive.

New skills reference: Skill 17

Producing a quiz and using it in the front end

To make my front end more interactive I created a quiz for the audience to use. This involved creating the quiz and encoding it into the front end. I had to use a special code for this and then paste the relevant code into the original code. The quiz was based on safe drivning. For example, "what is the maximum units of alcohol a person can consume when driving?" This linked in with my client breif because the quiz was aimed at the target audience. Including a quiz would relate to the target audience becasue they are young. Furthermore, a quiz makes the DVD more realistic and light-hearted and this could help get the message across. The quiz involved three driving related questions. For exmaple, "what is the speed limit on a normal street lit road?" Once the user has answered all of the questions the computer will give them a mark out of three and see if they have completed the quiz correctly. The quiz was hard to code into the appropriate form., The quiz is situated on the extras form and needed to be linked to the "play quiz button". I had to produce my own code to produce the quiz. This needed to be linked to the button in order for it to work once it was clicked. I need to make a declaration line of code to declare the quiz to open.

This is an example of one of the codes i used to create and code my quiz into my front end. This code counts the quiz answers and detects whether they are correct or not.

11. Example of a Subroutine that can be called by an Event, this particular subroutine counts quiz answers:

function endForNow(evt:Event)                                                                                                // final screen display

{

            if (frmQuestion.visible = true); frmQuestion.visible = false;                // make question invisible

            if (frmCorrect.visible = true); frmCorrect.visible = false;                          // make correct invisible

            if (frmWrong.visible = true); frmWrong.visible = false;                            // make wrong invisible

            var maxScore = answers.length;                                                                               // check number of questions

            var correctScore = 0;                                                                                            // set correct to zero

            for (var i:int = 0; i < answers.length; i++)                                                      // look for correct answers

            {

                        correctScore = correctScore + answers[i];                         // add 1 if correct

            }

            frmEndScreen.txtFinalScore.text = correctScore.toString();                // display score achieved

            frmEndScreen.txtMaxScore.text = maxScore.toString();                     // display max score

            frmEndScreen.visible = true;                                                                      // make screen invisible

            frmEndScreen.x=100;                                                                                    // position for appearing screen

            frmEndScreen.y=100;

}

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

The quiz relates to the audience because it is based upon driving related questions. The audience are likely to get the questions correct becasue they are road users themselves and are aware of the certain rules and regualtions.

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

The quiz only demonstrates the do's and dont's based around driving on normal roads, not car parks and therefore does not apply to this section of the  client breif.

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The quiz has alot of technical elements just like the drag and drop puzzle. The quiz needed its own code to link up and play once the "play quiz" button had been clicked. I also needed to let the computer know what were the correct answers without showing this to the user. I did this by coding the answers to the questions, to the correct buttons on the quiz.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

I do not feel that this section relates to the client breif.

New skills reference: Skill 16

Ability to overcome coding errors and problems

I this lesson I learned how to overcome problems with coding when linking up my buttons to movie clips and different forms. If I had typed in the wrong code or spelt something wrong there would be a window telling me there was an error. If i double-click on the error it would highlight the line of code that was wrong. I would then check the code to make sure it matched the proper code. If it did not I would have to ammend it. This attribute refelected my client breif because it was another technical aspect of the creation of the front end. Also it links in with the design and creating of the front end because the coding help me design the front end and create it. Coding was one of the most important parts of creating my front end. it helped me produce my quiz, drag and drop puzzle, import files, linking buttons to forms. Every line of code had to be spelt properly otherwise it could create other problems on other parts of the front end.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The coding was a very significant technical element becasue without it my front end would have no srtucture or format. The coding enabled me to include other technical element such as scenes, outtakes and games.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 13

Using the free transform tool

This lesson I learned how to use the free transform tool in Flash. This enabled me to edit my buttons, banners and backgrounds. I could resize them and arrange them on each screen more easily. This fitted in with my client breif as it was an element of designing the front end. I used the free transform tool in almost every aspect of designing my front end. I used it to resize things like buttons, banners, forms, text, text in buttons. i didn't just resize things with the free transform tool i was able to move things around so I could re-arrange things on each form where I wanted them. This was a key tool in designing my front end becasue without it I would be unable to choose where things go on each screen and I would not be able to base my front end on my design sketches.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The free transform tool is one of the most technical aspects of designing the front end and played a key part in producing the front end design. This is therefore related to the client brief.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 22

Importing banners into Flash

In this lesson I learned how to create banners and import them into flash. I decided to do this because I did not like the banners that were available in Flash. I used Microsoft Word to create a banner so I could amend the colour, font and border. I then went to file>import>import to library in Flash and imported these to use on each screen. This met my client breif becasue this related to the design aspect of my front end. Once the banners were imported into Flash I was able to manouver them onto the different screensa and layers. I resized them and allocated them to the appropriate screens for example.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

N/A

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 14

Inserting buttons using Flash

I had to insert buttons into flash so I could navigate around my front end. This involved using the Flash library and choosing a particular style and font for my button. I chose a suitable button that was appropriate to my sketch design for my front end. This also complied with the technical element of my client brief because it was a tecnical process. It also linked with the style of my front end because it reflected my front end designs. I used buttons on every screen in my front end. For example the main menu had four buttons that linked to four different screens. The outtakes screen had another four buttons that included the four different outtakes for my movie. The buttons made it easy for the user to navigate around the front end, and this was made easier by the use of  'back' buttons, so if the user made a mistake they could go back to the previous screen and rectify it.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

The style of the buttons could relate to the target audience, the simple design of the buttons could make the DVD front end look more light-hearted and less serious.

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The buttons were a technical element of producing the front end, they were a fairly simple process to produce because I did not have to manually create each one, just choose from a number of templates.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

Skill reference number: Skill 11

Using layers in Adobe Flash Professional

This lesson I learned how to use different layers in order to create my front end. Each layer has a different section for each different screen on the front end. For example there would be layers for code, main menu, scene selection, extras and outtakes. The code layer would be used for coding all my buttons and different forms etc. This met the desing element of my client breif because by structuring my front end it would allow me to design the front end the way i wanted to. It also met the technical element becasue the layers are quite a tricky process at times and things can go wrong, like creating different screens on the same layer. The layers were basically the centre-peice for the design of my front end. This is becasue each peice of design came from a different layer and they are all separate. The main menu for example had its own buttons on it and background image. these elements were for this layer only and were to be kept separate from the rest.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.
N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.
The layers used in the front end were a technical element becasue they helped me priduce the different screens. The helped a great deal with the design of each screen as they were basically thr paper for the pen to write on.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.
N/A

New skills reference: Skill 12

Using open and closing credits

My film needed opening and closing credits to summarise what the film was about and create a start point and end point to the film.These were created in the Flash Premier Pro. These fitted in with my client breif because they summarised my film related to the technical elements of the process of making a front end. It was quite a technical process because I had to work with just text, not video clips and the timeline. I also had to make sure I centered the text,and ensure it included the appropriate fonts and styles. I had to create a text box at the start and at the end of the video. I had write what I wanted the credits to say in the text box. I also had to choose what way I wanted the credits to scroll across. I chose left to right so they were easily readable by the user or people with sight problems.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

The credits relate to the message of the film because it basically summarises the message of the film and what it is trying to portray.

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

The credits also are a technical element becasue I am turning parts of the video into a rolling text screen. They have to play directly after the main movie clips have ended and join onto both the start and the end of the movie.

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills table reference: Skill 9

Using split scenes in Adobe Premier Pro

When using Premier Pro i needed to split up my movie into different scenes. I needed to delete certain parts of the movie and save other parts to split them up. I did this successfully by using the Premier Pro trouble-shooter and the guide. By splitting the movie up i was able to create the outtakes and the different scenes e.g. Scene 1, scene 2, scene 3, scene 4. I did this by deleting the movie up to a certain point, saving the file e.g. scene 1. then opening up the full movie again and repeating the process again but for scene 2.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

This was a technical element in producing the front end. Although it had nothing to do with creating the front end. This technical elemtn needed to be included becasue without the movie split up into scenes and outtakes, i would not be able to create my front end

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 3

Using a timeline in Premier Pro

This lesson i learned how to use a timeline. This was acquired when creating my movie in Adobe Premier Pro because I had to connect all of my scenes together. The timeline enabled me to add subtitles and put the exactly where I want them. For example, if i wanted the first scene to have subtitles and the second scene not to have subtitles I could create a cut-off point so they wouldnt keep playing in the second scene. I feel using a timeline covers the technical elements in the client breif because without the timeline I would not be able to create the movie and front end.

New skills reference: Skill 4

Converting files to a different format

To have the abilty to edit my video clips in Premier Pro I needed to convert the format of my files saved on the video camera to a format that is compatible with flash. The software 'media encoder' enabled me to do this. Converting files into a different format complies with the client breif because without doing this i would not be able to create my film, therefore not fulfilling my aim. Also I would not be able to get my message across. I had to import each file into the media encoder. I had to choose the correct format to convert it into, this was FLV. I had to choose from a number of different options to ensure the files converted properly and were compatible with Adobe Flash Professional

New skills table reference: Skill 2

Creating a back up area

In this lesson I learned how to create a back up area for my movie clips. At first, my movie clips were located in the shared area of the student drive. I needed to create another space for the movie clips so I would have two places to store them. I did this because if my clips were somehow lost, I would be able to loacte them in another area-therefore backing them up. This linked in with the client breif because it enabled me to create my film and met the technical elements.

New skills reference: Skill 5

Transfer footage from camera to PC

To enable me to edit my film, i needed to first of all transfer my files from the video camera to the computer. I had to use a USB leed to process the transfer. This complied with the technical elements of my blog becasue it was a process involving the creation and the transferring of files. Once my video was recorded they were automatically saved on the video camera. I used the camera's USB leed to import the files onto the computer. I double-clicked on the video camera, on the desktop. This brought up all of the files on the video camera. I copied the relvant files onto my student drive so I would have my own copies.

Target audience - is mainly aimed at people who drive and regularly use car parks.

N/A

Message of the film - to indicate that dangerous driving in public car parks can be hazardous and it can cause dangers to others.

N/A

Technical elements - It will include different screens such as play movie, scenes, outtakes and subtitles.

N/A

Impact of the film on the audience - slightly humorous so the audience do not get the impression that I am accusing them of being bad drivers.

N/A

New skills reference: Skill 7