Willie Washington: A very personal project...

On March 20th, 2010, I married the love of my life, Ms. Rebecca Ortiz. Our wedding, while not the biggest, was a very intimate ceremony with friends and family present. My mother-in-law, was unable to make the ceremony due to health reasons, so since I had already began taking classes at RCC (Riverside City College for those of you that don't know), I decided that when we got our wedding pictures and video of the ceremony, that I would put a DVD together to send to my mother-in-law so that I could basically give her the feeling that she was AT the wedding. It took me some time, but I finally completed my personal project. Truth be told, it was actually completed months ago, and I am only just now posting it to my blog. I will give a basic run down of what I did.

First, I had to learn how to use Adobe Encore CS5, which made it a little difficult because there aren't any current books for this program. The closest book I found, was for CS2. The book is titled "DVD Authoring with Adobe Encore", published back in April 2004. This book wasn't current at all, but it was a great read and while CS5 does have new features, this book helped me get the job done with the basics. After I read the book, I laid out my plan in Encore.

My idea was to not only put the video of the ceremony on the DVD, but to add something extra. So while I was reading the book on Encore, I discovered that I could use the program to make a slideshow. So that's what I started with. I gathered all the photos of me and my wife only, and I put a slideshow together. Couldn't believe how easy this was with Encore. I selected two different songs, "My Baby You" by Marc Anthony, which is one of my wife's favorite songs. And "Brighter Than Sunshine" by Aqualung, one of my favorites. These song choices were perfect for the slideshow, which I have below, and you will see why.

Once the slideshow was completed, I started working on the main menu design with photoshop. Upon reading the book, I discovered that I could create my own menus and buttons in Photoshop and then simply import or drag them into Encore ready to go. Once the meny and buttons were completed, I added the ceremony and slideshow to Encore, but it still felt a little incomplete to me. I started designing a DVD cover to make it look a little more professional. I could have easily just left the DVD blank, the label that is, or written on it with a sharpie and put it in a plastic jewel case, but I wanted to make this perfect. I designed a front and back cover for the DVD case, and I also created a template for lightscribe, so that I could burn an image onto the lightscribe DVD that I used. I created a personal message from me and my wife and placed it on the back of the DVD cover, and while doing that I came up with another great idea. I decided that popping the DVD and having it go strait to the menu was boring, so I took that personal message and kind of flipped it a bit and made an introduction that plays before the main menu comes up. I have a little experience editing, very little, but I used Premier Pro CS5 to create the introduction that plays before the main menu comes up. I used Adobe Soundbooth CS5 to edit the music that I used for the slideshow, main menu and introduction, and I used Adobe InDesign CS5 to layout the design for the DVD cover. Below, you can view the finished product. I couldn't put the DVD in its original format on this site, so once you push play, the introduction will start, then the main menu will come up so that you can see how it turned out. After the main menu, it will automatically go to viewing of the ceremony. The 2nd flash video is of the slideshow. I decided to post this to not only show off a little more of my skills, but to share the most special day of my life. Enjoy.