Custom DVD Case
A little venture I once toyed with, was designing and creating a custom DVD case and disc image for an existing film. I chose a film, that was and still is, one of my all time favourites - There Will Be Blood. The epic tale of Daniel Plainview, a self-made tycoon that spirals out of moral control the richer he gets from his oil fortune.
Below is the original DVD case. I did my own research on different types of artwork that I loved. I wanted a blend of different aesthetics to create a new look for the cover.
First I decided to create a Photoshop template fitting the dimensions of the DVD case. I found some high resolution images from the film from Google. Or if it was a specific shot I wanted I took a screen capture from the movie itself. Then I placed them into my Photoshop template and played around with the size and fonts. It was OK but nothing professional.
After a short while of researching different films and games, I realised that I loved the art design of the video game, Red Dead Redemption. It's bold blacks and deep blood reds added a unique sinister tone that would work well for There Will Be Blood. The setting of the game and film both have a common theme. The harsh landscapes and brutal conditions of time period of when they are both set.
I thought they could work well together given their similar setup and tone. Now that I had chosen my art design I had to marry both the blacks and reds well enough to create the branding of the film. I naturally went through my top ten film DVD's and had a look at the front cover designs. My favourite film of all time, The Assassination of Jesse James, made the biggest impression. I have a thing for Westerns... and horror. We'll come to that another time. The front cover of the Jesse James movie stood out to the me the most, with Brad PItt's stern look filling the whole image. It resembled Daniel Day Lewis' characters nature. Fierce, confident and intense, yet solemn.
I paired the red and blacks with a high resolution image of Daniel Plainview's face and increased the saturation and contrast including a shaded vignette. Then I added all the DVD necessities like the blurb, the cast and crew and the UK's BBFC rating for a professional look. I went on to get a 2:1 for this so not a bad effort. It helped me understand a lot of Photoshops's workflow procedures. Having used Photoshop now for 8+ years, I've got a good foundation of how the workflow should be created from the get-go.
Have a look below to see the finished product.
