Andrea Immer's Entertaining Made Simple
Arista Associated Labels (AAL), the jazz, blues and classical division of BMG, needed work done for 4 Enhanced CD's, the second half of a set of 8 ECD's for their Entertaining Made Simple series. The series combined music from the AAL's catalog with cooking demonstrations, wine and food pairings, menus and recipes from Master Sommelier and television personality Andrea Immer. The CD's themselves had to feature seamless interactivity and video presentations while maintaining the high quality of design befitting a more aesthetic suite of food-related content and fine music. Faced with a small budget and an aggressive schedule, AAL needed to find a shop that had a history of sophisticated design and quality multimedia and interactive programming. arvato systems was chosen to realize this project and create the Enhanced CD's for both PC and Macintosh platforms.
Andrea Immer's Entertaining Made Simple |
arvato systems Business Solutions used Macromedia Director for the interactivity contained on the Enhanced CD, orchestrating all the graphical elements, sound clips and video demonstrations into a single presentation . For the backgrounds on title and menu pages, careful consideration was given to choosing food images that were both appropriate to the content of the disc and matched the color scheme of the title. Also, the video segments were edited to allow for smoother transitions between the segments and smaller file sizes while maintaining an acceptable video quality. The final step in all of this was optimizing the full presentation in such a way as to make it was playable in both PC and Macintosh formats while still allowing ample space on the CD for the audio tracks. arvato systems Business Solutions staff worked closely with the Marketing team from AAL to ensure the consistent vision and quality of the project. A variety of tools and techniques were used on both platforms to allow for the highest quality viewing experience.
 Big Reds, Bistro, & Ballads |
The 4 Enhanced CD's, due in stores early September 2003, showcase not only the quality music in Arista Associated Labels' deep jazz, classical and blues catalog, but also the impressive interactive programming, graphics and design skills of the arvato systems Business Solutions team. From titles ranging from Big Reds, Bistro and Ballads to Mojitos, Mariscos and Mambo, the arvato systems team was able to transform a collection of audio, video and image assets into full-featured, interactive works of entertainment.