Cover Complete

And Final Sign-Off - by Andrew Ellard

19 September, 2003

The Rimmer-Lister theme continues on the cover of the third DVD, final artwork for which was received this week at GNP. No huge surprises, really, given that you've all almost certainly seen the development art, but this is the final, complete version.

Three points worth noting. The first is that the BBC and BBFC have had logo changes since last year. The BBFC updated all its certificates, so the new '12' cert will look a little different; and the Beeb's new '2 Disc Set' stamp (top left corner) is, apart from being a little slicker, certainly in Dwarfian colours. Finally, the lettering on the spine reading 'Series III' is the same size as Series I's font - the idea being that the text alternates between large (as on Series II) and small. Big for the even numbers, smaller for the odd.

In other news, BBC DVD producer Ross McGinley and myself accompanied Doug Naylor to the offices of Deluxe Digital last week for final sign-off on the DVDs in their completed form. Time pressures are on, with Australia needing delivery of the discs even earlier than the UK to hit the release date of November 3rd, so anything we spotted that day would have to be turned around in record time.

This was the first time the full animated menus had been seen totally up and running, and each and every menu (and sub-menu) screen hooked up to the relevant footage. It's actually a little overwhelming to start with - not unlike the feeling of getting the DVDs home for the first time on day of release, I suppose - and you pay close attention. Really close. Seriously, a live polymorph could have squelched into the room and we wouldn't have noticed.

Thankfully, all corrections proved to be minor and swiftly fixable. Most significantly, we debated the issues of music and sound effects for a while, trying to appreciate the difference between significant and overwhelming on Starbug engines and menu music, then - as Doug took himself off to far more important places - Ross and I ploughed through each and every link.

Just to give you an idea of what that means, a Red Dwarf III episode has nine DVD chapters. That's 54 altogether, plus another seven for the documentary and 16 for Backwards - Forwards. Oh, and we still need to check the stonkingly-large image gallery, and... well, everything else. It ain't a Herculean task, just a few hours of button-pressing and note-taking - but sometimes it's a bugger remembering where you've hidden the Easter Eggs...

More DVD Details will follow soon...

You can pre-order Series III on DVD from the Red Dwarf Shop right now.