Progress: Website so far...

Website & Digipak Progress

I am well into the production of my website and digipak. I am enjoying using wix for making the website as it is relatively straightforward to use and offers a lot of options in order to create a decent website. I am trying to include all of the conventions of a musicians website but also trying to make sure the site has its own distinct style. Here is some screenshots of the work I have done so far. (This is not the finalized thing - I still have many changes/alterations to make)

This is the homepage of the site (so far)

This is the info page, most musicians include some form
of info about themselves so I thought I should do the same
with Lola Leyland.

This is the 'Tour' page - where fans can purchase tickets
to upcoming gigs, etc...

I have created an online store where fans can purchase
merchandise - this is an important part of the website.

Here are some of the designs of the digipak I have made using online software. I am still undecided on what I want my final digipak to look like...

This could be the front cover.

This is a possibility for the back cover, as you can see I have
included all the institutional info.

Editing 17/01/13

Today we completely finished our rough cut! We are very pleased with the basic edit of our music video and really hope that once we have gone through every detail, we can have something to be really proud of.  The last thing that needed finishing was our montage that  we wanted to put towards the end of the song. This was very time-consuming to do as it meant having a lot of shots that only last a couple of seconds, so this meant having to put each shot on the timeline then editing it down to the precise point that we want it. Finally today we completed doing this and I personally am really pleased with the outcome.

We are now months into our coursework and I really believe that Ella, Madihah and myself are working really well together and not fighting over disagreements. We always compromise or ask for outsiders opinion when need be. I have enjoyed working with them so far because we are all very calm and clear when communicating with one another. I definitely feel that there is no particular 'leader' of the group, and we all take charge of the editing equally, and there is no one who isn't quite pulling their weight (which was something I felt was happening in my last year AS coursework group).


PEER FEEDBACK SO FAR:
We have shown our work so far to a number of different people including our friends, teachers and the rest of our media class. We have been thoroughly pleased with some of the kind compliments we have received. Most people said the same thing when it came to what they particularly liked about the video:
-Natural chemistry between the 2 characters
-Good casting
-Nice use of natural lighting
-Good locations
-They liked the simplicity

We received no harsh criticism, just some pointers from our teachers who have given us comments on how to further improve our work:
-100% make sure lip syncing is perfect
-Make sure all cutting is to the beat
-Perhaps cut down shots that feel too long

All of this we were already aware of and this is now what we are going to focus on.

Editing So Far...

We are surprisingly far ahead with out work and almost have a rough cut of our video. Placing everything on to the timeline on Final Cut was fairly easy between the 3 of us and selecting what pieces of film go where was not difficult as we had planned thoroughly enough to have a good idea of what we wanted the sequence to look like.

Inevitably, the most trying and time consuming thing about editing is making sure that the syncing is perfect. We have worked through this quite well so far and have a very basic edit, however we know that once we have completed the rough edit we will need to go back and put our undivided attention into making sure the syncing is precise the highest degree possible.

As a team, the 3 of us our working really well and manage to explain our thoughts. We all seem to be on the same wavelength which is one of the reasons I think we have made it this far already. We don't always agree on how we should edit each specific bit but one thing we all do is compromise so that we can come to a fair agreement. Additionally, if we are really stuck on making a decision we may ask a friend who isn't in the group as they have fresh eyes and an unbiased opinion.

I am hoping that by the end of next week we will have a full first cut and from then on we can focus on detail.