Here is a screen capture of the new page:

And the old one:
(click for a larger view)

It gave me a chance to use a new technique I had read about using “CSS Sprites”. I have to thank A List Apart, a site full of amazing resources and how-to’s which talked about this technique. Here is a link to their great Tutorial on CSS Sprites.

I will post a more technical version of how I tweaked their code to work for this situation later, but here is a quick explanation:

Normally to create all the rollover buttons on the page, eight separate images would be used and the old way even meant using javascript, which is a fairly cumbersome language compared to the simplicity of the CSS used here.

Very simply, instead of creating, editing and uploading eight images, all of the needed images are combined into one image. Then I just tell each button which part to use for the normal state and which part to use when the mouse hovers over it. The file size is smaller, so the page loads faster and if it ever needs to be edited or updated, I just download and edit one image instead of eight.

Here is the image:
(click for a larger view)

When Jules had mentioned wanting to mouse over photos to reveal her logos underneath, I remembered reading about this somewhere, so I gave it a try.

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Apparently Five Day DVD is a featured design on We Love WP (WeLoveWP.com) – a site that showcases custom WordPress sites.

Only a few days ago, I found the site and browsed all the amazing work on there, getting inspiration and ideas for my own designs. They had a section where you could submit your own site, let them know about it and if they like it, they would include it on their page.

Well, I guess they did, because here it is:

Five Day DVD was my first go at WordPress and to have it noticed on a site like this means a lot. It took me so long to get it to look like it does!

I have big plans for a new site which I plan to do all in WordPress. Plus – I am working on my first custom theme, built from scratch. No details yet…

A big thank you to We Love WP!

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It is still a work in progress, and for now is just the single page with a simple description and a form to send an email. I will be adding some functionality to the form tonight and working on the rest of the site when I can fit it in.

So, if you know any actors looking for a website – send them on over.

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Derek Craigie

More importantly, this was the first site for a side project that has been in the works for a while now – www.headshotsandreels.com

I finally launched a temporary page today, as you will see in my next post!

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Five Day DVD Site

Five Day DVD grew out my consultant wok with the American Film Institute and several local high schools. I ended up developing a fairly comprehensive training program based on teaching beginners everything they need to complete a large DVD yearbook project over the course of a five day workshop.

Five Day DVD, was created with WordPress, a great blog system that allows some pretty complex customization.

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Each class was split into two groups. We only had one camera so one group shot while the other had a brief Q&A. It was their day to ask questions about careers, so they all had lots of great questions about what it was like to work as a filmmaker, editor, director, videographer and so on. Then they switched and the second group shot and the first group asked questions. Each group had only fifteen minutes to shoot, but they all completed their scenes – some with time to spare. With the remaining time, we had a screening and discussed their work.

In an hour, each class completed two short films, had a screening and a great discussion about shooting and editing technique. In between all of that, they hopefully got some useful information about working in the film industry.

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