Double Page Spread Final Piece

After talking to Tony, I have updated my Double Page Spread to give it a more professional look. One of the main suggestions was to make the title more eye catching. I have done this by increasing the font size, changing the colour (also the team colours of the team shown in the article) and adding a shadow effect to make it more bold and attractive to the eye of the reader. Another update from the first draft was to loose some text, as it was too bunched up and didn't look appealing to read and as a result of this I have trimmed it down.

Feedback On My Work From People In the Industry

After showing my work to people in the industry, I was able to gain helpful feedback which will enable me to improve my main task and two ancillary tasks.

Pete Carvell is Marlwood School's IT Technician, you can see a link to the school website that he was responsible for designing here. The improvements he suggested that would help my production are:

• Images in the carousel need to be the same size
• The edge of the page needs to be in line correctly
• Darker colours of certain teams don't show up very well, therefore possibly scrap the different colours and add small specific team coloured basketball jerseys next to each team
• The background picture contrasts too much from either side of the page, it is too dark on the right and too bright on the left
• For the 'important dates' page the columns can be moved closer together to make it easier to line up which date equates to which event
• Possibly increase the font size of the text on the 'important dates' page
• Make the channel number 'channel 122' more visible and more clear on the page, possibly add it permanently to the top of the page by the name of the website and slogan
• Make each box at the bottom of the homepage the same size and length and line them up together

Steve Richards is a graduate in Film Production Technology from Staffordshire University and was very helpful when analysing and making suggestions about my ident video. His suggestions included:

• Make the shot landscape to fill the screen
• Ass different cuts next to each other, an alternative way of filling space
• Audio - use sounds of the ball dropping into the net, or the basketball trope of shoes squeaking on the gym floor

Tony Baxter is the Managing Director at Voodoo Designs. Here is a link to his company. Some of his suggestions included:

• Make the header/title more bold and eye catching as this should be the first thing that catches the readers eye
• Lose some text, it it too bunched up and is too close to the edge of the page
• Add a drop shadow effect to the smaller picture as it is too blurred in with the background picture

Double Page Spread First Draft

Double Page Spread Research

These are some double page spread examples from a popular basketball magazine in America named Slam.

Although these 2 articles are more than just double-page spreads, they follow the same format of a double page spread. Key conventions that I have noticed are that pictures play a bigger role than the text, as on every page the pictures stand out and fill the empty space, whereas text looks to play a secondary role (although the text is undoubtedly still important). This allows the pictures to be dynamic and in some cases the pictures do speak more than the words. This means that I will look to fill space with large pictures and the text will fit around it.

Planning my Double Page Spread

For my double page spread, the target audience will need to be addressed and persuaded to watch my TV channel. The purpose of the TV listings double page spread is exactly that, to grow the audience but also to inform the target audience that I already have attracted about what shows are on. I can address my audience by adding featured programmes which are the most popular. This would attract attention as the reader of the magazine would see the popular shows advertised and therefore would be more likely to tune in to the channel.

There are two different ways I could choose to design my double page spread. One is to have a TV listings schedule with several added featured shows that are on. The other possibility is to have a more detailed feature on just one show that is featuring on my channel. In my opinion, this would look better than a tv listings guide as there would be more space for pictures which would allow me to add better/more dramatic pictures that would make the TV show advertised look more enticing.

Clarifying My Target Audience Based On Competitors

As I have chosen my television channel to be based around basketball, this means I will have a specific target audience to adhere to. To discover this audience, I decided to research into the target audience of my main sporting competitor, ESPN. Here is a link to the marketing statistics for ESPN, although these statistics are based on the US audience they are mostly given as percentages so they can be reinterpreted to fit the UK audience.

Another main competitor in sports is Sky Sports, who are based in England therefore are a stronger competitor than ESPN. The target audience for both channels is predominantly men, although sport is becoming increasingly popular with women. This means that for my main and ancillary tasks I cannot exlude the female market as I will lose a large chunk of my audience.

Deciding a TV Genre

In the UK, there are some sports that aren't available to watch as they are not considered popular enough. A prime example of this would be basketball, which is aired in most countries and is most popular in the United States. This means there is a niche in the UK television market for a basketball sports channel that aires live basketball and I have decided to base my TV Website, Double Page Spread and Ident Video on basketball.

Mission Statement & Brief

For my Advanced Production I have decided to go with:

Option (9) A website for a new TV channel (to include a minimum of three hyperlinked pages with original images, audio and video extract), together with two of the following three options:

• A newspaper advertisement for the channel;
• A double page spread for a listings magazine, focused on the channels launch;   (Task 1)
• An animated ident sequence for the channel   (Task 2)

     = Chosen options.

Pitfalls to Avoid:

• Make sure the website is live by the deadline
• Make sure any media I upload is available
• Don't overcrowd my piece with too much text

I decided to choose these tasks because the final pieces differed from the AS print pieces. This means I will get to use new digital technology and other software that I am not used to, which will improve my overall skills as a media student. For example, in AS I never used any technology involving film, therefore it will be my first time using software like 'iMovie' when it comes to making my ident video.