Website Final Piece

Here is a link to my finished website.

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

Website First Draft - What needs to be improved?

Now that my first draft has been completed, I can analyse it and see what I need to improve on. The first thing that stands out on the website is that none of the photos used were my own. My chosen subject, basketball, proves difficult to take your own pictures for, however I still need to use my own photographs in order to follow the criteria. An idea that was suggested to me was to replace the picture of the balloons and redo that myself, adding different colour balloons lined up with a clear mise en scene and then later editing the picture, adding each letter of 'welcome' onto each separate balloon.

Website First Draft

This is my website first draft, the link can be found here.

Name for my TV Channel

A TV channel name must be catchy, relevant and snappy. From research I found that TV channels which are not part of a chain (such as Sky Sports, Sky Movies) are often one or two words. However one pitfall I have discovered from this is that they may not be perceived as a TV channel. For example the name 'Laugh' does not instantly make you think of the TV channel. This problem is often resolved by adding TV to the end of the name to make it 'Laugh TV'.

Relevance is also important as it needs to bring the right connotations to the the channel. This means that their must be no ambiguity in the meaning of the word and the preferred reading needs to be clear and concise. An example of a TV channel which has addressed this is Channel 4. There are no connotations and it is specific and clear to where you will find it on the TV guide.

Below is a list of ideas of names for my channel:

• Hoops TV
• Nothin' But Net TV
• Handle TV
• BBTV (Basketball TV)
• Slam
• Dunk TV

From this list I have concluded that Hoops TV is the one I think will suit best, as it fits basketball the most and doesn't have any bad connotations. It is also basketball jargon which will likely be more attractive to basketball fans.

Content Analysis of Real Media TV Websites

The main purpose for a television website is to advertise it's programmes. One convention that is used on all the main TV channel websites is the obvious advertisement of the programmes that are shown on that channel. Websites such as Dave and Channel 5 both use a scrolling gadget that uses space on the web page efficiently yet still manages to showcase and advertise all their major shows.

From my Content Analysis I have found trends which I can replicate in my website. No websites that I researched had a catch up player, this means that for me to create a website that will rival ESPN, Sky Sports and NBA.com, it is highly recommended to include a catch up player on my site. Another feature I found to be significant was a link to the latest news, which would be a useful for visitors and will most likely make them visit the website more often.

What was popular however, was the television listings shown on the website, this was present on every website. One trend that I found which was no surprise was the use of pictures. Every website incorporated pictures into the look of their websites, whether it was pictures related to individual programmes on the channel, or it was related to the news of that day (bearing in mind only if they had a news link featured on their website in the first place).

Social Media was shown to be more popular in the modern day for TV channel websites. However, to gain the most publicity for my website possible, I will include this as it is increasingly becoming more popular and it doesn't affect the image of the website or TV channel by including it.

How I Will Create My Website

When designing a website, it is vital that some criteria is met for it to be a successful one. The website has to be user friendly and easy to use and also has to have some originality to it for it to stand out. The purpose of my website is to inform as it will have TV listings and other information about my television channel as well as having a second purpose to persuade viewers from rival channels such as Comedy Central.

To make my website stand out, I will need to stick to a house style font which matches the branding of the channel itself, so that it would be instantly recognisable. When designing the website I need to make sure to avoid making it too 'clunky' and overcomplicated. This will frustrate my audience and will make them less likely to watch the channel.

For my website design I have chosen to download a specific software to the Apple Mac computers. This software is called 'Quick 'n Easy Web Builder 2'. I have chosen this software as it is easy to use which gives me more time to focus on the content of the website, as opposed to spending more to on the detailed creation of coding a website.

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.

Aptitude - Creativity Website

Aptitude are a company that work with creativity, here is a link to their website. They mainly work in website design which takes advantage of their creative skillset.

This could be useful to me as one of their focuses is website design. However, their key focus involves responsive website design.

"The increase of mobile technology has transformed the way we now browse the web. Smartphones and tablets are increasingly becoming the norm, and it is important that your website not only looks great, but also works well on all screen sizes; big or small.
Here at Aptitude we develop all our websites to be responsive, which means they will automatically adapt and respond to accommodate any device - whether that be a smartphone, a tablet, a desktop or even a TV.
Our experienced team of web designers don't use templates, and as a result each and every website we design is original and bespoke. As an accredited and certified web design agency, we understand that a great looking website is only the start.
User experience is now a top priority for any serious site owner, which is why we take the time to understand your wants and needs for your website, enabling us to create a unique and innovative design that ticks all the boxes."

Here's what they say about website design:

"The increase of mobile technology has transformed the way we now browse the web. Smartphones and tablets are increasingly becoming the norm, and it is important that your website not only looks great, but also works well on all screen sizes; big or small.
Here at Aptitude we develop all our websites to be responsive, which means they will automatically adapt and respond to accommodate any device - whether that be a smartphone, a tablet, a desktop or even a TV.
Our experienced team of web designers don't use templates, and as a result each and every website we design is original and bespoke. As an accredited and certified web design agency, we understand that a great looking website is only the start.
User experience is now a top priority for any serious site owner, which is why we take the time to understand your wants and needs for your website, enabling us to create a unique and innovative design that ticks all the boxes."

Impact on my own production:
From this quote I can take away some key factors that I will make sure to incorporate into my website. For example, user experience is considered a ' top priority' which means I need to make sure that my website is very user friendly and easy to use. Another area I could make sure to incorporate into my website would be to make my website responsive, meaning it can adapt to any screen size whether it be iPhone, iPad or Android smartphone.

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.

Langue & Parole & Their Links to TV Websites

Langue: A language viewed as an abstract system used by a speech community, in contrast to the actual linguistic behaviour of individuals.


Parole: The actual linguistic behaviour or performance of individuals, in contrast to the linguistic system of a community.

Links to TV Websites:

• Navigation bar that's fixed so that when scrolling the bar is always at the top
• Twitter Feeds
• Displays of TV programmes - categorised by: Editors Pick, New Releases, Featured/Most Popular
• The footer of the page contains links to related channels
• Clips of TV shows
• Search Bar
• A-Z List of TV programmes
• Recent news feed
• Other interactive content - e.g. Quizzes
• Links to a catch up channel/ iPlayer