Evaluation

When constructing the research for my website, I looked at five different types of TV channel and the structure they used for their own websites. I decided that if I used a controversial structure, people would not know what it is for and would defeat the object of having the website. I used the advantage of that everybody knows what a TV channel website is and looks like through their cultural experiences. At the end of my research I came to the conclusion that to produce a successful piece of work, I need to incorporate material that already works well for other websites. I found that everything needs to be centred and in a square structure as it needs to be viewed on every size of computer monitor. Furthermore my researched showed me that it should have a distinct colour theme which would be sustained throughout. The best example of this was from the BBC3 website. I found that its logo and colour excelled all the way through the website; giving it character. That was the main idea I took away for my own project. I wanted to give it a character of its own but it needed to still look like a website. The fact that the BBC3 website also was centred and square gave me motivation to use a similar structure but not copy it. When researching schedule pages for my website, I also went back to the BBC3 website to look for ideas. Unfortunately it wasn’t the style I was looking for. The style I did find however that suited my website perfectly is the Discovery channel website. The way it was laid out and the structure and titles used were a good example to as what people would like to see on my particular themed website. Out of pure memory I remember that the Eastenders website has a full image in the header. I know that my channel isn’t anything to do with a soap however I think that the picture in the header was effective and would look good on mine if I used the right type of picture. I decided that I would do a similar thing and put the picture of the monkey up that I took from London zoo and made it look like it has been taken from a documentary. This is also a good marketing feature that would attract people to the program.

When I started off creating my website, I found that I couldn’t make it look professional; it lacked a shine. I re-visited the websites that I had analysed and found out why my website looked dull. This was because the navigation bar at the top was just a filled table with links. The UK food website gave me the best idea to brighten up my work. I took the green navigation bar and used it to produce my own similar one in Adobe Fireworks. I drew a long rectangle and filled it in with a metallic two-colour combination to give it a shiny effect. This then transformed my whole website into looking professional. There wasn’t much else from that website that I wanted to use for mine.

I now had to come up with a few original ideas in order to make my website look unique and not somebody else’s creation. This was to challenge other types of animal website like animal planet and to make it known for being its own channel so people do not make the assumptions that it is just like the other TV channels. For this, I used the idea of having a robin cam page where I have hosted a camera inside a bird box in my garden with my dad. Hopefully by the spring/ summer a bird will have nested and will attract a lot of positive attention to boost the ratings of my TV channel.

With my TV listings double page spread, I looked at other examples such as “What’s on TV” and “TV guide”. I saw that they were presented in the traditional format of ‘about the TV programs‘ on a few pages and then the TV listings on its own page; perhaps with a couple of programs being talked about again but not in detail. As my TV listings magazine double page spread is there to promote the new TV channel, I needed it to have some conventional material in there but also my own so I changed this by doing a whole page on ‘about the TV programs’ and a whole page on the listings. This came together very nicely. Furthermore I have used a picture of David Attenborough as the main picture to attract animal lovers from afar. My research showed me that this works well so I didn’t feel a need to do anything different.

With my newspaper advert, I didn’t find anything like I expected a newspaper advert to be. I used this along with my ideas to come up with what I have now. This was mainly of an activist approach because people would not normally find the animals I have included portrayed in such a dark way. I wanted to portray it like this as I wanted to again show that Animal Earth is not like all TV channels, it has shock and amazement for all the family.

My media package / products represent examples of life in the animal kingdom. I have used various animal pictures, colours, descriptive text and a simple structure in order to attact a social group of animal lovers. This social group will therefore be exposed to a new approach of animal footage. This will expand the market for TV channels like this one.

Out of all the TV channels I have researched, I think that the DIscovery Channel would take on Animal Earth. This is because it deals and is specialist in the animal/wildlife area and so my TV channel would benefit them. In addition, I feel that all of the TV provoiders would choose to host my channel as it expands the market for this topic. This would bring in new respectable customers and would increase viewing figures fore the providers.

My TV channel website uses video, audio, flash and images in order to communicate to my target audience, being the family in an exciting way. This addressed my audience by using familiar medium in order for the audience to make sense of what I wanted to communicate.

I have mainly learnt how to use Adobe Dreamweaver in a particular way in order to achieve a professional looking website. Furthermore, I have learnt how to use JavaScript and Flash in an effective way to bring my website a sense of profesionalism. The other two tasks I was set didn't require so much technical knowledge in that I was already familliar with certain programs such as Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher. Therefore I have come to a conclusion that the Adobe suite is a very good set of programs to use for this type of work.

In conclusion, I think that my website, newspaper advert and TV listings double page spread have come out well and all sustain the same theme linking them all to each other. This will help to associate my pieces of work with the TV channel Animal Earth. If I was to improve anything at all, I would manage my time better in completing my writeup.

Permission to Use David Attenborough Picture on TV listings.

Permission for "What's new pussycat"

Pea green boat permissions

Forex permissions

Find any UK vet Permission

BBC Permission

RSPCA Permission

Discovery channel, HD theater and Petfinder Permission

I didn't feel I needed to write permission for these three logos as this site says that I'm allowed to use them.

Twitter Permission

I have written to Twitter and sent this (below).

Facebook Permission

When I went to find an email address for facebook, I couldn't find one, however I found a permissions form on their site which I filled in online.
Below is a printscreen of the form.

Further permissions

Furthermore I as I have made an advert advertising 'cat borstal' on my website, I need to contact the record company BMG for the song "what's new pussycat".

I then need to contact the website who supplied the picture of david attenbrough as that is the only picture I have used from a 3rd party on my supporting coursework material.

permissions

I am going to send the letter I have drafted for links on my website.
I am sending it to:
Twitter
Facebook
RSPCA
Find any UK pet
HD theater
Discovery channel
Petfinder
BBC
Forex Trading
The green boat design


I would do it for games except the website seems to be blocked by school websites so it would be included in the marking of my project.

Drafted email letter to the 'linked' material on my website

I am going to change this to video etc when I need to.

Dear Sir/Madam

I am doing a media project for the second year of my A level course and I would like to use your logo as part of the links for my website. The website is called Animal Earth and the links support the structure of my website; making it look like it has been created professionally so I can achieve the top mark band.

This material will not be used for professional use and it links directly to your website.

Your cooperation in this matter would be appreciated,

Thank you,

Dawn Turnbull

Finished Newspaper Advert

This is my finished newspaper advert. I am very happy with it as it pays attention to detail; especially around the edges. This idea for the date to be around the edges was a one off accident whilst I was experiemnting but I decided to keep it as it looks effective.

Newspaper Advert First Draft

This is the first draft of my newspaper advert I feel this is professional enough to look good on billboard or at a bus stop. I might change this slightly and make the "AE" stand out more on the orb like enlarged logo in the middle of the bottom. I also need to include the channel numbers and change the date to white.

Pictures I have created for the newspaper advert

This is the main picture which I created on Fireworks. I used pictures that I used on my double page spread to advertise my channel. The approach I made was actually from an eastenders advert which has nothing to do with animals. However I wanted my channel to portray animal life as being as dramatic as a soap opera. I wanted it to show the audience that animals really do have minds of their own and that they may choose to be naughty or wellbehaved or can be helpless sometimes. I have used the feature of their eyes to counteract one another; each animal having a different emotion. For example the monkey is jealous of the cat and the iguana wants to be in the frame more.

The idea I have chosen to present my newspaper advert in

I have chosen to present my newspaper with a dark setting to show the audience both sides of animal life - the good, the bad and the ugly. I am still going to use greens and have a big version of my logo at the bottom looking like a floating orb. My ideas may shock the audience but in a good way as I would like to portray my TV channel to the audience as if its a completely different look on animal channels. After analysing the examples of newspaper adverts, I have come to the decision that I needed to create a newspaper advert completely unique to my channel. I found that the research on all the adverts I looked at showed me that every example is unique to their channel and shouldn't be copied in any way.
This will give the audience a recognisable image to look for to find Animal Earth.

Research for Newspaper advert

To begin with I didn't know what was meant by a newspaper advert of a TV channel. I thought it was a small column. However when I did research the adverts for different genres of channel, I realised I needed to take up a whole page of A4 and really send a message across to the audience. I found out that the advert doesn't have to look like the channel content, it can portray anything as long as it makes sense and catches the reader's attention. The examples I found also would look good if they were posted up on billboards or bus stops so my advert needs to be like this.

This is the discovery channel advert

This is a plain photo with a strong advertising hook using interesting and unusual text. This doesn't clearly show what channel it is until the advert has been studied. Furthermore, the audience may recognise this advert as being associated with the discovery channel.

Here are two animal planet adverts

Again this is a simple picture that personifies penguins to advertise a wildlife program about penguins. The manipulation side of this is not extremely obvious but the clever idea is effective.



This is a different view of Animal Planet, in contrast to their website. Their website is dark, mainly themed with the colour black but using this bright picture shows the bright side of the channel / program.

This is a channel 4 advert

This idea to construct a number four in the middle of the viewers' screen is very old but extremely effective. It's very plain but ensures that the audience can recognise this advert as being associated with Channel 4.

Foodchannel advert

This channel uses a celebrity to associate their branding with. It uses high contrast, basic colours to show the seriousness and reality of the TV channel.

Channel 5 advert

This adverts' manipulation is far easier to identify than the preveous examples. This advert uses a selection of pictures and various texts to show thw audience a bigger picture of what the channel is like.

BBC 3 advert

This picture is nore complex than the preveous examples. It is not a simple picture and includes many different aspects of the channel. This picture is not a photo but the creation of a graphic designer. Most adverts generally use real pictures or real but manipulated pictures as the focus of their adverts. Further, BBC3 have stepped away from the conventional methods used thier own designs to attract a large audience and to portray an exciting new channel for the family.

tv listings double page spread

This is the final version; with all of the corrections complete.

This is the (almost) final version of my tv listings double page spread more or less finished. I need to write up everything for this task. There may be a few things I need to correct. I have used all of the ideas to come up with this double page spread. I more or less had a plan in my head of what it needed to look like however the idea for the broken lines came later as I felt it was a good finishing touch. Furthermore the use of a celebrity on my page didn't come until later either as I already had a good amount of pictures to play with and manipulate.

After feedback from classmates and friends, I felt that some things needed to change. My previous version to this didn't have the star and instead I had the text to this going along the top which was then found to not be as "in your face" as most channel launch pages so I decided to make a big star overlapping things with my big caption over the top of it.

Choice of fonts for double page spread

Looking at the font experimentation I did for my website, I have decided that Microsoft Sans Serif is most suitable for the type of publication I am creating.