Web Hosting Situation Sorted

Temporarily a web hosting service has been agreed upon and joined.

The web host was found at Http://www.freevirtualservers.com, and they offer free web hosting, which issues 100mb of web space, 100mb bandwidth each month, amongst some other less important factors, such as 10 email addresses.

As the website address is already owned, web hosting is needed to get the website online and onto the World Wide Web, and this free solution will address the problem.

This situation is only temperamental until at least the new student loan comes through, as with the more podcasts added, and the more the podcasts are listened too, the more space will be needed which will bring the need for a better web host.

The only unfortunate thing with this service is that the service will take at least seven days to work...as they say nothing is ever 'free'.

Website Completed

...effectively anyway!

With the website's design completed, these last couple of days has just seen minor tweaks and mainly the addition of content to the individual pages and links to all throughout the website.





The website now is very friendly for the user to use with a very good navigation system to take the user all throughout the website. Links to the various sections of the website have been duplicated to different places within the pages.

The main link system can be seen at the bottom of the website pages, all the main sections from within the website can be navigated to from here:



These links will vary throughout time, as they are links to the most popular / important sections of the website:



The links on the right hand side of the page work similar to an RSS feed. These links contain a snippet of information about where they are linked too, and are going to be links to new / updated sections of the website:

(An RSS feed for the website will be looked into, upon more podcasts being produced.)



This idea was seen on a very popular website, and works well as a navigation tool. The idea is that just below the page / section headline, the links are to the section where the user currently is, and links to how the section can be reached will also be there, ensuring for example that is the user wants to search through all the podcasts, the user can easily get back to the link where all the podcasts are displayed from individual podcast pages:

Website Design Complete

The Podcast's website design is now finalized.

Although originally adapted from a template, the changes make the new design very accessible and usable, which are two of the most important factors to any website.

Brief content will be added to each section over the weekend, and the website will aim to be completed at least to some extent by Monday.

Visual Footage Editing Complete

All of the visual footage captured has now been edited to create a first edit.

This first edit has been completed without the addition of sound (specifically voice overs) but is a step in the right direction.

The edit also has all the transitions in place from one clip to another. I am pretty happy with the edit in truth, all that is needed now is the addition of sound and the visual effects, which will look to be completed by the end of next week!

Podcast Website U-Turn Decision

After contemplating the two different web site designs amongst others and how they would work practically for the website about the Podcasts, a dramatic u-turn decision has been reached.

It has been decided that the first website design idea will be the design that will be used for the website.

The decision was finally reached whilst playing around with the design idea in more detail using the web site editing software Adobe Dreamweaver.

Design work on the web site will be conducted this week, with the aim of finishing the design work by the end of this week.

Voiceovers Recorded

All the voice overs for the promotional video have been recorded.

Starting late last night, I have found myself reporting this news straight after finishing the last one. The research was initially finished into the voice over script, and then recording of the voice over audio began. So all in all the 'all-nighter' which happened for the completion of this work was well worth it...

Using a dynamic microphone (borrowed from university), the voice overs were recorded directly onto the latest version of the audio editing software Sony Sound Forge.

Now with all the voice overs recorded, all of the footage and files to be used are completed.

All Video Footage Collected and Received

Finally all of the visual footage for the promotional video has now been received and collected.

Whilst editing of the footage is already underway, having all of the visual footage allows for editing of the individual footage to be collated together and edited in tandem with one another.

With all the visual footage completed, start on the voice-over audio work will commence after Easter, the idea is to complete all the audio work in one long session, as the research into the script has been ongoing...

Field Located for Filming

The final visual location to film has been decided.

The location of a field has been sought after, as it will be used in the first scene of the video. The first scene contains the field representing the wide open space in which the new Nottingham's new super stadium will be built, with historical videos of Nottingham's sporting history appearing on top.

The field contains public access and is a walkway, the location is also a very large area with plenty of opportunity to move around in and film.

Media Group Pictures Received!

Almost to my surprise, the photo's of Nottingham's new super stadium were received via email to my inbox this morning.

Two photo's were received of the new stadium, both are artist impressions of the stadium and its surroundings, one from during the daytime, and the other during the nightime.

The pictures are of a good quality, and are large pictures however due to the fact these pictures have not been released in the public domain, I shall not be posting them on this online journal.

A press release document was also received which made interesting reading, and also added more information to the new super stadium and its project. This provided valuable wider reading and gave greater depth to what the stadium will aim to achieve.

Ideally this pictures were to be received a number of days / weeks ago, however the problem was neither the Media Group's nor my own, so I thank them for their co-operation and from here the pictures can be added onto the project.

Footage of Nottingham Playhouse Edited

The original footage of Nottingham Playhouse has been edited and added to the promotional video project timeline.

The originally recorded footage of the Playhouse added up to 9 minutes and 12 seconds, and the editing of the footage has cut down the time drastically.

Looking back at the original footage, it was unfortunate that filming inside the auditorium was not allowed, and that the only filming from within the building allowed was of the concourse. Filming of the auditorium or backstage would of been very beneficial to the filming of the theatre, however, nothing could of been done regarding this situation.

Edit of Footage Started

Today has seen the beginning of the first full edit of the collected footage thus far for the promotional video.

The footage that has been edited today has been footage of; Town Hall, The Tales of Robin Hood and Nottingham Castle.

Intentionally quite a large amount of footage was recorded during the filming processes at each destination, due to the editing process being considered the most important part of the video. The exact amount of footage recorded of the three destinations were:

Town Hall: 14 minutes 42 seconds
Tales of Robin Hood: 5 minutes 10 seconds
Nottingham Castle: 7 minutes 13 seconds

From these lengths of footage, the edited footage for all of the destinations should be close much closer to the same length of time, and reduced dramatically.

This has now been achieved, but also taken into consideration were the links to the specific destinations from elsewhere, e.g. Market Square attached to the filming of Town Hall.

Re-Contacting Media Group

After awaiting graphic images of Nottingham's new super stadium to arrive from Media Group, it was decided that they should be contacted once again to see if they were still on board with sending the unseen pictures for use with the promotional video.

The phone call established that for some unknown reason the university email address that was provided simply had not received the email sent from Media Group, as the email had been sent twice!

The conversation continued and the situation has hopefully been rectified by supplying another email address from another provider which will hopefully receive the pictures when they are re-sent tomorrow morning.

Artefact: Two Evaluation Submitted Online

Artefact: Two shows broadcast news from the late 1980s. With the news story remaining the same, this artefact attempted to see the state broadcast news was in, and the direction it would be heading into.

Digital technology was starting to be introduced however the first signs of the technology did not show any sign of improvements over the current Betacam technology. During this time, the footage had to be recorded at a high quality, as to distribute the news story, the story would be edited offline onto a lower grade tape.

The role of the news gathered was looking after the journalism and content of the news piece, and still had very little knowledge and dealings with the equipment; large crews were needed to film the news story.

The state of the broadcast news industry at the time had improved further. News was still of the utmost importance with more money being invested into it (and a lot more than into entertainment programming), and with news story’s being able to be longer in length, this allowed for more freedom for the editing of a news story. News gatherers were now able to travel abroad to record news stories, even if the news story was for a regional news TV station.

The first female camera operator was in the mid 1980s, this was a drastic change from the camera operator previously always being male.

Sky News was introduced in the late part of the 1980s, this started a new news revolution by introducing 24 hour news channel. Parliament being televised for the first time in 1989 would change political reporting forever.

This artefact has established that the late 1980s to early 1990s was the period of time were news was at the forefront of television, but it will be interesting to see if the new digital technology had much impact on the importance of news.

[Edit: Evaluation submitted online at 11:00, 16th April 2008.]

Flash Header for Podcast Website

As previously mentioned, I have been attempting to enhance my non existent Flash skills by creating a header for the podcast website.

The header will remain a still at the end of the animation, and the three buttons in the bottom right hand corner will be use able buttons with links to the relevant web pages (hopefully).

The flash header has been exported as a .avi movie file which can be seen, however the picture quality is very poor in relation to the flash file, to decrease the loading time...

First Careers Meeting

At 3pm today I had my first meeting with a career's advisor at the university. I had ventured into the building earlier in the morning, and arranged a fifteen minute appointment with a general career's advisor. Unfortunately the employee who specialises in multimedia / media was not in, and will not be back until after Easter, I decided that despite being constantly busy with university work, deadlines and on going deadlines, I would still have my first meeting.

I was quick to bring up the point about how my CV should look or should be designed, as mine is at least two years old, and I am fairly sure is almost redundant compared to my situation now.

The meeting was quite successful as we discussed CV's, covering letters, and what jobs I have looked at, and what I would like to do after my education. I would like to say that the meeting has suddenly sparked me into thinking about my life after university, but unfortunately I have been thinking about that for quite some time, and whilst working through the PDP work and have been looking at available jobs constantly, the unexpected huge workload of the course has really not helped me pursue any of this further.

However, with only the small matter of the biggest project we have had at university due in just after Easter, it was agreed with the advisor that I do attempt to try and revamp my CV, and attempt to write a covering letter to a company I have looked at. Whilst this was always going to be the case over Easter anyway (ideally), it has arguable given some more momentum in which to attempt to do this.

When I do come back to university after Easter, I will be booking a meeting with the specialist employee in my education study.

Podcast Website Idea: Two

After all but deciding that the first design idea is a good design but not suitable for the content, a second design idea has been created, and is well under way.

This design idea is a more neutral idea but so far is working well and I am happy.

Underneath the 'Co-Hosts Required' heading, the text there is irrelevant at present, but as this is only the design stage this does not matter too much but the general idea of the text comes across clearly.

The main heading at the top of the page is temperamental, as I have invested some time recently into using Flash CS3, and am attempting to enhance my skills using the software, as I have previously attempting to steer clear of Flash.

Response From BBC Sports Organisor

After contacting the BBC East Midlands Sports Organiser Mark Shardlow, this evening I received the email I had been waiting for, and I was not disappointed.

After enquiring as to whether there would be any chance of using footage from Euro 96, when the City Ground and Nottingham hosted the last major football tournament in the country and past historical sporting events in Nottingham, I had received a much greater response than I had anticipated.

Mark had very kindly compiled a DVD of 14 minutes worth of BBC footage from 1996, and other historical events, which he had compiled personally and placed on the disk, which he had left at the BBC Nottingham reception for my to collect.

I shall be collecting the DVD first thing tomorrow morning, and I would like to extend a huge thanks to Mark Shardlow.

The DVD from BBC

Earlier this morning I talk a brisk walk in the Nottingham windy fresh air to the BBC Nottingham building, where Mark Shardlow had kindly compiled a 14 minute DVD of required footage which was waiting at reception.

With anticipation in the air (which was almost as strong and the wind) I collected the DVD and walked back to my property at a more than leisurely pace.


When I returned back to my property, and watched the DVD all the way through, I was even happier. The footage on the DVD was footage that I would never had of been able to acquire, let alone find who owned the rights to use it!



I would once again like to thank Mark Shardlow for the help he has given me in this project, and I thought I would attach some shots of the variety of the footage.

A shot of one of the Euro 96 matches to be contested at the City Ground



A shot of an interview which is taking place in Market Square, which is highly decorated with Euro 96 themed events.



A shot of the biggest sporting history the city of Nottingham has had, Nottingham Forest lifting the European Cup Trophy.

Filming Interview with Counsillor Trimble (Take Two)

The forth and final interview to be filmed was with Councillor David Trimble, whom just over an hour ago was busy in a meeting.

Unfortunately the crew who had assisted me earlier had prior commitments (understandably) so that left the orchestrator of the project to become a one-man-band and go solo.

Upon arriving at Town Hall, I picked up the badge which I had earlier filled in, and anxiously waited to be collected for the interview.

Fifteen minutes later, Counsillor Trimble himself came down and greeted me, followed by traveling up to his office. The office was quite compact, but the use of lighting from the two large windows in the room made up for that fact.

The interview was conducted problem free, and ran very smoothly.

Filming Interview with Matt Rolfe (Tales of Robin Hood Contact)

The third interview to be filmed was with Matt Rolfe, who was met during the filming of The Tales of Robin Hood.

Whilst meeting outside Town Hall in the Lace Market, due to a 'Free Guantanemo' protest just outside Town Hall, instead of contemplating filming the interview on Market Square, it was decided to head towards Nottingham Castle.

The interview ran smoothly, and personally I like the background to the interview, as whilst Matt was speaking a lot of the history and culture of Nottingham, having the Castle walls in the background of the interview added context to the interview.

Filming Interview with Sarah Clarke

The second interview to be filmed was with Sarah Clarke, who works for Nottingham City Council, but was imperil in getting the Brian Clough Statue installed, has a keen interest in football and has a strong knowledge of the city and sport within the city.

The interview was held in Lawrence House, and upon arrival the crew and I had to sign in and receive a badge needed for entry, after this moment we were collected and taken into a medium sized well lit room where the equipment was set-up.

Filming Interview with Client (TAKE TWO)

The first interview to be re-filmed was with the client of this project.

The original interview stuck monumental disaster as a faulty camera was issued (as documented earlier within this online journal) so this was the follow up interview after the client had kindly agreed to re-shot the interview

The interview which was originally filmed in the trophy room at the City Ground, was a perfect setting, however unfortunately the same venue could not be used. Initially we attempted to set up the filming of the re-shoot in a small hosting room, and whilst as a back-drop there was some good memorabilia painting the walls, unfortunately the lighting was far too poor to gain a good visual picture.

We then moved into a better lit and more casual looking room, which whilst not containing any club memorabilia to make the audience initially aware of where we were filming from, the colour scheme of red is very appropriate due to the club's main colour being red.



The crew then set-up the equipment and after testing the equipment many more times than required, the filming began.

Despite being aware of the questions which were being posed to him, the client remained completely professional, and gave highly detailed and insightful answers, which came across well on camera.

Required Equipment not Allocated!!

Not for the first time, upon arriving to collect the equipment that was ordered over one week ago, the desired equipment was not in 'stock'.

Whilst in urgent need of a K6 directional microphone for the two interviews to be held later today they were issued to fellow multimedia practitioner students and therefore I was left with a sonic microphone.

The reason a K6 microphone was requested was due to the need of the microphone for interviews, being given a sonic microphone means that to record the adequate sound the interviewee is more than likely going to have to hold the microphone which changes the whole feel or the interviews and will change the interviews, thus the project drastically!

I hope this will be taken into account upon marking the project.

Podcast Website Idea: One Evaluation

Whilst the layout of the design is quite a nice one, I am not sure it fits in with the idea of the podcasts. My impressions of the design are that it comes across more like a design for a more creative idea, and something that could contain more media and a larger variety of media.

This said, it would make more sense to contemplate this design idea for my online portfolio instead of for my podcasts, as it would appear more appropriate.

The spacing of the design is very nice, and allows for a good amount of content, and a good selection of links to be added. I personally like to addition of the window on the right, which could be used as a mini-feed displaying the latest two (or three) news stories.

The links at the bottom are also very apparent and easy to be seen and used, which allows for good site user interaction.

Podcast Website Idea: One

Having purchased two domains names; one for my online portfolio and one for my podcasts, it was felt it was time to put more emphasis onto creating designs for the websites, and despite the huge work schedule, recently more time has been invested into design ideas and attempts for websites.

The way of thinking is that attempting to create a website for the podcasts first, will mean that the experience and knowledge gained during the process will allow for a better website to be made for the online portfolio.

The first design idea contains a flash banner in the top (which is not shown) and whilst some content has been added, it is only the basic content and more will be added at a later date.

Filming Interviews Confirmed With Counsellors

After waiting a long while to hear back from the contact within Town Hall in regards to conducting interviews with people within the city council, I had the phone call I was longing for.

At 11.00am this morning I received the phone call from Stephan Richeux who is the senior communications officer for Nottingham City Council.

Stephan had explaining how he had been speaking to colleges and had found two suitable candidates to be interviewed, and that they were both willing to participate in the project.

Filming an interview with Counsellor David Trimble will commence at 12.00pm on Monday, 10th March.

Filming an interview with Sarah Clarke will commence after the interview with my client at 12.30pm, on Friday, 7th March.

Visual Images of Trent Bridge Received

After contacting Bowles Associates in regards to getting some computer images of the new Trent Bridge design, at 1.00pm today I received an email containing two artist impressions images.

As the images are displayed on a leaflet which can be picked up by the general public (from the reception at Trent Bridge or the Club Shop), it is accepted that they can be posted on this online journal.

These images will be used and merged with visual footage of the Trent Bridge test from the Ashes 2005 series, which are being used to show the historical and future of sport in Nottingham.