Lesson 2

1. Find three examples of existing short films/music videos/documentaries etc and

look at how they have used a website to promote their product.
2. Summarise how each has used their website to promote their product.
The short film ‘Deep It’ is produced by the production company Million Youth
Media/Fully Focused and they have used their website by showing all of their
productions with brief descriptions of each video on the front page. They also a
standard page focusing on being easy to use over being visually engaging.

POSH GECKO is a website that hosts short films their website is both functional and
visually engaging with short clips from each film. POSH GECKO does not show any
production or behind the scenes footage which means that viewers and customers
have a worse understanding of what the production values of the company are.
Mad Cow Films is a production company that has 20 directors at the time of writing
this and so divides its productions by director in a visually interesting and functional
format. However this wide range of directors and wide range of productions with no
‘About us’ page to explain who they are. This gives an unclear overall tone to the
sight that lead customers to be confused on what MCF actually do as a company and
what they represent.

3. Compare and evaluate how each has used their website to promote their product.
Fully Focused’s website is the most function and least visually engaging with the use
of black backgrounds and white text with screenshotted images of their productions.
They also use very few additional tabs to the home page easily located in the top
right corner and clearly ladled so that you know where you will be taken on the sight.
However the contact page is fairly well hidden and so can be difficult to find. They
also use a very simple font using black or grey text on white backgrounds and white
text on black or darker backgrounds. Unlike the websites of POSH GECKO or Mad
Cow Films Fully Focused has many missing parts such as Tweets that never load and
an upcoming projects page with “Updates on our many exciting projects coming
soon...”. They use branding by labelling anything that they have involvement with
with the logo of Million Youth Media branding all of their videos with a recognisable
tag of Million Youth Media which makes searching for the company after viewing one
of their videos very easy.

POSH GECKO’s website is the most visually engaging with all of the fronts of the
sights having short clips from each production being played. However, it is the most
difficult sight to navigate as the moving visuals in the background catch the eye and
distract from the menus. Unlike Fully Focused’s website POSH GECKO’s website
focuses on keeping the viewers interest through the use of visual stimulants such as
short clips and smooth transitions from one page to another rather than simply
loading in the next page. What they gain in visual appeal they lose in ease of
navigation. POSH GECKO also use a black and grey text on white backgrounds and
white text on black or darker background. This makes the writing clear and easy to
read. Whereas Fully Focused had black and white backgrounds with some black and
white pictures POSH GECKO’s sight adds colour by having the clips and pictures be
full of multiple bright colours. POSH GECO’s videos all contain the small pink and
purple P logo at the bottom right hand corner but besides that there is very little
branding visible.
Mad Cow Films is a blend of the practicality of Fully Focused and the visual
engagement of POSH GECKO’s websites with its pictures, easy to navigate menu,
time line of events on the home page and the clips of its productions that are shown
as the first thing that you see. However the lack of a clear ‘About Us’ page makes the
rest of the sight slightly confusing as it makes some of the rest of the sight unclear as
to what is happening. Mad Cow Films like both POSH GECKO and Fully Focused’s
websites use black text on white backgrounds but also use white text on not just
black and darker backgrounds but also on relatively bright backgrounds. Mad Cow
Films also have no branding of any kind that I can see on the films that they have
been involved in.
4. Discuss how your research will inform your use of your website to promote your
product.
I now know to make my website a good mix of visually engaging and functional as
well as promote myself over multiple media formats.
5. Include screenshots to illustrate your points.