As a part of assessment, my class and I were provided with the task of building our own website to show off both our skills and experiences as an actor and as a creator. From my knowledge, Wix seemed like the best option for me as it’s very easy to use compared to other website building sites like web.com and wordpress. However, the last time I used Wix was in primary school so the first thing I had to do was sign up to Wix.com again.
After answering some questions about what kind of website I wanted to create, I was given the option to either edit a template myself or have Wix’s AI system create the site for me. This option is for people who struggle with technology, to make the process easier for them, which is why I prefer Wix to other website builders because they are much more inclusive. I decided to edit the template myself as I would have more control over what I do and don’t want on the page.
Initially, I started by changing all the fonts of the headings and paragraphs as they weren’t very appealing to me. To do this effectively, I used Wix’s font pairing website as a reference to help me choose matching fonts https://www.wix.com/blog/2018/11/best-font-pairings/ . By fixing the fonts to better suit my thoughts on how it might be displayed. Furthermore, it became easier for me to navigate through the different pages as I found it much easier to read. My next step was to change the colour scheme of my iste as it seemed a bit ugly to me and that’s not the impression I want anyone to get if they come to my website so the initial shades of green and red were switched to shades of blue and purple because I think it provides a calmer aesthetic than that of green and red.
Now that my website page was looking nicer, I started to go through and replace all of the stock photos with my own from my first year here at Hallam. This took some time as I had to crop every picture to fit the columns and squares where they were slotted. I used some of my headshot photos as well as some behind the scenes ones to show a glimpse of the projects I’ve been involved in so far. However, I might change one of the headshots I used for the column pictures as I’m not happy with it but until I can afford to hire a photographer, those are the best ones I’ve got. In addition to the glimpses into my time here at University, I decided to also add a few pictures from some of the projects I was a part of before joining Hallam as it provides a better view of my acting career across a few years rather than just a couple of months. I couldn’t have produced a website to this standard if my last technological project was to create an Instagram account to show behind the scenes and general pictures from any projects that I have been working on (acting wise). I took my knowledge from creating a professional Instagram account to help me produce a more professional website. Finding scenes for my showreel was definitely the most challenging part to set up for the website as most of my roles on screen were either very small or I was working behind the camera. So as a solution I managed to find a video from my performance in a school play called Bouncers by playwright John Godber, where I played a guy called Ralph who shows what a night out with the lads is like; I have also added a few videos I made on a platform called Tiktok to show variety. I’ll keep that as my showreel until I have enough footage to make a proper one. The same goes for my audio reel as I don’t have access to the final recording I did yet, so the temporary ones are the two characters that I made up for one of my first assignments in the voice acting sub module.
I’m quite proud of the progress I have made on this website and I look forward to gaining further knowledge and skills in the future.
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