http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/
This edition we look at the UK Film Council’s. website. This is another one of those sites which is just a good example of web design by a company, just as we have seen with previous reviews for the BFI and DCM (see previous editions of Screentrade). The UK Film Council is the Government-backed agency for film in the UK and is response for ensuring that the economic, cultural and educational aspects of film are effectively represented.
Navigation wise this website has the age old top and bottom menu design from the homepage. Therefore on the top menu there are the options ‘About Us’, ‘Funding,’, ‘Filming’, ‘Distribution’, ‘Strategy’, ‘Research’ and ‘News’, along with the option for contacting them and searching the site. The bottom menu consists of the usual privacy policy, sitemap and RSS options. However, this shouldn’t be seen in anyway as a negative thing. In fact it makes it a lot easier to navigate around the website because it is such a familiar layout. Once you select any of the main sections you will find a sub-menu of the left hand side of the screen. The site also consists of a sitemap. While not really part of navigation in it’s purest sense there is a rather useful contrast option at the bottom of the screen. This allows the user to change the text from the normal white on black to either yellow on black or black on white. I have to say that I don’t like the white on black text, I find it much harder to read so changed the text to black on white.
Information: This site is packed full of information about the UK Film Industry and for a change the distribution and exhibition side of the industry has equal billing with the film production side. There are plenty of useful links to relevant organisations and funding sources. There is also an RSS feed available of the site. There is a good amount of information about the Digital Network and details of funding which the UK Film Council are responsible for.
Research: The research section of the website deserve a special mention as it contains lots of interesting information, as the UK Film Council is responsible for publishing the Statistical Yearbook which gives details of the top box office (UK and US) films for the year along with numbers of films released and films produced. There is also a whole section on exhibition which analyses the number of UK cinema screens, where they are (town, city, countryside etc), Cinema admissions per person by screen density across ISBA regions, multiplex cinema numbers, digital cinema screens both in the UK and abroad.
This isn’t a website that I would expect to visit on a daily basis (although I do keep an eye on the news pages), but it is one to always keep in the back of your mind if you ever want to know something about the industry.
If you would like Screentrade to review a particular website, please contact me directly on: webmaster@madcornishprojectionist.co.uk.
Download Times:
| Connection Rate | Download Time |
|---|---|
| 14.4K | 189.14 seconds |
| 28.8K | 106.87 seconds |
| 33.6K | 95.12 seconds |
| 56K | 66.91 seconds |
| ISDN 128K | 37.56 seconds |
| T1 1.44Mbps | 25.72 seconds |
Navigation: *****
Good Design: ***
Updates: ***
Content: *****
Download Speed: ***
Overall: ****
Overall: This isn’t a website that I would expect to visit on a daily basis (although I do keep an eye on the news pages), but it is one to always keep in the back of your mind if you ever want to know something about the industry. On a personal note I’m not a fan of the black background style that has been used, but that is purely personal.