This society is by and for students that have an interest in movie production, that is to say: WE MAKE MOVIES.
Starting this new year in College I have been appointed for the position of Publicity in the committee that runs the society.
For a glimpse at what EMPS is and likes to become, have a look at http://www.emps.tk
Why am I telling you all this....?
Well, because you have shown interest in the contents of this web log. I can prove this by showing you today's distribution of visitors who have looked at this page within the last couple of hours.
See, you are one of them... most welcomed visitors!
[Click on the link in the left column of this page to verify the visits anytime you like; Map of Visitors]
To give you a feel of the locations where our fellow-blog-readers reside, here's a recent list:
- LONDON, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)
- HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY (UNITED STATES)
- ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)
- VEENENDAAL, UTRECHT (NETHERLANDS)
- BOCHUM, NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN (GERMANY)
- MIAMI, FLORIDA (UNITED STATES)
- HERNDON, VIRGINIA (UNITED STATES)
- SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA (UNITED STATES)
- NEW YORK, NEW YORK (UNITED STATES)
- AMSTERDAM, NOORD-HOLLAND (NETHERLANDS)
- CLEARWATER, FLORIDA (UNITED STATES)
- CALGARY, ALBERTA (CANADA)
- SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)
- LONDON, ENGLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)
- EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND (UNITED KINGDOM)
- BONN, NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN (GERMANY)
- RESTON, VIRGINIA (UNITED STATES)
Now, why all this web site mambo yambo?
IT IS ALL ABOUT PUBLICITY!
My site attracts a public, and that is what we like to achieve with EMPS too.
The more awareness of the society, the more members, the more funds, and ultimately... the more movies ;o)
So, in sum, my web log will take you on a cruise in the next couple of weeks to explore the design and publication of a new to be built web site for the Edinburgh Movie Production Society.
Fasten your seat-belts and shout it out when we make sharp turns or sloppy falls through web design country !
A Primer:
A design is a translation from an idea (intangible, in the mind) into a concept (tangible, on paper). So is a web design.
The Idea of the web site:
Our primary concern in the design of the website is that the whole system should not become 'complex'. To show you what I mean by fighting complexity I will give an example with the use of coins.
Day One: A web designer has a recordset of society members represented bij a coin (see fig. 1a)
Fig 1a - One coin represents one recordset of society members (names, email addresses, phone numbers etc)
The web designer likes to show this recordset on a web page, here represented bij a page icon (see fig. 1b).
Fig 1b - One page icon represents one web page of the society's web site, 'showing' the recordset cq. coin.
In sum, there needs to be a connection between the data (i.e. the value of coin) and the representation of the data (i.e. the stated value on the page). This line is drawn in Fig 1c.
Fig 1c - A connection between the 'data' and the 'representation of data'
Fairly simple, I would say. But wait until day two comes...
Day Two: A jolly actor in the society likes to provide his portrait picture for publication on the web site. Hence, he has introduced a second 'source' of data. Here this recordset of pictures is represented by a £1 pound note (see fig. 2a).
Fig 2a - One note represents one recordset of society members' portrait pictures
And of course we would like to show this information on a - in this case separate - web page as well (see fig 2b).
Fig 2b - One page icon represents one web page of the society's web site, 'showing' the recordset cq. note.
You can guess what this means for the number of connections, it increases... (see fig 2c).
Fig 2c - Two connections between the 'data' and the 'representation of data'
Fine, or yet worse. We have introduced more complexity. Imagine how many connections we will have to support when the number of 'data sources' (e.g. coins, notes) and/or the number of 'representations of data' increases (e.g. web pages, but also other means of viewing like mobile phone or handheld computer screens). It might look like figure 13c on day 13.
Day Thirteen:
Fig 13c - A horror scenario, way too many connections to support!
For this we have to introduce a solution, called Model-View-Controller (or MVC in short).
Model-View-Controller design pattern applied to reduce complexity
.. more coming soon ..
The Concept of the web site:
.. following soon
