From The Red Carpet (FTRC)
From The Red Carpet is a 60 second show screened in Odeon, Cineworld, IMAX and Picturehouse cinemas across the UK. The show includes exclusive interviews from premieres and film events across the UK and beyond.
FTRC.com is the show’s accompanying website where behind the scenes tidbits, pictures and film news are published daily. The From The Red Carpet show is produced by DCM, a UK cinema advertising company.
The FTRC team had chosen to use the web publishing platform WordPress and had chosen a theme (the design) from one of the thousands freely available online. I was asked to help the FTRC team customise and develop the theme they were using for the site.
I started by working with their team to understand their target audience and goals for the site. Understanding this we were able to draw up a list of features and changes that they wanted to have included in the site.
They wanted to:
- include their social media presence on the site
- further customise the design to align it with their branding
- add adverting space for sponsors
- make it easier to track the sites performance.
I created a private, mirrored version of the site for testing and demonstrating the changes, allowing the FTRC team to see the changes online without interrupting the continued running of the live site.
We worked through the changes one at a time first adding Facebook and Twitter integration to the FTRC.com site and adding FTRC.com information to their Twitter and Facebook pages.
We then evaluated several difference advert management plug-ins that are available for WordPress. Settling on two that are used to drive the two different types of adverts displayed on the site.
We migrated the site from the free WordPress.com hosting to a private hosting solution that allowed us to have more control over the set up and running of the site. We also added Google Analytics to the site so visit activity could be tracked.
What the client said about my work for FTRC
“I’ve had the good fortune to work with James on several occasions over the past four years – during his tenure at PA Consulting and as a freelance consultant – and plan to work with him again in the near future. He’s infinitely patient when it comes to explaining assorted technical complexities so that an eight-year-old (or I) can understand them. He is warm and personable, with a maturity and presence beyond his years. I don’t believe it’s in James’ nature to give anything other than his absolute best and I recommend him unreservedly.”
Natalie Chandler
Technical skills used
- xHTML & CSS development
- WordPress theme customisation
- WordPress plug-in customisation
- Social media integration