About this website


This site is a tribute to the actress Jessica Fox, in the form of a picture archive of her TV work. It concentrates on the sort of programmes that are unlikely to be repeated in the future or released on DVD.

I hope you enjoy visiting these galleries. They are not funded by advertising so there are no annoying popups, though you might get the urge for an instant cappuccino.

How this site began...

The internet should carry a warning: may contain traces of nuts.

Back in January 2003, the British teatime soap opera, Crossroads, was relaunched in the UK. I happened to catch some of the first weeks omnibus one Saturday and was strangely drawn to it. Amongst other things I had missed the incident where Max's bit on the side got killed so I taped the repeat while I was out the following day. Not usually one to follow soaps, I continued watching and taped the episodes in the week while I was at work.

I think it was marketed as something like "Dynasty for tea-time". After watching the early episodes, most were taped over (DOH!), which I now regret. Low ratings led to the shows cancellation and I dont think they could get advertising support to continue showing omnibus episodes after the first month. It may sound really sad, but for a while I actually looked forward to getting home and having my 'Crossroads fix'. A nice escape from reality for 22 minutes. One actress in particular stood out, largely for her ability to draw you in to empathise with the character, but also for sometimes being like a ray of sunshine. That of course was Jessica Fox. At the time, I was hugely suprised that there was little about her on the internet. No web site, just an agency CV and the odd mention of her on 'Worst Witch' fan sites. And overnight, Jessica Fox disappeared from the screen for nearly two years (save for the Kenco Cappio advert) and largely I forgot.

Then in November 2005, during a day off work I recognised Jessica while channel hopping (in Hollyoaks of course). It was then I found her website. It struck me that there must be very few people who ever taped Crossroads, let alone still had any two years on. Thankfully I had switched to recording on DVD and not reused the tapes. I made some video captures and posted them to a web forum on November the 12th 2005. Now really, that should have been an end to it, but it sort of snowballed from there. Whenever things went quiet, I'd find something more to post. It wasn't until the end of December 2005 that the stills were presented in gallery form, and the "Jessica Fox Appreciation Page" was born.

What is your connection with Ms Fox?

There isn't one, I'm just a fan who runs this site. So please don't send me anything to pass on to her, I won't be able to help.

How do you generate the images? (warning - contains geeky detail)

I use a Sony Freeview box, a Sony Harddisk recorder with built in DVD burner and a PC running Linux. Shows are recorded to harddisk throughout the week. The channel 4 showings have better picture quality than the E4 repeats, and of course no channel logos. The harddisk recorder can produce playlists allowing you to select just Jessica's scenes. Once I have a bunch of these, I burn a DVD which is used to make the stills from. Originally, I used the Xine media player to make the stills, which were cropped and converted from png to jpeg by the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) using a batch script. Here is an example of an untrimmed png file and its full size jpeg.

Nowadays things are much easier. I wrote a video editing package (for an unrelated project) and added a snapshot facility which saves out pre-cropped jpegs. Another program creates the gallery pages and thumbnails.

What criteria do you use for selecting pictures?

I look for:

It is difficult to get good stills from long shots as they are usually where Jessica is walking into or out of frame (motion blur). Pictures taken mid speech often look unnatural. Good group shots are more difficult to find as there is nearly always someone talking or moving.

I try to keep things flattering and respectful.

Copyright issues - Can I use your pictures?

Technically, the copyright of the image content belongs to the makers of the TV programmes and not to myself. All galleried pictures contain a copyright message to that effect, which I hope will remain with them for their lifetime in the public domain. I took the trouble to generate the jpegs, a form in which they can be easily distributed, in the hope they will be used responsibly. As such, I ask that you please keep to the guidelines below.

I don't have a problem with other people using the pictures for their own sites, provided that:

  1. No fee is charged
  2. The copyright message is not tampered with
  3. The images are not presented or manipulated in any way that could be considered degrading (you know what I mean!)
  4. There is not excessive hot-linking (where, rather than hosting duplicates of the files yourselves, they link back to me and place a load on my own server everytime your page is accessed). This has not been a problem so far, and I have no objections to hotlinking the odd file for use on message boards.
If you intend to use a few pictures for your own site, it would be nice for you to let me know, and maybe also give this site a mention.

Lecture over, thanks for listening.




If you would like to provide feedback about this site, why not drop me a line. email jessica-fox.net


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