Hey,
I was thinking about starting up my own website (it's not a question of "if", it's "when")... and I wanted to see what a filmmaker's website normally looks like.
Can you guys please post your website URLs as examples?
www.grinnerhester.com
There are no templates for this... or at least there shouldn't be. Stay away from cliches like slates, film strips and the old action megahorn. Being a creative site, I'd not use black text over a white background.
I'm using a site called Squarespace. Module based and very easy to work with. Not as much control over the look and layout as I would have liked but it gets the job done.
I say build a website whatever way you want. Get creative or go more tame, do it the way you want. In terms of not using cliches, anything goes, use them if you want. They're called cliches for a reason after all, right? There are one million and one media sites out there, trust me, it's all been done before. Therefore, just make it the way you want it and how you like the way it looks. People will judge you on your talent, not the website (as long as it doesn't have crappy mid-1990's animated gifs, those I would say are just plain tacky and so bad.
P.S. My site has a film strip, director's chair, film reel and old school mega horn. Yeah, all cliches but it works
starspictures.ning.com and driftentertainment.ning.com
They are hosted for free, hence the ".ning.com" at the end of it, but you can use it as a social network, or a true website, depending on how you set it up. I also like that you can add pics, vids, and blogs.