Help on first Website (for cinematography)

D

DDirector

Veteran
I am in college in my 2/3rd year of Film Production. With only a year left, I am now considering opening up a website for my services.

I have some ideas on what to include, but I'd like more input. So far I have links to:
• Home
• Bio
• Reel + resume
• Services; Cinematographer + Gaffer + Camera Operator + Photographer -- State my goal, and how I will work and list what I do in: pre-production, production, post-production -- Each job will have its own description and separate page.
• Rental (If any. Currently not)
• Production [What's currently in production] title, synopsis, credits: (producer, director, writer, cinematographer, starring)
• Blog
• Contact

*Each page has link to contact page.


So, this is what I have so far. I am learning to be a DP, but also am offering to be a Camera Operator, Gaffer, and a small job as a Photographer. I have done photography, so I thought I'd throw that in there too. But that's not my main focus.

Any additional things I am forgetting that I should add, remove or change up?

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To actually set up the website, where do I go to? Where shall I get the domain name, have my website created and up and running?
 
I think you're on the right track.

There are a slew of sites offering domain name registration, hosting, etc. I recommend GoDaddy for domains (~$10/year), Hostgator for hosting (~$6/month or less if you commit to multi-year) and Wordpress as your platform (free). You can have a website up and running in about 15 minutes!

Register your domain name first. Then create your account with hostgator. Wait for the email confirming your account setup with hostgator. Login to get your nameserver settings (again from hostgator). Copy one of them to your clipboard (the other name server will probably be the same thing incremented by 1 #). Go back to GoDaddy and change your nameservers (to the values provided by hostgator). Done with GoDaddy.

Now go back to your email from hostgator to access your control panel. Login. Find and click the "fantastico" button (toward the bottom of the screen). Click the Wordpress button. Enter the details (I recommend installing it at the root level of your site -- e.g. domainname.com -- don't put it in a sub-folder unless you have a specific reason for doing so -- e.g. domainname.com/blog). Login to Wordpress. Select a template (or use the standard 2010 theme...or whatever is currently the default). Start writing content via pages and posts. Publish them and revise them to your hearts content.

Your site won't look beautiful on day one; it will look pretty standard. But it'll be extremely flexible to change with you. Also, there are loads of free and fee-based templates available for easy installation. Or, it's actually fairly easy to modify a template to "make it your own" (as Paula Abdul would say). But focus on your content first. You have some time to work through you branding, IMO.

Hope that helps.
 
As Dave said, wordpress is probably your best bet. You can set it up right from you gatorhost cpanel, and it's a CMS (content management system), so it's easy to change, add and remove information from anywhere you have internet access. And it's free.
 
I'd recommend Just Host over GoDaddy. They're in the same price range but their customer service is on an entirely other level. As for the website design itself, I'd say focus on an image based design instead of a text based design. As a cinematographer, the most important thing is displaying your work and communicating your skill through visuals. Check out my website. I think designs like these emphasize to the people who are viewing it that you're a visual artist, and visuals is how you deal. Course, that doesn't mean you can't have the other relevant information on there as well, just keep it clean and organized and easily accessible through navigation.

Oh and I'd second the suggestions of using Wordpress as a CMS and designing platform. That's what I used for my website and I know literally nothing about website design. No php, java, or html knowledge in the slightest. Yet, with Wordpress, I made something that is pretty decent. At least, I think it is.
 
Finnegan said:
I'd recommend Just Host over GoDaddy. They're in the same price range but their customer service is on an entirely other level.
Click to expand...

What service do you need for your domain? I just buy domains and pay the renewal fees every few years. That's it.

Finnegan said:
As for the website design itself, I'd say focus on an image based design instead of a text based design. As a cinematographer, the most important thing is displaying your work and communicating your skill through visuals. Check out my website. I think designs like these emphasize to the people who are viewing it that you're a visual artist, and visuals is how you deal. Course, that doesn't mean you can't have the other relevant information on there as well, just keep it clean and organized and easily accessible through navigation.

Oh and I'd second the suggestions of using Wordpress as a CMS and designing platform. That's what I used for my website and I know literally nothing about website design. No php, java, or html knowledge in the slightest. Yet, with Wordpress, I made something that is pretty decent. At least, I think it is.
Click to expand...

This is why I'm such a HUGE fan of Wordpress. As he mentioned, Finnegan's site is powered by Wordpress and looks great. Wordpress is so flexible that you can almost do anything you want with it. And if you don't like what you've done, it's fairly easy to change the design while still maintaining your content. You don't have to start from scratch every time you want to redesign your site/image.

That being said, I'd strongly suggest that you get the basics down first, then branch out to make your site more visually appealing. I agree with Finnegan that visual is important. At the same time, one of the main purposes of a website is so that customers can find you. As of this moment, text still rules the web. Video search is still somewhat limited. By all means, add visual flare and emphasize your work. But don't ignore text. Embrace it!
 
I think he was saying to not just register the domain at GoDaddy, but host there as well, because they have very good customer service/tech support. The times I have called GoDaddy their staff is knowledgeable and very helpful. Someone in management and training there is doing the right thing and treating their staff well from what I can tell. My one complaint about GoDaddy is that their website is a cluttered mess of sales stuff I don't need. But they are obviously successful with it, so once you figure the site out, it's not so bad.

I am one of the old Dreamweaver people, but I have to admit next website I build, I'm going WordPress. I would recommend that to anyone getting into this without hesitation. Every time I open Dreamweaver I think it's going to be the last time before I pull the plug and go 100% WordPress and not look back.

Agree on making the site basic. Clean, basic designs can be gold.
 
I wouldn't recommended GoDaddy, just from the horror stories I've heard. WordPress is good for the non-techies I suppose (although it does have more advanced abilities for those wishing to sink their teeth in). I still enjoy having complete control and actually coding my site from scratch. WordPress is overkill for a site that remains static for the most part, you'd just be waisting money on a dynamic server.
 
I use GoDaddy, Wp, et al. But If I can make a suggestion. If you're in school, why not hit up one or two of the guys/gals over in the IT college to help you understand your choices better, sorta show and tell?
 
I've used GoDaddy the first year I had a website and it was awful. To register domain names I suggest you go to "Namecheap.com" and register there. They are affordable, easy to deal with and have many deals on domain names.

For web hosting take a look at this article: 10 largest hosting and check out the pros and cons of each web hosting site. I've been researching this myself now that I no longer have a hosting site. Here they state how each hosting site is ranked by the BBB, customer support and speed rating.

I was not able to buy into any of them at Thanksgiving, but if you can wait until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, you may be able to get web hosting for a whole year at half the price. I'm pretty sure HostGator offers that, not sure about the other sites, bet they do too.

It's worth it if you have the funds to pay the money up front and save for the rest of the year. What you'll want to consider is to buy into a plan that allows you to put up multiple websites. You may not think you'll need more than one right now, but just you wait.

You'll want one for your personal profile, your business, highlight special projects that you initialize, etc. I say wait until Christmas and see what sites are offering half off the year prices. Hope the article helps. I know which sites not to consider.

Hopefully this Christmas I'll have some extra cash to buy into a full year.
 
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