template for filmmaking website ?

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

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Anybody know of a template for filmmaking, free or $, html or flash? I have googled for website templates, seems very hard to find much for a filmmaking or film production. Looking to jazz up my website with something more professional. I would be willing to even pay for a premium template, html or flash. I am pretty well versed at html and website management, just looking for a turnkey template to upload to my site, something aesthetically pleasing for 'filmmaking' as I develop my screenwriting and short film filmmaking skills and repertoire, etc. Any help finding such a template greatly appreciated. ~randall
 
maaaan, venture away from templates if wanting to stand apart.
When you see something you like, go to view and then view source. You'll be surprised how much you can learn by copy/paisting code and reacing images and movies.
Combine enough of these and sure enough, you have your own site.
 
Yeah I am thinking that is true more and more-- I googled 'movie producer template' and did fine some stuff, but it is the same stuff, basicall about 2-3 flash templates that keep coming up in the search results, so if i used one of those my site would just look like every other such site. I might just stick with html, do it myself from scratch.

grinner said:
maaaan, venture away from templates if wanting to stand apart. When you see something you like, go to view and then view source. You'll be surprised how much you can learn by copy/paisting code and reacing images and movies. Combine enough of these and sure enough, you have your own site.
Click to expand...
 
hey you should take a look at wordpress.org.....its acutally a blogging utility and I know you said that you already have a good management system set up, but if you understand PHP and CSS, they have some nice ways to spruce up your site.
 
I will, just looking at various possibilities now, brainstorming anything. Found some nice free html templates here, and some dynamic flash templates here but they cost cash, although what looks cool about dynamic flash is that you can edit and customize it without need to own Adobe Flash editor, etc. Wordpress might suffice too. Anyfree free works for me better than expensive stuff right now. =)

mts4243369 said:
hey you should take a look at wordpress.org.....its acutally a blogging utility and I know you said that you already have a good management system set up, but if you understand PHP and CSS, they have some nice ways to spruce up your site.
Click to expand...
 
The only thing to be careful about with dynamic Flash is, that it is extremely un-flexible. By that I mean, you wont ever be able to really change what it looks like, where as being able to craft something your self can change with your needs; but if you are looking for a temporary fix, try it out, what do you have to lose?
 
you'll see this as an opportunity to learn some flash. I did. I found their tutorials that are built in the app lead to to any place I've wanted to go. I tend to change the tutorials with my own images and such. This paints me into a corner more often than not...which is good cuz I learn how to paint myself out of corners quite often.
I use Photoshop for layout and design. Makes it easy and familiar. I then make the buttons and basicly just author in flash.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Anybody know of a template for filmmaking, free or $, html or flash? I have googled for website templates, seems very hard to find much for a filmmaking or film production. Looking to jazz up my website with something more professional. I would be willing to even pay for a premium template, html or flash.
Click to expand...
Hey, Randall! You can try cinema web templates from our partners, they have nice flash templates for free or with good prices. They can do a custom template as for me for you too.
 
Hmm

Hmm

Yeah, I can't believe people who are trying to sell themselves or their companies and have such bad Websites, which is really most people. It's shocking the number of awful Websites, sometimes even from good-sized companies. Mine is finally nearly done, built from the group up with PHP backend, CSS based, and Flash elements. We've had four people work on the site, two graphics (one just did the logo), one CSS, and one PHP. It's very hard to find one person who can make a really good Website, almost nobody has that full set of skills to make a complicated database, be a great graphical designer too, and use CSS, haha.
 
Jonathan, I think main thing of each site is not how it looking, but SEO and marketing of information on web pages.
 
I think the look is incredibly important, but a large part of the look is really just the functionality, I mean how easy it is for me to locate the information I want. I can tolerate a pretty outdated looking page if I can easily locate what I want to find, for let's say a rental company in Hollywood. I could care less, I just want to see their rates.

But for my site, one reason it has taken ridiculously long (there are about 5 reasons, it's been a disaster, ugg), is because I'm not selling myself as a director, or my company as a production company alone, I'm selling my company as a full new media company, which includes film production and Web integration of videos and redesigns. In other words, let's say we shoot corporate work, then I subcontract and my friend in Web design helps figure out the best way to integrate the video, pictures, etc., or if we can sell the client on a complete site overhaul, we can also offer media hosting, Website hosting, etc. So if my site looks like crap, why would you want my company to redesign your Website too? That's why it's essential that it be a really sleek, easy to use, nice, professional Website.

And another reason it has taken so long and cost a fair amount is because I'm an idiot when it comes to anything technical like that. Well, ok I'm selling myself short, but beyond basic HTML stuff like changing some text or fonts or whatever, and beyond logging into FTP to upload a file or maybe the server to check bandwidth, I don't want to be dealing with ANY technical issues when I want to update my site. I want it to be like Facebook, basically. And it is now. Even laurels are automatically generated graphics. I type in the text, it creates the laurel. That saves a good deal of time overall and allows for easy and fast changes to project pages. Then picture galleries will be created easily just based on what I upload, fields are there for me to enter text, it all formats a certain way, it's just basically a cake walk to update or add projects.
 
I'm finishing up a WordPress-based site this this morning for a textile artist that will have a section for online video lessons. As one who has created a lot of sites with Dreamweaver (including one I finished last week), let me tell you that WordPress is the way to go. Faster, flexible, better in many more ways, and you can change your site's look two years down the road without starting over from scratch.
 
Oops, didn't finish my thought. Wordpress now has a "sticky" function that allows you to keep a "featured" post (that would be a featured video for us) at the top, so almost any WordPress theme can serve your business. The header, colors and details are customizable to match your business.

For added functionality, search for wordpress "magazine themes" which provide extra styling to highlight the featured spot as a Top Story, and then another area for a lineup of featured posts.

If your video production business can cater to, say, motorcyclists, you can have all these featured videos and then post news about motocross events that AUTOMATICALLY slides into the event calendar in the sidebar, and then you will have riders checking out your site for races and events, checking out your free videos, and then when they want to produce a video for their shop, or for their boyfriend's birthday present, who do you think they are going to call?

I would look at Darren Hoyt's Mimbo and these other free magazine themes.

it took me only a day and a half to put together an attractive site on WordPress. Much longer with a ground-up design.
 
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