For this website case study I chose another Oscar nominated short "Sing." It actually won the academy award for best short film this year so big expectations on this one!
This website also has a personalized logo but has 8 tabs: Festivals, About, News, Trailer, Team, Music, Press, and Meteor Films. Again, I really enjoy the breadth of information they include in their website. I especially enjoyed their music tab as it gave an embedded sound cloud player. This was a great marketing strategy as the short film is based around music. They also included a outside link to their production companies website. In their website they included important stills from the movie which seems to be a trend. I think I definitely will include the festival location tab along with a music, about, festivals, and team tab. In general, films are made to entertain audiences, and film websites are much the same. In order to get visitors’ attention and encourage them to see the film, a website needs to give them what they are looking for and provide some entertainment at the same time. In order to do this I have to make my site visually engaging through photos and video clips.
I researched some typical movie website conventions in addition to the above case study:
1. FLASH
Most movie websites rely heavily on Flash for a dynamic and interactive experience. The audience of these websites typically expects to be entertained, so bells and whistles take priority, and heavy use of these elements is more acceptable than it would be on other types of websites.I'm sure my wesbite will be somewhat interactive even if it is not insanely so, we have to keep it simple.
2. LARGE BACKGROUND IMAGES
In addition to Flash, larger photos and images play a huge role in creating attractive and interesting movie websites. Most movie websites make use of large images, in many cases as the background of the page. Like I said earlier, these can be stills from the film.
3. VIDEO/TRAILERS
Almost all movie websites include a full trailer, and in some cases a few different trailers. Many websites put the trailer on the home page or a splash page, and the trailers often start without being prompted by the user. While audio and video that automatically starts is usually considered a negative feature, because of their subject matter, movie websites are a bit different than the average website. Because video is a priority for most visitors, it seems to be an accepted fact that movie websites will play a trailer automatically when the page loads. Those movie websites that don’t put the trailer on a splash page or the home page typically have a link in the navigation menu that clearly points to the trailer. I don't think is necessarily important for my short as it is well, short, already.
4. SHOW TIMES AND TICKET INFO
Because the goal of movie websites is to sell tickets, each one includes a link or form for visitors who want to find show times and ticket information for their area. Many websites link to Fandango and/or Moviefone. Making it easy for people to get tickets is a priority.I think this is really important even if I make up the festival times and locations.
5. SPLASH PAGES
About half of the movie websites we’ll look at later in this article show a splash page before the visitor enters the main website. Some of these splash pages are more useful than others. Many include a video of the trailer, and some have options to access country-specific sections of the website if the movie is playing worldwide. Probably not necessary for my site.
6. DISPLAY OF NOMINATIONS AND AWARDS
Movie websites often attempt to demonstrate the quality of a movie by listing or displaying nominations and awards it has received. You’ll see this a lot on splash pages and home pages of award-winning pictures. Again, my film doesn't have any awards or recognition, so I'm going to avoid this.
7. SHORT PAGE LENGTH
It’s very common for movie websites to take up only the height of the screen, or just a bit more. It’s rare to find pages that are long and require a lot of vertical scrolling. With most websites being Flash-based or set against a large background image, the short page length keeps everything in view at all times. Probably something I'll stick to.
8. SOCIAL NETWORKING /MEDIA INTERACTION
Many movies have pages set up on Facebook and MySpace to take advantage of social networking opportunities. With the popularity of these social networking websites, especially among younger users, it’s no surprise that movie companies are seeing the value of getting involved. A bit more surprising is the number of movie websites that include links to encourage votes on social media websites such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Reddit. I'll Include links to fake social media accounts.
9. DOWNLOADS
Most movie websites include a downloads section where visitors can get free wallpaper, posters and buddy icons. This is kinda cheesy but I kind of think it could be a cute advertising idea especially if the wall papers were aesthetically pleasing.
That's all for tonight friends!
Sources:
http://www.singshortfilm.com/#music
http://meteorfilmstudio.hu/en/
https://onextrapixel.com/30-awesome-interactive-movie-and-film-official-websites/
http://www.webdesign-inspiration.com/web-designs/industry/movie
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