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Monday, May 18, 2009

Doing It Right: Web Site for 'Herb and Dorothy'

We occasionally look at movie Web sites here on CinemaTech and talk about what they're doing wrong. And sometimes we look at Web sites that are doing lots of things right.

Here's one that's worth a gander: the site for the documentary 'Herb and Dorothy', about two eccentric Manhattan art collectors who assembled a world-class collection on middle-class salaries.

Some of the things I like:

    - Prominent info about where/when I can see the movie (I missed it at Silverdocs and the Indep. Film Festival of Boston)
    - A way to sign up for an e-mail list on the site's homepage, to stay apprised about screenings, DVD release, etc.
    - Film has a presence on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr (where they've posted photos of some of the famous artists who are in the film)
    - Production notes, crew bios, and lots of background is online

A few things they could do better:

    - The trailer isn't embeddable, so visitors can't put it on their own sites or blogs. (You can, though, go to YouTube and find an embeddable version -- see below.)
    - There are a few clips from the movie on YouTube, along with the trailer. But in each clip at the end, they should include the film's title and URL. The URL and film title should also be included in the "info box" about each clip (in upper-right-hand corner of the screen)
    - It's a great idea to post stills on Flickr, but in the comments for each photo it should mention that the pic is from the movie "Herb and Dorothy," and provide the site's URL
    - They should have some hi-res images (poster, stills) available for download from the site.


Your thoughts? Trailer is below.


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2 Comments:

  • This isn't directed as much to this particular site as they only have a handful of screenings...

    But most film sites either list no screenings or every and all screenings without regard to where visitors of their site live.

    Myspace is the worst offender: 200 gig listings and I have to pick through them to find one that might be near me?

    This and most film sites should consider incorporating some kind of localization efforts if they really want to help people go to screenings.

    Like letting me punch in a zip code and see the screenings near me, or a mailing list just for screenings in my area.

    By Blogger Price Jaccobi, at 5:25 PM  

  • I like these "Doing It Right/Wrong" posts. I incorporated your insights for my movie site and added a mailing list, a section for screening times, easy links to Facebook/Twitter/Flickr. Still no high res poster download, but that will come.

    http://frontave.com/

    -mike

    By Blogger Mike Vogel, at 3:27 PM  

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