Conventions of Film Websites

Many recent films have websites as this is now a vital and large proportion of marketing. There are many reasons to making a website for films including the fact that it raises more awareness of the film and helps people find out information about the film. There are many conventions of a normal film website however some exceed these conventions and others simply have the film synopsis and the trailer embedded into the website.

Below I believe are the conventions of a good, informative film website:
-Starting page with a video clip/trailer
-Background picture from film
-Fonts/quotes/titles
-Option to enter the official site
-Animations during the loading of the site
-Sound
-Toolbar at the top of the page
-Basics – storyline, cast, crew
-Videos, photos, downloads
-Promotions

I believe that the above conventions are definitely conventions of which we should be looking into when making our own website.

I have looked into websites that are of the romantic drama genre and found that New Moon and The Time Travellers Wife are good examples of very complex, informative websites. What I really like about the New Moon website is the fact that you have the choice to enter the New Moon official website or the Twilight website; however this would not be appropriate for our website as we have not made a series. I also like the way that at the bottom of the entrance page there are links to social networking websites for example Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. I think that this is something that we need to look into as our target audience will be those that use social networking a lot. This is also a very widely expanding form of promotion, you can now on Facebook choose which type of person your advertisements are shown to by their age, gender, location, job, and even what they talk about a lot to their friends; as well as this you can now also make a page for the stars of your film so that fans can interact with them and keep up to date on the film. I believe that linking this to your website is a brilliant idea as it raises more awareness of your film. They also have a link to iTunes where you can buy the albums from the films and where you can buy audio books and other apps, I think that this is another really good form of promotion and shows that they are up to date with today’s technology and using everything that they can to use the right forms of promotion. They also have a link to their YouTube channel in which you can watch the trailers and T.V spots as well as subscribe and comment about it, I believe that this again creates excitement for the film.
The New Moon website like many other film websites has a photo as the background, I believe that this photo is very relevant to the film and shows you how Jacob is going to stand in between Edward and Bella and it also shows how Jacob and Edward don’t like each other, the picture has low key lighting which shows us that it is going to be quite dramatic yet the contact with Bella and Jacob shows that there is going to be some romance in the film. The music that is played when your on the website is very creepy and quite tension building which also gives you the feeling of the film, I believe that the picture and music have been very carefully thought about and planned for this website and this is something that I think we really need to do as well.
The New Moon website also has three sections where you can either enter the Cullen House, La Push reservation or the Volturi Estate, in each of these sections you can interactively look round and find out information about each of the characters and download their wallpapers, I believe that this is very good and shows how well marketed this film is however I think that it would be very hard to make a website this good.
This is the New Moon website: www.twilightthemovie.com/

The Time Travellers Wife is another good website as although it doesn’t have an entrance page like many others it does have a tool bar at the top and the background is animated as he disappears and reappears which I think really attracts the viewer’s attention and helps you to understand what the whole film is about. I believe that this website has a lot of information on in which is very helpful to potential viewers of the film. Other film websites that I have looked at like The Proposal (http://www.theproposalmovie.co.uk/) and Valentines Day (http://www.valentinesdaymovie.com/) don’t have any information on them other than the synopsis which I think is not very good and when making our own website I think the we should consider what The Time Travellers Wife has got on their website to help us to make sure that we put all of the information needed. On this website there are six main headings: about the film; video; photo gallery; downloads; soundtrack and promotion. Under the section about the film they have another four headings which are: the synopsis; cast; filmmakers and production notes. Under the heading downloads you can download wallpapers and screen savers which I believe is an easy way to help promote your film and would be good for our film. You can also listen to and buy the soundtrack under the soundtrack heading.
This is The Time Travellers Wife website: www.thetimetravelerswifemovie.com/