screenwriter.ca

by Andy Riga

Writer Websites: Staking Your Virtual Turf

If you want to reach Vancouver writer/director/producer Anne Wheeler or learn about her work, the search isn’t difficult. Just enter her name into Google and the first link that pops up is her personal website. Or, you can type the intuitive address annewheeler.com in your browser.

Wheeler has a simple but solid website, and if you are looking to set up your own, it’s not a bad place to begin mining for ideas.

Visit Wheeler online and you’ll find a biography; a six-page resumé that details her writing, directing and producing efforts on dozens of films, TV shows and documentaries; pictures and trailers from some of those productions; and her Internet Movie Database listing, which includes her credits for Better than Chocolate, Cowboys Don’t Cry and Da Vinci’s Inquest.

Every page features a Contact button. One click and visitors can email her. That’s a mixed blessing. “I get probably 10 letters a week that are truly interesting, and it gives me a chance to connect with my audience and to encourage them to watch Canadian productions,” says Wheeler, one of a growing number of screenwriters who have set up websites. On the other hand, “I do get a lot of unsolicited scripts, which I don’t accept. I could spend my life reacting to what people decide to send me. Because I have a site they think I’m a public service. ‘Please just read it and tell me what to do!’ That is annoying but not such a bad thing.”

Getting Started

You’re not alone if you’ve been mulling the idea of setting up your own website or if you’re intrigued by vanity Internet addresses: www.yournamehere.com. Scroll through the members’ directory on the Writers Guild of Canada’s recently refurbished website–www.wgc.ca–and you’ll find dozens of writer sites. (To gain access to the WGC directory, fill out the online application form.) More can be found on the website of the Writers Guild of America, west (www.wga.org/membersites.html), which is open to all.

Visit some of these screenwriter sites and you’ll see their purposes run the gamut: self-promotion tools, creative outlets, writing-services advertisements and web logs (also known as blogs, these are online diaries in which writers bare their souls for anybody who happens by).

Of course, websites aren’t for everybody. Many people who enthusiastically set them up with the best intentions quickly lose interest. Without regular maintenance, links become
outdated and lead to dead ends, and old email addresses are not replaced, frustrating visitors whose messages bounce back.

Sometimes, sites are started but left unfinished, with pages missing or out of date.

Do you actually need a site? Think about what you want to accomplish with one. If you’re looking for a handy resource where the public, your peers or your potential partners can learn about you and your work, a website can help. But don’t expect it to work magic.

“A website won’t do all of your marketing for you,” said Brent Barrett, VP and project leader at Montreal Media (soon to be renamed Mile End Media), a web design company whose clients have included the National Film Board. “Just because you put up a site don’t think people are going to flock to it or even care.” Barrett urges writers to keep sites simple–just a few pages to start. “Visitors are there to find out as quickly as they can about your writing and, most importantly, how to contact you,” he notes.

While many writers seem hesitant to get their sites off the ground, the process should feel familiar: research, storyboarding, content, revisions–the whole thing is a lot like writing.

Step One: Research

Go out and visit as many sites as you can, especially ones by writers. If you’re a WGC member, get your password and see how fellow members are tapping the Web. As you surf, note what you like and dislike, both in terms of content as well as look and feel. Figure out what you want from your site and write down what you would like to post on it. Do a preliminary sketch of how you might want it to look.

Next, gather your material. This could be time-consuming. Depending on your plan, you might need an introduction, a detailed point-form resumé, a biography in prose form, photos (of yourself and stills from productions you’ve worked on), maybe even some video or audio clips. Find links to articles, publicity information, and entries in directories such as the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) that refer to you and your work. You’ll also have to decide what contact information to post–email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone and fax numbers for you and your agent? Or just an email address for yourself?

“I would say that 90 percent of the time people go to a website in order to contact an individual or company,” Barrett says. “This information should be easily accessible and a link should be placed on every page.”

With the basic planning and prep work out of the way, it will be time to find someone to actually build the site–a website developer or designer. If you’re hiring a pro, expect to pay anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. (Don’t forget to write it off as a business expense.) If the cost makes you balk, don’t worry. You can also do your own site (more about this below).

Word of mouth is the best way to find a designer. Ask for referrals from friends and colleagues who have had websites built. When you happen upon a site that tickles your fancy, find out who designed it and visit their site, which may feature a portfolio. This will tell you where the designer is based and help you decide whether to put them on your short list. You’ll find directories of web designers online, including a nifty one at Yahoo! Canada that points to designers’ portfolios.

To get to the page, visit http://ca.dir.yahoo.com/ then click on the following items: Arts & Humanities, Design Arts, Graphic Design, Graphic Designers, and, finally, Personal Exhibits. Now you should be looking at hundreds of design portfolios. Even if you don’t find a designer here, you’ll probably come away with some ideas for your site.

Don’t pick the first designer whose work intrigues you. Instead, Barrett advises that you interview several, keeping a set budget in mind.

Choose a designer who shares your ideas about your site’s goals and with whom you will feel comfortable collaborating. Some designers get carried away with too many fancy bells and whistles, for example. So if you want something simple, steer clear of a designer pushing for a huge site with a grand design.

Step Two: Building

You’ve got a designer. Now it’s time to get building.

“Map out the site in as much detail as possible,” Barrett says. “Pre-planning is crucial to the success of dealing with a designer. First start with a site map–a simple flow chart showing all of the pages of the site. Next, create a storyboard, describing the content and graphics of every page. Show designers the sites you like. They can be used as inspiration for your navigation design, page layout and graphic design.”

Sit down with your designer before the work starts to set out a plan. Establish a payment schedule and a design timeline so you can keep tabs on the progress and suggest changes along the way. Stay in touch and ask to see how the site is developing. That way you can offer input and make last-minute adjustments (make sure to test all your links!) before it goes live.

You’ll want to register a domain name–www.yournameorcompanyhere.com–which only costs a few dollars per year from a site such as godaddy.com. Then, you’ll have to rent server space from a web hosting company (godaddy.com and doteasy.com are two low-cost options). Confused? Don’t worry; simply seek your designer’s advice.

If you have time and a keen interest in the inner workings of websites, consider doing it yourself. Your creation won’t be as exciting as the professionally designed ones but if all you need is a bare-bones site with basic data, you may be able to take the DIY route. Do a web search for website design templates, and you will find hundreds–some free, others sold at a reasonable cost.

Step Three: Maintenance

Once you’re up and running, don’t let your interest wane. There’s nothing more frustrating for Web surfers than landing on abandoned sites. You can hire someone to maintain your site, perhaps updating it quarterly to add fresh content and clean up old links. Another option is to go into the site and do it yourself.

Some designers will set up what they call content-management tools, which make it easy for neophyte site owners to fiddle with content on their own without the need for professional intervention.

Don’t forget that nobody will visit your site if they don’t know it exists. Update your listing in the WGC member directory. Have the website address printed on business cards and include the address in the signature on your emails. You should also optimize it for search engines, but that’s a whole other column.

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For writers like Wheeler, websites have become indispensable. It’s “like having a person on staff who can provide resumés, biographies, pictures, contact information–a lot of things an assistant might do,” she says. “When someone is going to interview me, they can read the site and I avoid the questions like ‘How did you start in the business?’ The questions are more interesting and I don’t feel like a worn-out old record. It’s also a great tool for me–if a name escapes me, I can quickly go to the site and remember who did the costumes on what.”