It's going to be like Film-Tech, But less glamourous! And I'll make a newsletter for anyone if they want it! e-mail a blank e-mail to film-flix@mail.virtualave.net

Thanks!

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I too began a website that was going to be everything that Film-Tech is and possibly more...BEFORE Film-Tech.com began... Soon as I visited this site for the first time, I decided to chuck in the proverbial towel... you can still visit what's there (and even sign a guestbook!) but like I said, soon as I saw Brad's INCREDIBLE site, i gave up on the projectionist's website business.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Boulevard/1163

I don't think Andrew is trying to build a site to compete with, or even be "like" Film-Tech. I think he's just trying to build HIS OWN website INSPIRED BY Film-Tech. It is an admirable task he is undertaking and it's not as easy as people first think. Just the fact that he's trying to buid a site is enough to give him credit. Most people, myself included, are content to just sit there and click away on the Web. He is giving it his best shot and I think he deserves credit just for that.

Find a relatively small "niche" that interests you. This could be a favorite film, a piece of equipment, a period in history, an historic theatre, another person, etc. Learn everything you can about it. Take lots of pictures. Write about the most interesting things that you find and put it, and the pictures, up on the web. Get friends and others who run similar sites to link to you. Spend time in Usenet groups which are related to you topic and post your URL when the information comes up in discussion. Eventually, you'll get listed in the search engines (Altavista, Google, Excite, etc.) and you'll start getting a fair number of hits. You'll get email from people who are also interested in your topic and can provide you with even more information, which you can then add to your site.

I'm not being terribly articulate here, but hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. Get some interesting, original content and put it up somewhere. Forget about Flash, Shockwave, Java, etc. They all do little more than annoy and slow down visitors who would otherwise be interested in what you have to say. Worry more about content and less about form...less is more when it comes to graphic design, and the Film-Tech site is pretty good (except for those damn frames...sorry Brad!). Make sure your site is viewable with old versions of Netscape and also with Lynx (a great little text-only browser which I've used since 1994 and which I still use about 80% of the time).

Like I said, this isn't the greatest description of what I'm trying to say, but hopefully I've made my point...

Oh, yeah...ditch MS Word, since it has created invalid code (check the overlapping tags on line 18 of your page) and spend a couple of hours learning basic HTML. It's really easy. Also, get a little perl script called "weblint" (search for it) to "validate" your code...you don't want to have invalid HTML on your page.

At one point, I tried using Microsoft Word to make the pages, but ended up abandoning it. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some pages that have "Microsoft Word" as the HTML-generator used, although such pages have been edited with vi many times since Word was attempted to be used.

The main thing I need to do to my site is divide that main page up into several smaller pages. The problem is that I have a lot of content I want users to see and be aware of when they first load the page, but it all just won't fit. I am strongly resisting using a special HTML page editor, since I like to know exactly what is going on. (I've been programming computers since 1984 and although HTML page creation is not programming, programming to automate generation of HTML is a nice way to avoid a lot of tedious HTML editing.) The main thing slowing me down on improving the looks of my site is I'm working full time and working on a Ph.D., which doesn't leave me all that much free time to work with the site. That's why I've got everything automated so I can add information and regenerate the HTML with little effort.

About creating a site that is too much like Film-Tech: I've found that in the past, having one large gathering place where nearly everyone goes is better than splitting the community into smaller groups. I've actually thought about putting a forum on my site, but I'd limit the scope to discussions about quality and issues concerning local theatres. It wouldn't be good to try to duplicate what is here on Film-Tech. If I tried that, I'd (most likely) not get any participation due to Film-Tech being established, or (highly unlikely) draw people away from Film-Tech, creating two weak forum-based sites rather than having one highly-used good one (like Film-Tech). I think that the people interested in participation in forums can easily fit here into Film-Tech and the large amount of participation here from a diverse set of people makes Film-Tech very valuable to its community. Usually, when a technical question is asked, someone knows the answer, and sometimes, differences in opinion can be very educational. The more people involved, the more information that can be shared, which is why I think one central site (Film-Tech) for the forums is the way to keep it.

Finding the right "niche" (as Scott said) is the key to creating a good WWW site. Focusing on local facilities/issues is one way to do it. The other way is to try to have some good content that nobody else has, or do something in a way that nobody else does.

Oh, and another thing -- don't be surprised if you make someone mad occasionally. You'll get occasional hate letters and negative feedback from your site if you create a site and have criticisms of anything anyone has ever done.

Evans A Criswell

Huntsville-Decatur Theatre Site
http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/