how to set up website for video and photo biz

[Noah Kadner]

Wordpress definitely- I like the Genesis Framework plus WPEngine for hosting.

Gmail is probably best option for email host.

Vimeo Pro definitely.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[Craig Alan]

So Vimeo pro would be in addition to a wordpress designed website?

So if we use gmail would we buy the domain from say namecheap?

I assume the wordpress site would be for photos and vimeo for videos?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Noah Kadner]

Doesn’t really matter where you buy the domain itself from- that’s just the right to use the name. Gmail would then just need to be pointed to in the DNS records as the mail host.

The actual website wordpress hosting would be with WP-Engine or whatever you decide.

And yes Vimeo Pro would host your actual videos that would then be viewed via embedding on a WordPress Site. This works a *lot* better than trying to say FTP your own clips directly onto your hosting server, which is generally a lot less optimized for video playback than Vimeo.

Vimeo is also directly integrated with FCPX and does all of the transcoding you need to achieve proper playback embedded in mobile devices, etc.

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training

[Ryan Holmes]

It sounds like you don’t have a lot of experience with web building. You may look to more templated solutions that don’t require as much time and setup as a WP site. Something like SquareSpace (they’ll even take care of the domain issues for you), Wix, or Weebly. I use SquareSpace for my site, and their customer service is phenomenal!

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Craig Alan]

Thank you. I’ll look into all. Starting to make sense.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks I’ll check it out. I have zero experience with web building. Just getting used to the options and vocab and price points. Appreciate the leads

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

I see a lot of photo pros on smug mug. Is this like the vimeo of stills? Could it be the website itself or would that require a third subscription? And just to confirm. I can’t just use apple mail with a registered domain for an email address? One site recommended name cheap to buy the domain name. But most of the host sites seem to package that in with the site.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Hi Ryan,

Checked out squarespace. Love it. Seems like a good fit. Couple of questions.

1.If for some reason we leave squarespace what would happen to the domain name that they provided?

2. Can you embed vimeo videos on squarespace?

3. would we still need smug mug or would the galleries within squarespace do the trick.

4. one photog who uses smug mug mentioned that he stores backups of all is photos on smug mug, which is a site designed for photographers.

ps smug mug looks a lot like square space in terms of clean visual designs.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Bill Davis]

I’m barely past the amateur stage with all this stuff, but that said, here’s my two cents from banging around it for the past 10 years.

All the domain firms you mention are simply “registrars” – they interface with ICANN, the international body that governs names on the web. YOU would typically own the domain name regardless of who the register is – so the name should be totally portable should you decide to change registrars.

SmugMug is in wide use by photographers, because photogs typically want not just the portfolio hosting aspect, but also photo sales and shopping cart services. They (and other photo specialists sites) make it easy for someone like a pro event photographer to monetize their work via digital ordering and delivery. That may or may not be you. Using a service like SmugMug gets around the need to design your own custom hosting web page. Photos are small digital size files compared to video and therefore easy to embed in a web site without an outside host. So when you’re thinking about photos, the reason to use SmugMug or a similar photo host is A) easy portfolio setup and appearance maximized for images – and B) the sales back end shopping cart service.

With video the files you’ll need hosted are much larger and much more complex. So a site like Vimeo Pro is actually a hosting service that takes your original video, transcodes it for multiple resolutions so that it works well on anything from a large screen computer to a cel phone – and provides you a link you can embed in your own web presence. Vimeo Pro and YouTube (along with other more niche services) work similarly are just beginning to explore a “pay per view, or pay per download” – style e-commerce back end.

All this is separate from the Domain stuff – this is where he web host manages your private domain traffic. You need a website builder application (ala Webpress) to create and manage the “look” of the site pages. – UNLESS you decide that the default or template pages that the content hosts (Vimeo and/or SmugMug) is all you need. If it is, then you may or may not be able to get by without your own web site and just work with their portfolio pages and let your customers order photos direct – and watch videos directly – via the hosts apps.

That’s a very rough outline of the three parts of the puzzle. Photo hosting. Video hosting. (both of which can do page design and/or e-commerce) verses custom website development where you manage your web presence and either directly embed or alternately link to – the photo or video content hosted elsewhere.

Only you can know what you really need and what you’re willing to pay for.

Good luck.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks. Nice summary. Just getting the pieces into my head. Smugmug has the ability to host video now but with a duration limit. Seems like some of the photo pros use it exclusively and others have another host site as well with the store front. Smugmug has excellent customer service with fast response times and little down time and has a nice cloud storage feature for backing uo photo collection.

Squarebox has really beautiful sites very clean and inviting, easy drag and drop templates for design.

Squarebox and smugmug seem to have templates that are similar in design.

Vimeo seems like the go to video hosting site. So many sites will embed/link to them. Some seem to object to their logo in the bottom corner of the video.

Not sure if i need all three initially or can take it in stages.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.