Opinion on my landing page…

[David Roth weiss]

Paul,

I don’t want to offend you or sound unsupportive, because that’s not what we’re here for, but unfortunately, I’m not full of good news for you about that website. Trust me, websites are difficult, if you look at mine its just one page now, because I’ve been revising the rest for over a year now and I still hate it.

Meanwhile, all of that black on white text on the front page with the serif font is just deadly. And, a lot of the video you’ve chosen for the demo is very difficult for the viewer. Breast implants and gunshot effects to the head just don’t combine well in a reel, and certainly don’t put the viewer at ease with you, the filmmaker. Plus, the music is too dramatic and self important for what you have to show.

My advice to you is simplify things. Copy better styles from magazines and other websites. If the video you’re showing now is all you’ve got, either minimize it, don’t show it all, or go out and shoot some more and show that.

I hope this helps. Good luck…

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

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[Paul Del vecchio]

I’m not offended at all. You’re absolutely right. The content is a bit harsh on the viewer. I didn’t realize that.

I’m thinking of removing the demo and leaving the rest of the videos for the moment. The demo is probably too annoying anyways, as it’s a large file that automatically plays, increasing the load time of the site.

What do you suggest for the font problem? I’m a little confused as to how to clear that up.

Thanks!

Paul Del Vecchio – Director
http://www.triple-e-productions.net

[David Roth weiss]

Find a nice san serif font, even Helvetica will do… and use a color like navy blue instead of black. More importantly, get rid of a lot of that text. Bullet lists and visuals work better. For example, you can write a sentence about making DVDs or you can show a picture of one or more you designed under the banner “DVD Design and Creation.”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Ron Lindeboom]

Hi Paul,

David has already given you some of the bad news and so I will point out what first hit me: If you are using your site as a way to grab business, the client wants to know what is in it for them. They do not care what tools you use, if it meant anything to them, they’d be using them and wouldn’t be looking for you.

Make your site about what you do for your clients. Give them examples of finished products that they can relate to. Show them examples. Do not ask them to read all that text and try to figure it out themselves from what you are describing. You are the “communicator” after all, so communicate what you do in the fewest number of words.

Use pictures. Use as little quantity of text as you can get away with.

Your bullet-pointed start page that you have now would work well as a worksheet schematic for you to work from.

Some people argue that templated websites that you can buy online will ill-serve you. I disagree when it comes to getting something out the door quickly, especially for someone who knows little about building websites.

As David alluded to, the goal here is to give your prospects something they are comfortable with. That is why I would recommend a templated design to start with as most of them are based on known and trusted web standards.

Please don’t take this as a slap, it is meant really to help shorten your developmental cycle as much as possible.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Paul Del vecchio]

So basically, too much text. I have samples in that bar on the right side… is that too hidden that you think people aren’t recognizing that it’s there and therefor, it is going unnoticed?

As far as templates, where can I find some decent ones? I honestly know nothing about web design, that’s why I posted this. =)

Thanks!

Paul Del Vecchio – Director
http://www.triple-e-productions.net

[Walter Biscardi]

Folks have already commented on some of the things they didn’t like. I definitely agree on too much text and that’s actually something we’re working on right now with my site re-design.

What I find is that you’re a creative company, but the site comes across as very corporate, bland and un-creative. If the site is supposed to sell you as a creative company, the site should at least look creative.

Lose all scrolling, everything should be on one page.

Grey on white in all squares is definitely a corporate look. You look more like a bank than a creative company.

The Demo Reel is kind of weird too. You have independent films and Special FX following a medical video demonstration. If I’m looking to post a film, I would probably think twice after seeing a medical demonstration video.

One thing I don’t have on my site is a demo reel anymore. I have specific videos which the potential client can look through.

Websites are not the easiest thing to create, especially when you’re running the business too. Also, by hiring someone who only does only websites, I was given a lot of advice by her as to what to do and not do on the site. We’re going to spend about 6 months total completely re-designing my site.

Definitely streamline the site, lose the scrolling, lose a lot of text and think about working with that demo a bit.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Ron Lindeboom]

There are some good web site design templates that can be found at…

https://www.templatemonster.com

Some will indeed disagree with me on using templates but when you are busy, have no spare time, can’t spend a ton of money and want to get something that looks good, templates are a useful tool.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Rennie Klymyk]

I’ll start by saying “you’re away ahead of me” but I thought I’d still take the liberty to add something I think is valuable.

I agree with everyones thoughts so far.
My 1st impression is it has a dark feel to it (like Black Sabbath” dark).
There’s too much homework – I mean all that reading is overwhelming and reminds me of walking home from school burdened with an armload of homework and in the back of my mind I’m thinking of all the fun stuff I won’t be doing after supper.

What I want to add is an experience I had when I showed my graphic artist friend my 1st homemade business card many years ago. He tactfully tore it apart (literally) without making me feel to bad in the process. 1st. thing he did was edit. He kept the Video Production title and contact info. All the services I had listed were edited to basically one word each which he kept in it’s own bordered area.

When he threw the 5 minute sketch back in front of me I totally understood everything he had said. He then explained that viewer’s eyes need a place to go and relax – you have to have pure wide open space with nothing in it which is just clean background. The information is grouped in clumps with lots of space around. The beauty of web sites is all the pages you can add. You don’t need to pile on a ton of info on every page or it becomes homework we have to wade through. Visitors will love to seek out more info if you keep them hungry for more by keeping pages simple with a clean look.

The people at slice edit have kept their main page for a long time now although I think it used to be bigger at first without all the black background. It continues to be one of my favorites, Take a look:

https://www.sliceedit.com/home.htm

“everything is broken” ……Bob Dylan

[Mike Cohen]

my opinion is – if one of the services you offer is web page design, hire someone to at least design your website and show you how to make updates which do not affect the design. Keeping design and content separate is a tenet of website administration.
Keep things simple, and make sure every page has a uniform appearance – that is, the pages should not look like you have jumped to some other website – that can be very disconcerting.

Mike Cohen

[Paul Del vecchio]

Yeah I tried to pack the demo full of EVERYTHING that we offer and obviously, it doesn’t work. The idea behind it was to offer a general overview of everything we offer, then have individual samples. Maybe instead of the demo, I’ll just offer individual samples or even split the demo into 2 different demos – one for video production and one for filmmaking.

I really want to hire someone else to do the site, as I’m sure it’s not nearly as optimized for search engines and load times as it should be.

I used to use the main homepage (http://www.triple-e-productions.net) as the landing page for video production and the video production page looked similar to that, but someone told me it doesn’t look professional.

However, the site design on the main page might be questionable as well…

Any opinions on the main page (should I have stuck with that look)?

http://www.triple-e-productions.net

Paul Del Vecchio – Director
http://www.triple-e-productions.net