Movie Mania
by Heather Champ
I've always long admired movie Web sites for their innovative uses of emerging technologies. Given the medium, a movie Web site typically exists somewhere between the trailer and traditional print media, but the inherent interactivity of the Web gives it that added je ne sais quoi.Movie sites typically have two kinds of content: an area with information that relates directly to the picture itself, stills, stars, etc., and content developed directly for the web. It's these bits of content which add sizzle and create a buzz around the site.
The Mission Impossible site, unveiled for last summer's release, has a very elegant Shockwave component that replicates a retinal scan similar to that in the movie. A large eye stares at the user and then after an interim blinks. This attention to detail adds that much more, which completes the illusion.
The designers of Mars Attacks extended the kitsch metaphor with tacky canned space alien sounds, large colorful graphics, and insanely campy Shockwave games to great effect.
Movie sites may be a league or two away from perhaps more conservative, commercial applications for sites, but in looking at what others are doing with the technology, it's possible to begin to explore their full potential and find ways to use them to create new content ideas for your own site.
NOW Playing/Coming Soon on the Web
Sunday's New York Times Arts & Leisure section produced a bumper crop of URLs. The simplest of sites (not mentioned here) merely laid out the typical images of the stars doing their thing, Quicktime versions of movie trailers, etc. It's interesting to note that two of the sites have registered with Surfwatch because they contain content not recommended for young users.
Postcard racks have become popular as an easy, attractive way of spreading a brand through the Net. It's a great way for people who spend far too much time online to keep in touch with digital greeting cards. Absolute Power and Kama Sutra both incorporate postcard racks into their sites.
Cards available through Absolute Power are very straightforward, featuring the name of the movie and an image of one of the movie's stars. The Kama Sutra cards, however, are rather different than other postcard racks. There are a number of stills from the film that are then combined with a choice of romantic sentiments.
Crash opens with Surfwatch banners and warnings that the content is not recommended for underage viewers, most likely because of the more graphic and gory nature of the film. The site advertising David Cronenberg's controversial new film contains a hard-core, high-bandwidth design with an eye-catching, bold, graphic style.
The Saint is one of the first movie sites to incorporate Macromedia Flash into its design. It's easy to see why Flash is such a great application as the content downloads quickly and looks good. Although, in this site, it's used to represent an e-mail interface so it's not put to too strong a test.
It's worth a surf to the movies to check out how successfully designers can extend the metaphor. Given the endless stream of feature films and the ever-growing number of movie sites, it's a sure bet that there will always be new sites to view.
