Website Investigation

The investigations that I completed on the different film websites have helped me determine what website themes are common to certain genres as well as to draw inspiration from existing websites when creating my own. I completed this investigation of movie websites on the films 'Cheaper by the Dozen' , 'The Uninvited' and 'The Revolutionary Road'. These three films are very different genres and certain similarities and differences are visible when looking at their websites.   

Cheaper By The Dozen is a good example of a movie for children. It is a light comedic film about family and the website is very similar to this. There is a large image of a goofy looking Steve Martin with a wallet, with wallet photos cascading to the floor. Next to the different characters, there is the name of the actor who played that character. The title of the film is in large bold type in the right/middle of the screen. There is a link which will make a trailer pop up and there is lots of white space. The website is white with lots of colours and without seeing the film or trailer, one gets the impression that it is a comedy about family which is exactly what it is. 

The Uninvited is a scary, horror film about a girl who believes that her dads new girlfriend is a murder. The website for this film is the complete opposite to that of Cheaper By The Dozen. Instead of white space, there is black space. There is a central image of the lead actress, Emily Browning, looking a little scared and not knowing what is going to happen. All writing shown is in a mysterious kind of font, almost dripping, creating the illusion that it is blood. In teh right hand corner there is a trailer, but it is obvious just from looking at the site that it is a horro film even before the trailer begins. Only black and white are used so there is no colour. Even the image of the main actress is dark and spooky. There are links to more information such as bios of the characters, the gallery and how to purchase the film. As it is a flash website, each new page requires loading and after loading is always an extremely short scary segment of the film.

The website for the movie Revolutionary Road is different again. It is a serious drama/romance about a young couple who reach a crossroads in their life and decide to break out of their normal life and do something different. Their relationship is tested and the movie is serious with a little romance. The website for the film shows this and the colour scheme for the film is white and brown. Just from seeing the websites home page, it is obvious that it is not a horror movie or a fun family film. There is a large image of the two leading actors, Leonardo De Capri and Kate Winslet sitting together, both smiling. They look happy and once again, the trailer is shown on the right side. On the bottom of the page are links about how to purchase the film, visit the gallery etc. There are images on the website from the film, but having actually watched the movie, I feel that the vibe of the film is very different to that of the website for it. The film is much more serious an dark than the website makes it appears.

All three of these websites are very different from one another. The 'Cheaper by the Dozen' website is full of colour, 'The Uninvited' is scary and dark, with black being the dominant colour. The website for 'Revolutionary Road' is different again, having a romantic, serious vibe. Even though the three websites are so different, the layout of the websites was all very similar. All contained a trailer for the movie, lots of images, and links to the same other areas of the website such as a gallery, film information and character bios.