These days, DiY filmmakers can’t really get by with just knowing the ins and outs of filmmaking – they also have to know a little about promotion as well. Where is promotion going on these days? The web of course, and your short or feature should definitely have a website to go along with it for promotional purposes. At the very least so that people can see it (if you put it up there), and at the most as a tool to sell or promote it for film festivals.

This is DiY filmmaking though, where you are going to do it yourself – so what happens if you don’t know a tech wiz and you don’t know what you’re doing? You’ve gotta learn how to do it yourself, that’s what.

So we’re writing a multi-part series on the basics of the web so you avoid some common pitfalls and fool the other guys into thinking you have a full-time web developer.

Part I is on basics, so let’s go!

Where Do I Start?

Good question. It can seem like a daunting task, but let’s start at the beginning. You need an address for them to go to, and you need something for them to see once they get there. Let’s start with that.

The Domain Name

Here’s what you need to know:

• Domain names are cheap – like $8 a year. Don’t go for one of those sites that allows you to create a site with a URL like mymovie.superfreesites.com. It’s not worth it, and the benefits of having a professional-looking domain are many. You’ll look cheap otherwise.
• Go for the .com. Other extensions are okay in a pinch, but if you can go for it, grab the .com.
• Stay away from GoDaddy. Yes, they have some sexy commercials, but I’ve literally never heard a good thing about them from pros in the web industry (for various reasons). There are better options out there.

Another important thing to remember is that the domain is not the hosting. The domain name is the name of the site – like google.com. The hosting is where the files sit. They are completely separate, and do totally different things.

Everyone has their own favorite domain registrar. Mine happens to be a site called thriftys.com. Yes, it looks like crap, but it is just a front for some service they hooked up which works well and is extremely simple to use. If you have a favorite, go for it, but Thriftys.com is one to consider.

The Hosting

Okay, great! You have the domain name. You now own www.yourmovie.com or something to that extent. Wonderful.

Now, you have to have a host to point that domain to – somewhere that holds the files that make up your website.

Good news – hosting is cheap too, although not nearly as much as domain names. One thing to remember is you often get what you pay for in web hosting. I’ve hosted for many years with Dreamhost’s ridiculously cheap service, and have experienced many outages – including email outages. This site is hosted on Media Temple’s grid service, and it works great. The site’s up right now, isn’t it?

One thing to consider is you should go with a host that allows you to host multiple domains on the same service. Some hosting companies only let you host one domain on a hosting plan, and some let you put a few on there. I always like the flexibility of a hosting plan that allows multiples – if you want to start up another site in the future, you don’t have to pay for another hosting plan. Both Media Temple and Dreamhost offer this, as do the majority of hosts. It never hurts to make sure, though.

Note: A lot of hosting companies will try to sell you domain registration when you are buying hosting. Remember – you already have your domain name!

Hooking the Two Up

Once you’ve got your domain name and hosting, they really don’t know about each other. Even if you typed in your domain name when you bought your hosting service, the two are not automatically hooked up.

You can hook them up by going ahead and hooking up the name servers. Take a look around your hosting back end (or search in their support documents) to find these. They should look something like:

ns1.yourhosting.com

ns2.yourhosting.com

Once you’ve found them, copy the first one, and go to your domain registrar. Find the option to update the name servers for your domain. Delete any existing ones, and then add in the one you just copied. Add in the rest (there should be 2-4 total), and submit the new name servers. If you get a success message, you are totally done.

Remember – the change will not happen instantly. It could happen in 5 minutes, or 5 hours, depending on where you are and where your hosting company is. Just be patient, and when you see a coming soon page from your hosting service, you will know its worked.

Set Up Your Email

Go ahead and set up your email, and make sure that there is a default email address set that forwards to yours. This way if someone tries to send an email to an address that doesn’t exist at your domain, it’ll go to you.

There are a million different ways to do this, depending on the host. They should have some good instructions on how to get this done quick and painlessly.

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That’s it for Part I. In a few days, we’ll talk about accessing the files on your server, and the best tools to quickly build a website that looks solid pro.