It’s time once again for a Mad Dog Movies re-design. Lately, I’ve been a bit tired of the Sliding Door effect for my top links… plus it doesn’t behave well with the latest WordPress iterations. So… on with the new!
How has my site changed over the years? Here’s a brief history.
2001: THE HAND
Before I ever bought maddogmovies.com or even mikeboas.com, I had a free site hosted on Tripod. I was trying to share my resume, so to that end I created a Flash “interactive resume.” Cute, eh? The Animation Scoop was a cartoon news blog idea that I never did more than a dozen posts for.
2004: MIKE BOAS SITE
After getting fed up with pop-up ads at Tripod, I moved over to another free host. Not surprisingly, service there was intermittent. Eventually, I moved my personal site to Cyberpixels.com, where I bought legit domain names. The site itself had a spooky sci-fi theme, with sounds and music borrowed from The Outer Limits and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The design of these bio pages went unchanged until I re-organized the site in 2009. (This snapshot is from 2007.)
2004: THE LANDING PAGE
At this point, Mad Dog Movies was the name I gave to my network of sites. The bio site stood on its own, and the Mad Dog Blog was a third entity.
2005: THE SMORGASBORD
As I created more websites and cartoons, the landing page became more and more crowded. I won’t get into it here, but Almost A Movie, Subterranea, and Ominous Events also went through a few versions over the years. Oh, and those references to the Cinematic Almanac? That site encompassed a half dozen articles I felt (at the time) should stand on their own. I later moved them into the blog.
2006: EL BLOGGO DEL PERRO LOCO
Meanwhile, the blog continued. Cyberpixels became unreliable in 2005, so I moved everything over to Hostgator, where I continue to reside today. Early on, I chose the B2Evolution blog software. A sort of competitor to WordPress, Blogger, and Moveable Type, it later made me crazy.
2008: Brightcove
At some point, I wanted to put more video on the landing page. Brightcove was a cool Flash player that allowed me to do that. Until they discontinued their free service, that is. After that, I made due with a Youtube playlist for a while.
2008-2009: CHANGING HAIR
Over on the B2Evolution blog, I made some significant changes. Unfortunately, I don’t have screen caps from that time, but I do have this selection of vanity headers showcasing my various haircuts.
2009: WordPress
In December of 2009, I bit the bullet and migrated from B2Evolution to WordPress. There was some angst involved, as I didn’t want to lose all my old posts, but I managed to keep everything intact. I also took this opportunity to combine the bio site, the blog, and the Mad Dog Movies identity all into one. The Atahualpa theme lasted a week or two, and then I created something crazy…
2009: DARK RED SLIDING DOORS
There was something about the “Sliding Doors” theme I liked. It had javascript-powered sliding banner links at the top of the page. But there were other design elements in the “Dark Red” theme that I wanted, also. So I combined the two — which was fine for a year or so. Eventually, WordPress updates (and the lack of updates in both Sliding Doors and Dark Red) necessitated another change.
2011: PAGELINES IN PROGRESS
I burned through a ton of test themes in the last few days. I landed on one called “Platform” from Pagelines which has a great interface for making changes. I rarely want something straight out of the box, and I need to make changes to colors, fonts, backgrounds, and column widths. Platform lets me do most of that without hard coding. Here’s what it looked like yesterday.
2011: CURRENT
And today I’ve brought in my current logo and scratchy paper look. I’d like to tighten the spacing a bit (mostly in the sidebar) but it’s pretty satisfactory. Pagelines offers pro versions of their themes, so I might consider upgrading.
It’s about time for a run-down of my current projects.
AIRPORT SHENANIGANS
To begin with, I’ve been fielding comments from family and friends who’ve seen my face on giant screens at the airport. No, it’s not security related, it’s a short movie called Virgin Fang written and directed by Mike Russo. (I play Draculess, the Woody Allen of vampires. ) It’s part of a media showcase put together by the Rochester/Finger Lakes Film and Video Office to showcase local productions.
ANIMATUS STUDIO
Over at Animatus, our big project in 2010 was dancing cats for Wegmans’ Buju & Ziggie cat food. More recently, Fred, Dave, and I worked with a group of Rochester teens to animate a music video about teen pregnancy and STD’s.
SECRET ANIMATED SHORT
I’m contributing animation, drawings, and random textures to a mixed media film that Frank Kielar is directing. I’d say more, but we’re keeping it quiet for now.
ROCHESTER MOVIEMAKERS WRITERS WORKSHOP
As a challenge to myself, I take part in the RMM Writers Workshop. I’ve written a few shorts in the past couple months, based on elements chosen at random. The “talking fish, lemon, argument in a laundromat” script was particularly fun.
MIND RIP
The Philrose horror feature Mind Rip is still cranking along. We held some auditions (more to come) for upcoming shoots. We’re also designing and making creatures, plus planning a Kickstarter campaign to raise some art department funds.
POPCORN
I’m contributing website stuff and moral support to the Bells On Productions DVD release of Popcorn. It’s a personal favorite of Kristy Jett, Horror Queen of the Internet and Fright Rags huckster. She’s tracking down video elements and producing a behind the scenes documentary.
MERRY-GO-ROUND / 3.14
Back in the fall, I crewed on this feature from writer/director Gregory Gotham Smith. (It was once called Merry-Go-Round, now the name is changing to 3.14.) Now I’m editing, assembling the footage before continuing with the second half of the shoot — a week in the California desert later this year.
360 | 365
And then I go home at night and watch short films, trying to decide what we’ll screen at the 360 | 365 George Eastman House Film Festival at the end of April.
THE INTERROGATION
When will I get the chance to do my own Lunchbox short? I’ll have to squeeze that shoot in soon, then get to work animating the monster character.
Is that all? Certainly it’s enough for now. Stay tuned for news of my impending bout with exhaustion.
Last week’s beige and gray design has been kicked aside like a tumbleweed. Now we have something simple, yet striking. It’s got the black and red and white scheme I’m so fond of, but the really special bit is the header. The sliding images which make up the menu can take visitors to any section or sub-site in the Mad Dog Movies Universe (TM).
Let me know what you think. Too many choices? Too few words of explanation? I’m trying to streamline this baby, not confuse people.
-M
I’ve created a monster! I’ve stitched the Mike Boas blog back into the front page of Mad Dog Movies. The theme is most likely temporary, a work in progress. I’d like the video player to be prominent, but using Vimeo has its drawbacks. No iPhone support, for example.
There was a time when I wanted to keep my personal blog separate from the MDM business, but what the heck. I AM Mad Dog Movies, after all, no sense hiding it. My tendency is to compartmentalize my work into categories: Subterranea, Animatus, Philrose, and other projects. I’ve heard from people that my content is too spread out and hard to follow. This is the first step in consolidation.
Next is to update the Mad Dog Movies Podcast site to match this one. (Maybe do some new episodes, too. What a novel idea!)
I’m still on the fence about merging the Subterranea site. I at least should post links here whenever something goes live there.
Still looking for that perfect gift for your weird friend or relative? Today I’m launching the Mad Dog Movies Emporium, a video store powered by Amazon.com.
Anyone can recommend something popular like Harry Potter or Star Wars, so I’m instead singling out movies made by people I know. I’ll also be highlighting niche interests like adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft.
There will be new sections added in the future — I’m already contemplating a “so bad it’s good” category — but there’s dozens of films there right now.
Check it out. Remember, Amazon pays me a few pennies per purchase! Oh, the exciting world of internet sales…
Visit the Emporium at http://maddogmovies.com/emporium
(Special thanks to the people of Facebook, who helped me pick a name.)
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