Film on Paper - my collection

[CJ138]

Awww, shucks, thanks guys. I'm really flattered how much folks are responding positively to the site - it's made all of those hours seem worth it.

Tob: One day I might post a picture of what I had to wear when taking photos of dark posters so that my reflection didn't show up in them (we're talking black gloves, black shirt and a pair of my wife's black tights on my head!)

Ha! Did she ever walk in on you in that get up?

[CSM]

Awww, shucks, thanks guys. I'm really flattered how much folks are responding positively to the site - it's made all of those hours seem worth it.

Tob: One day I might post a picture of what I had to wear when taking photos of dark posters so that my reflection didn't show up in them (we're talking black gloves, black shirt and a pair of my wife's black tights on my head!)

You just definitely post this pic on the homepage of the website (just to further enhance your labour of love!)

[Ed_209uk]

Haha, she walked in on me, tutted, turned around and walked out. Long-suffering is a good term to use here I think

[ddilts399]

Looks great! I am motivated to put everything online now as well (at least start anyway). I like the Wordpress look and feel, and I like what I see from what it has to offer so far, but I know zero about it. I got it installed today on my hosting site and that is about as far as I have made it.

Know about 1% of php, mysql... I know SQL, but not the server administration aspect so could be fun. As long as it doesnt take me months to get the template/theme whatever the hell it is called layed out, I think I will give it a go.

[Ed_209uk]

Dale: Glad you like the site! There are a fair few from you on there, that's for sure!

I had help with a lot of the PHP stuff and I worked with a pal to wrangle the custom theme into shape. Give it a go and let us know how you get on.


I was on Chicago radio last night (my morning) talking about the site and you can listen again here: http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/nickd/wgnam-nickdshow-110601e,0,3643684.mp3file

I hope I do us poster collectors proud

[tstatum]

Just finished the first 10 min before it shut down.  So far a excellent piece.

[Zorba]

Just finished the first 10 min before it shut down.  So far a excellent piece.

Kick ass Eddie!

Listening as I type...Up to Struzan now.

The interview had too many Borats though 

Great job.

[DreamWarrior]

Late to the party on this one but count me jealous.

[erik1925]

Hi Ed,

I'm curious as to how you got all of this attention in various media outlets, such as the radio show and newspapers? Were you sending tweets and emails to anyone you could think of, in order to get the site out there in the public eye?

Generally, a person's personal web page of his/her film poster collection does not generate this kind of stir (And there are MANY in here who also have outstanding web pages in order to display their collections).

Jeff

[Ed_209uk]

tstatum, Zorba, DreamWarrior: Thanks a lot guys

Jeff: It's all to do with Twitter. I have friends (followers) who have 20x the amount of followers I do and they retweeted (shared) it again and within hours it had been seen by thousands. Folks like the author/comic book writer Warren Ellis saw it and tweeted it to his 400k followers. It's quite scary how quickly these things spread using social media sites.

I did not contact any of the sites that have written about FoP (aside from one who I've had contact with in the past) and the radio show contacted me after seeing it on one of the sites.

Am I to take it you think this is a bad thing?

[erik1925]

tstatum, Zorba, DreamWarrior: Thanks a lot guys

Jeff: It's all to do with Twitter. I have friends (followers) who have 20x the amount of followers I do and they retweeted (shared) it again and within hours it had been seen by thousands. Folks like the author/comic book writer Warren Ellis saw it and tweeted it to his 400k followers. It's quite scary how quickly these things spread using social media sites.

I did not contact any of the sites that have written about FoP (aside from one who I've had contact with in the past) and the radio show contacted me after seeing it on one of the sites.

Am I to take it you think this is a bad thing?

Not at all, Ed. As i said at the outset of my first post- I was genuinely curious how it all transpired and how the ball got rolling. I think it's great. It certainly shows the influence of tweeting. 

Jeff

[Meansheets]

Amazing work, Ed...Your WP theme is so bright and clean, it looks a Tumblr site!

Keep up the greatness!

[Tob]

Regarding the latest addition of OUATIA - Love the comparison photo of Brooklyn Bridge that you took Ed, great stuff!

[Charlie]

Hey Ed, do you take each shot or do you take one overall and then crop the rest.  I am having a hard time getting enough focus to pull the credits out individually.  I am almost disappointed to say that you have really nailed the poster organization site and I am attempting to mimic it in some way with wordpress. I am giving up the static html building. It is just too much.  I also attempted to hard code php but that just sucks too.  I love the tag features although you seem to link keywords in each post.  Did you find a way to auto link words to a search url?  I can't find this plugin...  Need to ask Dave this one too.  Auto insert link; like highlight word and click a button that auto creates a link with the text like:

http://www.filmonpaper.com/?s=Once%20Upon%20a%20Time%20In%20America&post_type=poster

Mine is much simpler for this for Donnie Darko

http://abideposters.com/blog/?s=Donnie+Darko&submit=Search

Or for example One Sheet

http://abideposters.com/blog/?s=One+Sheet&submit=Search

That way I can make a static page and simply have links that just search my posts similar to my existing web page... But do it dynamically without having to update the page...  I have only posted three while I figure this wordpress stuff out...

It's a kick ass site! You deserve all the attention you got.

-Charlie

[Ed_209uk]

Cheers Tob, I was very lucky with the light at the time I visited. The area's well worth a look when you go to NYC next.

Charlie, I take every shot individually as I found that was the only way to get the precise detail I needed. I'm afraid to say all of the links are manually done, no auto-linking at all. I search the site for what I want the link to be and then just copy and add it to the text myself. The site's built on a customised version of Wordpress FWIW.

Glad you like it

[Harry Caul]

I'll just pop in an lavish some additional praise Ed... awesome site!  I really like your blog format too.  I've been toying with the idea of putting a site together, and the thought of putting up one new poster up on occasion (giving it the full attention it deserves) is a lot less daunting than thinking of it in terms of some giant archive. 

I do wish there was a 'browse' interface though.  Could that be added based on your tags?

[Ed_209uk]

Cheers Matt. At one point I considered literally starting with one poster and just adding a new one every two days, but I decided I'd get a huge chunk of it up there in one go and then add new purchases from then on. I have a backlog, but I'm getting through them!

Can you explain what you mean by browse function? Do you mean filtering the archive by, say, decade or artist?

[Harry Caul]

Can you explain what you mean by browse function? Do you mean filtering the archive by, say, decade or artist?

Exactly.  Unless I'm missing something, the only way to look through your back catalog is either blog-style (click 'older entries' over and over) or to search on something specific.  I guess I could just search on tags, but I'm old school and usually prefer a hierarchy of some sort (country, size, decade, director, etc...).  I'm being picky, I know...

[Ed_209uk]

It's definitely something I wanted to do from the beginning but the friend who was helping me build it wasn't able to implement it for launch. I'm planning to update the site at some point this year and will make that one of the priorities. From what I understand it's not super easy to do with Wordpress, but I'm going to push for it.

[Ed_209uk]

Although, it'd be good to elaborate on the filtering...

Country would work, decade too, but then year - would it be weird for things like re-releases etc? It'd be a long drop down. The directors would also be funny as the drop down list would be massive for that, as well as the one for designers/artists.

Perhaps sticking to: country, format, decade, genre (?) would be better if I can get it implemented?

[Harry Caul]

Although, it'd be good to elaborate on the filtering...

Country would work, decade too, but then year - would it be weird for things like re-releases etc? It'd be a long drop down. The directors would also be funny as the drop down list would be massive for that, as well as the one for designers/artists.

Perhaps sticking to: country, format, decade, genre (?) would be better if I can get it implemented?

Year shouldn't be too hard.... if you do 'by decade' wouldn't there just be one to do (80s)?   

In all seriousness, even just a couple filtering options would be great.  And as long as I'm making more work for you  , you could also put some 'sort by' options to your search/browse results. 

[50s]

I am building currently a wordpress site (just the gallery part at this stage) for a dealer of mainly vintage advertising posters. Adding dropdowns was a bit tricky but I got there in the end, although the search is part of the gallery rather than the blog. It might work for a blog section. I built it around 6 months ago and the client is currently populating it with product. It is not linked to the clients proper site yet, this is just floating is cyberspace.

Ed, I love the layout of each product entry with the multiple images and also the write up you give. I can see you really love the hobby from the effort involved in preparing each blog/poster entry. Having these products as part of a product gallery rather than a blog may suit your purpose better which will make finding posters easier, but on the other hand there are great blogs out there doing this too. With a more traditional product gallery type website you can still have a daily update page like showing latest additions and also hook in a RSS feed for those preferring to get daily updates that way.

I will also shortly be putting my complete personal collection online (a new website) and am also showing many detailed thumb images, which I think really adds  to the user experience. Taking lots of close up images sure adds to the effort in putting up a new poster to the site. My site (ready maybe in a month) for better or worse doesnt use a CMS like wordpress, well it uses one but I wrote it, but that limits me to all the great plugins others have written for wordpress. But gives me lots of flexibilty to do anything I like with the site, if I only have the time to code for it.

Best of luck with your site Ed, it looks very impressive and is an enjoyable experience to visit


 

[brude]

Film on Paper kicks ass.
The anecdotal information is priceless.
Rock on, Eddie!
 

[Ed_209uk]

Harry:  I am an 80s obsessive, you're right!

50s: Thanks! I can't wait to see your collection site when it's ready.

Ted: Cheers, as always