And What Does a Win Mean To My Company -- JT eDesigns?

Worldfest-Houston is one of the oldest and largest International Film Festivals. This year, for their 44th Annual Event, they had over 25 nations participate, and well over 700 film makers and networks submit films, shorts, digital media, documentaries, and other types of works. This film festival also accepts website submissions as part of their new media / digital media category. Most film makers and many networks submit literally dozens of entries each. Past winners in film include Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, The Coen Brothers, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, George Lucas,  John Boorman, Michael Cimino, John Sayles, Brian de Palma, David Lynch and more. Networks include PBS, ABC, TBS, Smithsonian Network, NBC, CBS, Discovery/History Networks, and many too numerous to mention. All said and done there are literally thousands of entries each year. Some of the largest web design studios, who have several people assigned to design and develop each of their website submissions, also had hundreds of website entries for this year’s festival.

The highest award for excellence in film and design is the Platinum REMI Award. JT eDesigns won a Platinum REMI award in Digital Design/Website Design for The Radicals Movie website, based on the film of the same name. This website was made possible when the Producer, Robert Nowotny, actor Norbert Weisser, as well as many of the other actors and crew submitted personal anecdotes and experiences, production notes, behind the scene photos, bios and headshots to be used in the website. I completed the website with extensive research about the actual story the film was based upon, and in-depth research about the real historical characters in the film – all radical reformers who lived in the early 1520’s in Europe, and who were up against the powerful Catholic church who tried to crush -- and kill -- them. This website is also widely used by university students for research on the Reformation period in the early 1520s.

JT eDesigns also won a Silver REMI Award for a website based on a Western film, Riders of the Purple Sage, a 1996 Ed Harris and Amy Madigan production directed by Charles Haid. The film starred Ed and Amy as the gunman Lassiter and the rich cattle and land heiress Jane Withersteen in the lead roles respectively. Riders of the Purple Sage is a classic and definitive Western novel by Zane Grey. Ed Harris and Amy Madigan spent over ten years working on this film project, and finally were able to bring it to the screen in 1996 as a TNT Special Television Event. Norbert Weisser, who starred as the evil Deacon Tull in the film, provided behind the scenes photos, location photos and cast and crew photos, along with the official press kit from TNT Network which included Production Notes and extensive background information on the film – all which was used in the development of this website.

Next year:
The Incident Movie, a Joseph Sargent (multi-award winning director) movie starring Walter Matthau, Harry Morgan, Peter Firth, William Schallert and Norbert Weisser – the story of German POWs in America during WWII. This website has incredible location and behind the scenes photos submitted by an extra in the film, Brent Berry who is professional artist and photographer. The website goes beyond the film and has an extensively researched section on the actual German POWs who were held in America from 1942 until 1945. There were camps in almost every state, sometimes dozens of them, with some of the camps having a POW population as high as 6,000 prisoners – over 450,000 prisoners nation-wide by 1944-45.  Additionally, a new website will be submitted based on another film: Android, a science fiction movie written by and starring Don Opper as Android Max404. This movie also stars Klaus Kinski, Brie Howard and Norbert Weisser. Don Opper and Norbert Weisser are providing materials for me  -- I am in the very early development stages of this website, with no go-live date yet.