Two Notre Dame freshmen launch successful Website from their dorms
By MATT NANIA
Assistant Scene Editor
Recently launched by two Notre Dame students, the all-new Film Junkies Website (www.film-junkies.net) is the ideal place for movie buffs.
Brian Scofield and Brian Bircher, two freshmen living in Siegfried Hall, founded Film Junkies in February with the hopes of launching it by the end of the semester. Their goal with Film Junkies is to give the site's viewers the best movie news, reviews and entertaining commentary on the Internet.
Scofield, the site's Webmaster, has ample experience creating Web pages, owning his own Web design company: Synapse Web Design (www.synapse-web.com). Founded in August of 1997 in Scofield's hometown of Austin, Texas, Synapse makes high quality, professional Websites for smaller companies that can't afford the Web design fees that other, big-time designers require.
"After officially registering and starting the business, I put up a sign in my dad's office, got a couple offers and word began to spread," Scofield said. Working on these company sites gave Scofield the experience he needed to undertake Film Junkies, as well as his Write Place Website (www.synapse-web.com/writer), a Website where young authors can share their work with others.
Bircher, whose hometown is Rochester, NY, is a huge movie fan thanks to his friends.
"My friends at home are really big movie fanatics and I kind of got sucked in," Bircher said.
When he and Scofield met at Notre Dame, they soon realized their mutual admiration for films.
"When I found out Brian had a lot of experience with designing Webpages, I thought that maybe we could do our own movie site," Bircher said.
With the Web already jam-packed with movie sites, how was Film Junkies going to stand out from the crowd?
"Well," explains Scofield, "we saw all kinds of movie Websites focusing too much on upcoming movies and not enough on discussing the films themselves, after they came out. None of them were discussing the statements the films were making right now."
"The Internet is an enormous public forum," Scofield said. "We wanted to create a place where film buffs could find other people who love movies and discuss the art of film with them."
Indeed, most movie sites on the Internet focus only on unconfirmed rumors and movie news and even fewer offer qualified reviews. Film Junkies, however, offers commentary on both recent releases and past films.
Supplied by the site's contributing writers, which include Scofield, Bircher and Matt Wetzler (Scofield's good friend and co-worker from back home), Film Junkies' reviews are valuable tools for deciding whether to see a film or even just to see how opinions can differ.
"We want to entertain people with all types of articles," Scofield said.
That's where Film Junkies "Ramblings" come in.
"If Film Junkies was a newspaper, the ramblings would be our editorials," Scofield said. Ramblings are free-form articles about anything movie related. For example, Scofield "rambled" on about how he bought "The Shawshank Redemption" DVD for only $1.99. Every movie fan (heck, every college student) wants to get DVDs cheap. And Film Junkies can help.
"I figure, why not share any DVD shopping know-how that I have with others like me," Scofield said. If the article gets popular enough, he intends to make it a permanent feature.
Further illustrating the site's goal of providing its readers with helpful information, Bircher put forth a Ramble on the upcoming summer movie season.
"I just wanted to give people a head-start on what was coming out. There's a lot of movies to see, and I wanted to give my opinion on what look to be the biggest movies of the summer," Bircher said.
Such useful articles are what separate Film Junkies from other movie sites.
Aiming not only to entertain its readers with interesting articles and humorous features, the site, which claims it has got "enough cool movie stuff to pull the ears off a Gundark" (a Star Wars reference), also wants to inform people.
"We spout out about whatever we feel needs to be said," said Scofield. Readers can expect discussions on numerous film-related topics, from casting news to articles explaining the pits and falls of DVDs and Laserdiscs.
Film Junkies also gives its readers a chance to express their own opinions.
"If someone has something they'd like to share with the film community," says Scofield, "we can post their ramble in addition to our own."
Readers can submit their thoughts via e-mail or they can post them on the Film Junkies Forums, which are message boards tailored around various movie topics.
Above all, Film Junkies is a place for people who love movies.
As Scofield explained it, "The Internet is already the biggest movie club in the world. We want to bring it together into a new kind of community. We want everybody to be part of it. It's not just for people who love summer blockbusters, it's also for people who love film as an art form."
Striving to attract a large audience, Film Junkies promises an enjoyable, informative visit: "We're working really hard to appeal to people with different tastes while staying true to our own ideas. It's frustrating at times, but it really is a labor of love," Scofield said.
Scofield and company are planning on supporting the site and its expansion (an extensive movie trailers section is underway) through paid advertising.
Running a large-scale Website is no small undertaking. Scofield and his writers are devoting a great deal of their free time to keeping the site current and up-to-date with all the latest news and reviews. And, with the summer movie season just around the corner, they're not letting up any time soon.
"The summer is a very exciting time for any movie fan, and it'll be an exciting time for the site as well," said Bircher. "And since we won't have to worry about classes anymore, we can devote more time to seeing and reviewing the movies that are coming out then."
Looking towards the future, Scofield admits that he's not expecting Amazon.com-like popularity.
"We know our limits; we won't become the largest movie site on the planet. But we have things to say and we want to hear what other people have to say too," Scofield said.
When asked what films they were looking forward to this summer, Scofield and Bircher agreed:
"As far as main stream movies go, `Gladiator' [a Roman-soldier epic starring Russell Crowe] and `The Patriot' [a Revolutionary War drama starring Mel Gibson]. Those will be the ones to beat this summer,"said Bircher.
If the site's hit count is any indication; the same can be said for Film Junkies. Said Scofield, "We've got a strong following already and it's only going to get bigger. We're all really looking forward to the site's future. It's going to be a lot of fun."
All Scene Stories for Thursday, April 27, 2000
