Since 1997, Imagine’s publisher Carol Patton has campaigned tirelessly for the New England film and media production community both at the state house and at international media conventions. What started out as a community newsletter has been developed into a full magazine with a staff of writers and contributors for articles about all aspects of the industry.

As a former New England IATSE member (and married to a current member) Imagine News was a project that I felt a strong community connection with. Since one of the challenges we as New England crew deal with is our visibility, the main focus of the site overhaul was to incorporate a self-maintaining mechanism to keep its Production Guide section continually updated.

By connection forms created with Gravity Forms to a feed to a custom post generator as well as Paypal, Jenn’s Web was able to provide a solution that streamlined the production guide listing process for the film community. The system is also flexible enough to add entries by hand if needed, or edit ones that are preexisting.

The site was built on the ColorNews theme. Designed to showcase news by category, the theme featured a slider that was used to feature the latest posts on a blog. Jenn’s Web also utilized the Smart Slider plugin for the top of the home page to feature banner ads by advertising sponsors and community wide calls to action. Using a widget system, the home page could be turned into a “What’s New” section with the latest Letter from the Publisher and About this Issue blurbs.