| Art
Within Receives Major Gift to Redesign Website and Launch
Producer/Writer Database
by
Laura McGowan
Moving
ever-closer to its vision of serving as a “watering hole”
between writers and producers, Art Within continues to make
great strides through events like the recent Symposium and
Showcase. Art
Within will take one more major step toward its vision this
year when it undergoes a major content upgrade to its website.
Thanks to financial support from an Art Within patron,
before the end of the year, the organization plans to add an
on-line script and writer database that will be accessible and
searchable to producers all over the world.
“I’ve
always envisioned launching a website for writers and
producers that is something like a cross between Amazon and
E-bay,” says Art Within’s artistic director, Bryan Coley,
“The site will ideally contain an inventory of writers and
their works that is searchable like Amazon, and will hopefully
make a connection between someone who has a product and
someone searching for that product, similar to E-bay.”
 The
first phase of this vision was demonstrated at the Symposium
and Showcase welcome dinner and then a formal “user feedback
forum” was conducted as a part of the symposium, allowing
Art Within to assess how such an on-line database could be of
value to producers and writers alike.
The
addition of the script database is just one part of Art
Within’s overhaul of its existing website.
The redesign of artwithin.org will reflect Art
Within’s shift from a theatrical production company to a
media and arts company specializing in launching and
developing scripts for stage and screen.
“We’ve
felt for a long time that 70% of the exciting work we do is
buried in the current website,” explains Brent Sweitzer,
project manager of the redesign. “The new site will, in a
simple manner, reflect the balance of developing, producing
and distributing scripts that is a part of Art Within’s
mission.” Sweitzer
claims that the site will be more “project-oriented”
versus “production-oriented.”
As for the
on-line script database, Art Within believes there are
multiple reasons to believe it will stand out among the number
of sites that already exist for posting script summaries.
The first—and perhaps most obvious—reason is the
uniqueness of a site devoted to blending faith and
scriptwriting.
Second,
similar to Amazon, the site will allow producers or fellow
artists to actually evaluate scripts online through written
comments, making a producers search for a quality writer much
simpler. Art
Within’s creative team will also evaluate scripts, lending
its “stamp of approval” to recommended works.
Finally, writers and producers will be able to write
extensive profiles on themselves so this on-line “watering
hole” has names and faces associated with it.
An
additional side benefit of the script database is solving an
internal workflow issue for Art Within, since the organization
will now be able to have writers create profiles on themselves
and their work. This
function will eliminate an administrative function that
currently has Art Within’s staff spending numerous hours per
month entering this information manually.
In addition, Art Within will be able to utilize the
uploading of scripts and on-line evaluation pieces of the
database to extend their script readers outside Atlanta.
“This is
an incredible step forward for Art Within, both internally and
externally,” says Coley. “It creates an on-line presence
that matches our real life passion for connecting writers and
producers, while making our script evaluation process more
efficient.”
As a result
of the user forum at the symposium, the second phase of the
website content upgrade is already being planned for early
2005.
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