The relaunch of TheKnowledgeOnline.com
What do you want from The Knowledge website? If you’re like most film and TV people you’ll rate comprehensive, up-to-date information highest.
But like a lot of users, I expect you’ll want much more. We know this because before redeveloping The Knowledge website we asked thousands of you what you wanted from the website, and how you used it.
You told us that The Knowledge is mostly used during pre-production to find accurate contact information on companies and crew – some you know, some you don’t. Many of you like seeing credits to help shortlist suppliers – a cue for us to beef up the credits and so now you’ll find more than ever. We’ve also expanded the information you can find on suppliers – with maps and social media links being newly added.
We also learned that suppliers in the industry are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the way they market themselves. Our new Knowledge profiles help companies and crew have more in-depth dialogue with buyers – and in many entries now you’ll find their latest tweets, up-to-date news, showreels and photo galleries.
Suppliers also told us that they really wanted to contact buyers when decisions were being made. This gave us the idea to launch Production Intelligence – a great new way for suppliers to stay in touch with production companies. If you’re chatting to a line producer conversations will be more fruitful knowing what they’ve worked on and what they’ll be doing in the future.
And for commissioning editors researching which production company to use, Production Intelligence is a great way to shortlist who’s best for the job because they can research their recent productions and who they’ve worked with.
Thank you to all of you who responded to our online survey, and the many people that came to our focus groups in Pinewood, Shepperton and Soho.
Launched 30 years ago, the original print version of The Knowledge stood out with its unusual wire binding and beautiful cover imagery. And it soon gained a reputation for high data quality. We don’t have the wire binding any more, but we hope you’ll agree that the new Knowledge website continues the legacy of high quality production data and an easy-on-the-eye design.
Just like the production industry, The Knowledge will continue to evolve. We’re already thinking about some exciting developments for next year. And once again, we’re interested to know what you think. Please do drop me a line on what you like and what you’d change – it would be great to know what you think.
Doug Marshall,
Publishing Director
