My 2012 in Review: Josh
What should I talk about when writing about events that happened over this passing year? This is something that I have contemplated so much that I have risked missing my deadline. VCinema began its life as a podcast in which Jon and myself were to discuss our cinematic interests. At the time, we were going to cover a wide spectrum of cult cinema and film oddities. However, we both quickly realized that our “specialties” lie in the Asian film market, which was a podcast topic to which a few shows were specifically dedicated. Skip forward a couple of years and VCinema has grown exponentially. The podcast begot a website and the website has helped completely change what “VCinema” is. With that in mind, I see it more fitting to discuss elements from my own personal 2012 experience and not necessarily listing out individual movies.
I suppose the biggest accomplishment that I had with VCinema during this past year was the redesign of the website. For those who don’t know, VCinema runs off of WordPress, and changing out themes can be a very easy process – or it can be a long, painful, and arduous one. For us, it was certainly more of the latter than the former. I am unable to correctly recall exactly when our plans for the website began, but it seems as if we worked on it for the entirety of this year. The majority of that time was spent discussing ideas and trying out various themes to find what worked and what did not. With one theme, VCinema almost went into a highly complex and very advanced looking page that was based off of the mechanisms behind a gaming website. This theme had a great deal of panache and was certainly visually impressive. I had even completely skinned the theme and supplied entirely new graphics. Yet, when Jon and I started to discuss the issue, we decided that it didn’t really fit the VCinema mold. Ultimately, after another month of searching, we stumbled upon the current theme that we are now using. However, the job wasn’t over at that point (editor’s note: As of January 2013, it still isn’t!). The next couple of months revolved around Jon and I having daily Facebook discussions about tweaking out both the graphics and the features. In the end, the result was a trimmed down version of the site that hopefully comes across as less cluttered and more functional. I’ll let the readers determine if this is true, but for now, I’m hoping that 2013 won’t include another painfully drawn out search for another perfect theme!
About The Author
Josh Samford
Josh Samford, co-host of the VCinema podcast, web wonder boy, graphics guru, and blog contributor, lived a much more traditional life in south-eastern Louisiana. Fighting off vicious man-eating crocodiles and venomous snakes on a daily basis when he ventured out into the sunlight, he spent the better part of his upbringing in front of the picture box. This is where he learned and began his obsession with horror cinema. A diet of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street during his formative years would help establish that love for horror, until his introduction to the internet where a free-reign circus of cinematic delights would then be open for his exploration. Where in Louisiana the name Lucio Fulci is unknown and foreign, through the internet Josh was able to discover an infinite number of obscure but brilliant filmmakers to quench his thirst for knowledge. Josh has been the head-writer and owner of his website Varied Celluloid since 2003, where he writes on a weekly/biweekly basis about various genre films.