Where he was
Craig is a novelist, a screenwriter and a filmmaker, and his site said none of that. He had built it himself on a template. It listed the books, tacked the essays on at the bottom and had nowhere to put the films at all.
He knew exactly what he wanted it to feel like. An art book. Quiet architecture, with his own work providing the colour. He just could not get it out of his head and onto the screen.
What we built
A site that opens on his own footage. Each visit plays a different film in the hero, silent until you ask for sound. Sections turn like the page of a book.
Every novel has its own page, with a jacket cut from one of his paintings. Every film has a page with the trailer, the festival laurels and the story behind it. The essays pull straight from his newsletter and update themselves every week without him touching anything.
Then the part he did not expect: a plain English editor, built just for him. He logs in, changes a page, hits publish, and it goes live. No developer, no ticket, no waiting. There is a manual inside it, written in his language, not ours.
How it went
He sent one round of notes. We shipped them the same day. He sent a second, and we shipped those the same day too. It went live a few weeks after the brief and he has been running it himself ever since.
