How to Turn WordPress Into an Entertainment Site with WP Film Studio

Do you want to build a website focused on television and movies? If so, you are going to need a reliable way to display television shows and movie trailers on your website. Enter WP Film Studio.

While you can certainly embed YouTube videos on your website, there are limitations. This plugin provides far more options that give you greater creative freedom over your website.

Not to mention that it is fully compatible with Elementor.

Today, I will demonstrate how to transform WordPress into an entertainment site with WP Film Studio.

What is An Entertainment Site?

An entertainment site is a broad term that can refer to any form of entertainment like movies, television, video games, books, or more. The goal of the website is to create interesting content based on a particular industry.

For instance, if a website was covering television shows, they might talk about upcoming releases like the second season of the Witcher. And as you might have guessed, video content is necessary on these websites.

For example, maybe you want to discuss a new movie trailer. Well, having that trailer appear on the same page would be very helpful. It also helps it get more exposure.

The more people interested in the show means more people that will be interested in your website’s content.

So there’s a very good relationship between the industry and content creator.

How to Create An Entertainment Site with WP Film Studio

Step 1: Install WP Film Studio

The WP Film Studio is all about displaying video content on your website. It allows you to build video carousels, display unlimited movie trailers, and even has a special setting for those trailers.

It’s the perfect companion tool for any website focused on movies and television shows.

More importantly, this plugin was built with Elementor in mind. By using Elementor, you’ll be able to place the elements WP Film Studio adds anywhere on a page. It gives you complete control over how your posts and pages will look.

Note: This plugin is not a studio movie maker, instead, it allows you to post information about movies and add trailers for them.

To begin, click on Plugins and select the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.

Search for WP Film Studio in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.

Scroll down until you find the WP Film Studio plugin and click on the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.

Important Note: Upon activation, you will see a warning message saying that the CMB2 plugin is required. You must also install this. It is how the plugin adds meta boxes to your website.

Step 2: Add Trailers

Once both of these plugins are installed, you are ready to start adding content, which is really simple. All you will need is the trailer URL and the plugin takes care of the rest.

On the left-hand admin panel click on WPFilm and select the Trailer option.

This is broken up into two tabs, Trailer and Categories. First, I would recommend setting up your categories, so click on the Categories tab.

This area is identical to the WordPress category section but is unique to the plugin, thus, you will not see any existing categories.

Simply add the categories your website will need. A good idea to future-proof your website is to create a category for every type of movie/show (Comedy, Drama, Action, etc.).

It might take a few minutes, but once that is done, you won’t need to make any additions.

Note: The categories for trailers are separate from movies.

With that out of the way, click on the Trailer tab. Then click on the “Add New” button.

It doesn’t get any easier than this section. All you need to do is enter a title (use the name of the trailer), the trailer URL, and the duration of it. Click on the “Publish” button to finish.

Add as many trailers as you want to the plugin, there is no limit.

Step 3: Add Movies

As a WordPress movie plugin, it also has a dedicated section for movies. The reason I didn’t start with it is that you can link the trailers to their respective movies. Thus, you would create extra work if you set up the movies first.

Click on the Movie option.

This time, there are three tabs, Movie, Categories, and Tags. The categories section is identical to the trailer section, but it is a separate list. Thus, you will need to reenter the categories you need. Tags are identical as well, but for tags.

In the Movie tab, click on the “Add New” button.

Here you can add a title (use the movie name) and a description. Scrolling down you will find the Movie Option section. This allows you to enter more information including a movie banner image, the publish date (release date), and movie duration.

You can also attach a trailer to the movie by using the drop-down, assuming you added one in the previous step.

Once you fill out all of the information, click on the “Publish” button. At this point, all you need to do is keep adding movies. You can edit any movies to add in case new information is released like a new trailer or if the release date has changed.

Step 4: WP Film Options

There are also some general settings you might want to customize. Click on WP Film Options to find them.

There are two tabs: Settings and Pro Themes. The settings section consists of basic settings that you can configure like the label used for the trailer name.

By default it’s “TRAILER NAME:” so you might want to change that to something a little less generic, or just not have it in all caps.

Other options include a theme color to help it blend in with your theme, which is a great segway into the Pro Themes tab. There’s nothing actually in this section to configure.

Instead, it’s just advertising the Film Studio WP theme for WordPress, but all themes will work with the plugin.

Note: The link to the theme inside of the plugin is broken. Hopefully, the plugin creator fixes it in the next update.

Once you are done, click on the “Save Settings” button.

You might have noticed a Campaign section. This is to help organize events at physical locations, which will only apply to very few websites.

For instance, you could build a campaign to watch the first movie in a series before the next one comes out (like what many people did for Avengers: Endgame).

The section is pretty straightforward, so if it applies, or you find another use, feel free to go through it. Otherwise, congratulations on setting up the WP Fils Studio plugin.

Make Sure To Inlcude Your Own Content

One of the biggest mistakes new entertainment websites make is relying on entertainment to carry them. Let’s face it, if people want to watch a movie trailer, they probably will on YouTube.

It’s not enough to just include the trailer.

Instead, you need to combine it with your own content. Include trailer/movie breakdowns or discussions. It makes a more unique experience that will bring in visitors. That said, competition is fierce, so make sure it’s quality content.

How easy did you find the WP Film Studio plugin as a content maker? What kind of content do you plan to pair with it?

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