First and foremost, I hope you’re enjoying The Olive Branch Review. If you’re one of our writers – thank you for all of the work you’ve been doing, if you’re one of our readers – thank you for reading, and if you’re a reader who’s on the fence about joining our team – well I hope you choose the path that will make you happiest.
Well, that’s enough vamping. Today, I want to write about my journey in getting comfortable with trying once again to create a website. For those of you who don’t know, and I suspect that will be many of you, this is my third attempt at creating a dynamic and interactive website. Although this site’s predecessors always ended unceremoniously, I was able to learn something every time.
Despite not being branded as such, this current site is actually The New Olive Branch Review. Created in the Summer of ’18, this website’s namesake was the direct result of an abundance of angst and free time. With my final year of college quickly approaching, I was having a daily existential crisis about the nature of my adulthood. That summer, I was working on two political campaigns. The first, a congressional campaign, allowed me to travel from town to town in Western New York. The second, a county judge campaign, forced me to walk on foot for about eight hours a day in the August sun. Although I disliked both jobs, it’s fair to say that I held much more acute sentiments for one over the other. By the end of the summer, I quit the judge campaign and drastically reduced my hours in the congressional one.
Olive Branch Productions
And, as I eluded to, with an excess of time and dread, I created a website. Well actually, I tried creating a video production studio. After a full day of brand brainstorming that I will never get back, Olive Branch Productions was born. Existing in a nebulous space of uncertain purpose, OBP set out to do it all. We were going to make short films, video blogs, develop scripts, and maybe even a feature length amateur film.
By the end of OBP’s short life, we did end up editing a short film that had been released years earlier, produced a singular YouTube video reviewing Ari Aster’s “Hereditary”, and brainstormed a series of ideas for a feature length film. As we were having conversations about taking this production company off life-support, we decided that the least we could do is do some basic marketing before calling it quits. After a failed guerilla ad campaign that pretty much just consisted of placing flyers wherever we could, olivebranchproductions.com was created.
A fairly straightforward website, the homepage explained what we did and the about us page had little bios for our three person team. However, when looking at the site, something about it felt incomplete. It felt too bare bones; too naked. So I spent another long day of brainstorming. If only time were a thing I could put in the bank and save for later. Looking at the bio of our team members, I wanted something concrete users could look at to get to know us better. In reflecting on the Hereditary review, video blogs were almost instantly ruled out. The actual act of reviewing that dumpster fire of a movie was quite enjoyable, but writing, recording, and editing a nine minute video was just too time consuming. And so without much fanfare, olivebranchreviews.com was born.
olivebranchreviews.com
Now, the hyper-observant might notice that they are not currently on “olivebranchreviews.com”. Well, this time around I dropped the “s”. It’s cleaner. I actually did also own this current domain at that time as well but for whatever reason settled on the alternative URL. Who knows why we do what we do. Anyway, with a clearer vision in mind than I ever had before, I got to work on this supplemental website for a production company that was all but defunct. At no point did I realize that if I thought editing YouTube videos was too exhausting, then maybe OBP should be laid to rest.
If I remember correctly, I first hosted the website on GoDaddy.com. Being a product of my time, I was unabashedly influenced to use their service because of a fifteen year old Super Bowl commercial. They were a good enough service for web building, if I remember correctly, however, I often felt frustrated with how limiting their themes were. By this time I had a few CS courses under my belt, but I wasn’t really familiar with web dev/design. However, by that time – and even more so now – there were tools out there to make web building much more accessible. Ultimately, it would take me about two months until olivebranchreviews.com became something I was ready to send out for the world to see.
The Original Olive Branch Review: Gone but not Forgotten
Although I didn’t really bury the lede and I’m obviously not posting this to a dead URL, there eventually came a day when The Olive Branch Review ceased to exist. I can’t quite place when or why I decided to abandon both OBP and olivebranchreviews. Before pulling the plug, we had a handful of contributors and pretty consistent updates. Articles were being read all over the world, though admittedly in small numbers.
But I suppose that is just the journey things take sometimes. As my final year of college progressed, I became bogged down in the regularness of life. Paths were being charted and loose ends tied up. I don’t regret creating olivebranchreviews.com by any means. That little website gave me a taste of web building, which has now become one of my preferred hobbies. Pretty much every year since The Olive Branch Review has shut down, I have created a new website in some capacity. My goal in the near future is to write about my other major failed venture, The Writer Bloc.
Anyway, all of this is to say, thanks to The Original Olive Branch Review, I have gotten pretty comfortable with trying again. I know I just called it a failed venture, but I don’t actually think of that website as a failure. It’s origins were kind of odd and poorly planned but at it’s root, I think it was nice little website, which is why in large part I brought the name back this time around. Frankly, this website wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for The Olive Branch Review.