HollywoodEastConnection.com: The Hub of Boston’s Entertainment Pulse

The above video features a few of Boston’s most famous landmarks, and their role in some of the newest Hollywood movies being produced around here. Boston has earned a well-deserved nickname of “Hollywood East” in recent years due to the sharp increase in film and TV productions happening around here as a result of generous tax breaks given to production companies.

Career coach Christine Tello-Lorenz founded HollywoodEastConnection.com back in 2009 as a reaction to Boston’s burgeoning entertainment industry. The website is primarily a blog, with an intensive focus on happenings in both mainstream and independent film production in Boston and the New England area. The site also functions as a one-stop resource for aspiring entertainment professionals to find a multitude of production companies, casting agencies, and other organizations on the site’s “career scene” page.

Many of the posts on HollywoodEastConnection have a magazine-style quality to them, such as this recent Q&A with local filmmaker Kathleen Fitzgerald. They also occasionally post an original video story, such as this exclusive profile piece on local media company Mass. Movie Mavens.

People who have a film to distribute- or just enjoy watching the work of local independent filmmakers- will find a comprehensive list of film festivals all over New England. Another comprehensive list is the one of every film ever shot at least partially in New England, which goes all the way back to the silent movie era.

An important question to ask about a site like this is: how journalistic is it? Entertainment-focused sites are usually either borderline journalism or pure entertainment. HollywoodEastConnection is more journalistic than, say, TMZ. It’s not a gossip site, although it does keep us updated with what’s going on in the lives and careers of New England-born celebrities such as Conan O’Brien and Matt Damon. But as far as pure news stories are concerned, they are relatively hard to find.

One big news story involving the entertainment industry is the state’s attempts to cut back on the tax breaks given to production companies, which would significantly reduce the amount of productions taking place in Mass. and all over New England. A rollback would also severely hurt the chances of a movie studio being built in Plymouth, Mass., a building whose construction has now been in limbo for years. They recently covered the ongoing story here.

Of the things HollywoodEastConnection can improve, its overall design is the most noticeable. It’s very blocky-looking, and not very streamlined. All the graphics seem sort of pasted on, rather than part of a whole seamless design. They have pages on Facebook and Twitter that they update frequently, but one wouldn’t know that from a visit to the main page. Scrolling down is required to find the links to their social networks on the right sidebar, when these links should be featured prominently somewhere near the top of the page. The whole site would definitely benefit from a complete design overhaul.

Ultimately, for entertainment news in New England, HollywoodEastConnection is ideal. They update the most important ongoing stories and give many local filmmakers the publicity they need. Though much of it is entertainment-driven, it would be hard to find a more comprehensive website on the New England entertainment industry.

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