Vic Holtreman is the owner and editor-in-chief of Screen Rant (ScreenRant.com), a fast-rising Movie/TV/DVD news and reviews website that puts an emphasis on quality writing.  I've known Vic for close to six years now; we met online at an Iron Man fan forum and I've watched him create and grow Screen Rant into a very successful destination for movie news aficionados, such as myself.  What I like best is that the writers work hard and skip out on the expletive-fueled diatribes that become unreadable.

I want to note that I do write the occassional article at Screen Rant.  Movie news is one of my biggest passions--I've been following it for nearly two decades now!

Tech Universe (TU): Tell me a little bit about yourself and your background, Vic.

Vic Holtreman (VH): I’ve served in the Navy, and have been employed as a door to door salesman, construction worker, car salesman, waiter, mechanical drafter, mechanical designer, system administrator. I'm self-employed, running a number of websites about various topics and also do SEO consulting.

I’ve always been a huge Sci-Fi fan, starting with watching The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits when I was still too young for kindergarten, graduating to Star Trek reruns in the 70’s and of course fully initiated by the original Star Wars. I’m a big comic book fan (still buy ‘em) and lover of superhero, action movies and the occasional horror flick.

TU: How and when did Screen Rant come about?  How's it been going?

VH: Boy, that's really been quite a ride! I started it over 5 years ago with NO intention of it doing anything beside being read by maybe half a dozen friends. Over time it evolved and I developed relationships with other great movie bloggers.

I started devoting more and more time to it and it just started to grow. At first I wrote 90% of the content for the site, but now I have over half a dozen writers and two editors who now do the bulk of the writing for the site. They're all great and have helped the site triple in traffic over the last 12 months.

TU: Screen Rant has gone from a casual site to a major movie/TV/DVD news source in a few short years.  What's been your secret?  How do you recruit writers?

VH: LOL, well I'm certainly not going to divulge any secrets, but I can tell you that it was a LOT of hard work, dedication, and love for what I write about. Keeping the writing at a high quality level helps plus you have to get out there on the 'net and network.

TU: How do you find writers for Screen Rant?

VH: As far as adding writers to the site, generally people contact me asking about writing positions.  I actually found one of my writers in the comments section on Screen Rant - his comments were so well written that I asked him if he'd consider writing for us. Now he's an editor on the site!

TU: What does the future hold for you and Screen Rant?

VH: I'm not sure - I would really love to get the site to the point where I could dedicate myself to it full time, but that's a tricky proposition with a mortgage and a family to take care of. But who knows? If the site keeps growing it may be a possibility at some point.

TU: What are your other sites?  I know you're big into health--is that what led to some of your sites?

And yes, I've always been a bit of a fitness nut so I created www.KettlebellTraining.net, a fitness site promoting the use of kettlebells - heavy cast iron spheres used for "ballistic" excercises. VERY effective, and they will kick your butt.

TU: You and I became friends online because of our mutual love for Marvel's Iron Man--how did you get involved with Advanced Iron?  Why did you take it over and do a site re-design?

VH: I took over the Iron Man fansite www.AdvancedIron.org a couple of years ago and it's grown into the number one Iron Man fansite on the Web.  Iron Man has always been my favorite comic book superhero - I still buy the comics today. The Advanced Iron website had been putting out a quality, quarterly "fanzine" (fan magazine in PDF format) for years, but the website was sorely neglected. So I took it over from the previous owner (who graciously handed it over) and I sank some time and money into "buffing it out" and creating not only the ultimate Iron Man database but also the premiere Iron Man forum on the internet.

[Heath's note: Advanced Iron was founded in the early 1990s as a paper-based fan magazine created by Bill Egan, who also created the "fanzine" Iron Fan, with writers, readers, and contributors from all over the world.  I started writing for it doing Iron Man movie news, along with other Movie/TV/DVD news under a column and web forum titled "Metal Head."]

TU: Vic, anything else you'd like to add before I wrap up our interview?

VH: I would just like to thank you for the opportunity and I might also add that I'd love to see you contribute to the site a lot more (Heath is one of Screen Rant's writers). :-)

No problem, Vic!  Back to writing some cool Movie news!  Thanks to Vic for taking time out of his very busy schedule--the guy balances a 24/7 movie news website with other business and a family!  WOW!  Visit ScreenRant.com to get some awesome Movie/TV/DVD news coverage!

Posted at 10:41AM Apr 25, 2009 by Heath McKnight in Inform  |  Comments[1]