FilmUP
Now users decide which movies are worth investing in
OVERVIEW
About the project
Problem: Many aspiring filmmakers or film students can not find the investment needed to produce their first film and, more importantly, large-scale distribution.
Solution: The proposed solution is a Streaming platform that serves as a tool to produce films outside the circuit of large production companies and film and TV distributors. The users/viewers will decide where they want to invest the money accumulated each month with their subscription and will become the producers of the movies they want to watch.
My role: As a UX/UI designer I conducted a thorough research in film schools and universities through surveys, observations and interviews. Apart from analyzing a possible competitor that was offering services somewhat similar to those offered by Film Up, but with a very different approach. After defining the main points to take into account, I created the user flow, wireframes, high fidelity UI and an interactive prototype to test usability.
Skills
UX/UI design
Illustration
Motion Graphics
Timeline
2 months
Tools
UX: Surveys, affinity diagram, personas, user journeys, site map, user flow, crazy 8, wireframes, lo-fi prototype.
UI: Moodboard, style guide, UI kit, hi-fi prototype.
The challenge
Identify the main challenges in a film production, design a solution that allows filmmakers and viewers to interact quickly and simply to achieve their respective goals (producing/viewing films) without any economic risk and intermediaries.
RESEARCH
Identifying the user needs
Only in U.S. Film schools graduate as many as 50.000 film students a year for maybe 2.000 studio job openings, in good years. Many of those job openings are filled with relatives, friends and by the alumni of the best film schools so there are a lot of talented people lost in the way.
In my research, I interviewed different Bachelor’s Degree in Film and Television students and independent producers, conducted online surveys and observations to examine all the needs and difficulties that an aspiring filmmaker or TV producer may encounter in order to carry out his or her film or TV series. Some of the most important questions I wanted to find answers to were:
- What are the biggest challenges you have to face when making a film?
- What tools exist for students or first-time filmmakers to get the necessary investment to produce their films?
- What parameters does a producer take into account when deciding whether or not a film deserves to be produced?
Interviews
I interviewed students from different universities and film schools in Barcelona (UAB, UB, UPF, Ramon LLull, ESCAC). Most of the students considered it impossible to make a film without first having a great track record in Film Festivals making short films to arouse the interest of producers and audiences. There were also a large number of students who did not know how to get their short films accepted for screening at festivals, which made me think that there was a lack of knowledge from schools and universities about how to turn their profession into a business.
Observations
The observations were conducted at different stages of production of different student film projects in order to identify the different difficulties/challenges they face in order to successfully complete their project. The results showed that students are completely unaware of the legality behind a film production and that the financing routes are basically divided between contributions from family members, savings or publishing the project on Crowdfunding platforms such as Verkami.
Online survey
I basically divided the survey into 4 sections. General Information, Experiences, Economics and Communication Flow.
- What are the reasons that prevent you from making your film?
- What funding sources do you use to finance your projects?
- What platforms do you use when you want to watch movies?
- So far where have you published/distributed your films ?
INSIGHTS
Framing the problem
Once the field research was done, I gathered all the data to generate the key points that any film student or aspiring filmmaker faces in producing and distributing their film. The key points were:
Lack of knowledge of the industry
Most students know how to write and shoot a film, but not how to produce and sell it for a financial return.
Financial difficulties
Disconnect between filmmakers and sources of investment. The channels to reach the desired investment are controlled by banks, big production companies, streaming platforms and the government.
Lack of confidence and patience
Starting a film project is overwhelming and many drop out because they believe it is impossible to make it if you don’t have good contacts and unlimited talent.
Distribution difficulties
Most of the brave ones who manage to produce a film see their film fall into oblivion because of a distribution that is either non-existent or too scarce to reach the audience.
COMPETITORS
What similar services exist?
I analyze some of the most outstanding services on the market that may have points of connection with the concept of streaming film production that I want to propose.
Pros
- Great showcase to connect with production companies.
- Events and festivals calendar.
- Specialized blog with very interesting articles.
Cons
- You must pay for any service within the platform.
- Frustrating project selection criteria.
- Very poor and careless UI.
Pros
- Professional user profiles to find work.
- Very detailed analytics to deliver user messsages and reach the audience targeted.
- Pay-Per-View option
Cons
- Less traffic than other video platforms like Youtube.
- Pricing models are a bit complicated to understand and not very transparent.
- Slow upload process. Videos often buffer and skip.
- Admin problems to manage Teams function in a project.
Pros
- Differentiated project states.
- Time and financial investment required well highlighted.
- Clear and transparent platform objectives.
- Personalized advice for each project.
Cons
- Focused on financing all kinds of cultural products.
- Great demand for content and project data to start fundraising.
- Needs to be registered in the platform to make a contribution.
PROBLEM SYNTHESIS
Affinity diagraming
To get an in-depth analysis of the qualitative research data I used Affinity diagramming. This session helped me in categorizing and prioritizing the data of problems, issues and challenges the novice filmmakers have to face during the creation and distribution of their films.
Affinity notes according to goals, thoughts, failures and feelings during the creation of a film.
Categorizing Affinity notes into different phases of the process.
USER PERSONA
Understanding the user
I created 2 type of personas to represent the most important user groups of the product (Creators and Investors) to give a clear picture of the users expectations and how they would like to use the final solution.
Joan Blasco
The eternal contender
“Since I graduated from Film School I’ve been trying to sell the script of my first movie to a production company for more than 3 years. In order to pay the rent of the shared apartment where I live I’m working as a waiter in a coffee shop. I’ve worked for free in many projects from my school or colleagues. I think I’m wasting my time. If I had money I would try in Hollywood.”
Jaime Gutiérrez
The movie buff
“I’m tired of watching movies and series from the United States and how little is committed to local talent and original content. It is increasingly difficult to find movies that are not adaptations or remakes of old stories. I’m planning to unsubscribe from Netflix and try Filmin which has a very interesting european independent movies and series.”
BRAINSTORMING
Exploring ideas & opportunities
I took the main features from affinity diagramming session and realized that many shortlisted features were too broad or out of scope for this project. I prioritized the list and while mapping them it appeared that some of the requirements were interconnected or interlinked.
Problems
Looking for problems difficulties within the film production process.
USER JOURNEY
Identifying different scenarios
The goal was to take the ideas generated in the brainstorming sessions and sketch an actual use case and user scenario on how a user would move through this part of the story. After defining the user journeys I was able to decide which functionality suits most for our scope and serves best to the users.
DESIGN DECISIONS
Narrowing down the solution
After filtering the research results, define the main user personas and the hypothetical situations in which they would find themselves interacting with the platform, I finally decided on a suitable solution for the problem space and what features or functionality will it possess.
Constraints
- Should be portable and easy to access.
- Users want personalized information.
- Many crowdfunding platforms.
- Creators need money and insurance services.
- Viewers/Investors want to know as much as possible to trust the project.
- Users want to feel that they are part of a very special community
Requirements
- Web and mobile app
- Virtual assistant that helps guide the user to achieve their goals.
- Function as a crowdfunding and video streaming platform at the same time.
- Enable users to connect with each other and achieve their goals.
- Cloud storage to save all the filming content.
- Use gamification to motivate the users to use the app and be rewarded for it.
Features
- Investment options based on user preferences.
- Search engine with optimized filters to easily find the type of production where every investor wants to invest.
- Professional marketplace to hire crew and cast to produce the movies.
- Personalized notifications with real time-user data such as event calendar, geo-location and best practices recommendations.
- Blog where new developments in production are periodically reported.
- Dashboard to manage productions in progress and investments made.
FLOW DIAGRAM
Mapping & organizing information
Once the user journey was outlined based on the performance of specific tasks within the platform, I began to break down the flow of interaction with the different tasks that the user can perform within the application.
SKETCHING
Designing initial interface
WIREFRAMING
Low-fidelity prototype
Based on the main features and task flow of the platform, I created initial sketches and wireframes of my prototype with the following user flows: User onboarding, Project finder, Investment, User profile, Project management tools and Professional community.
VISUAL DESIGN
Final solution prototype
I started designing high fidelity prototypes by creating a style guide for the user interface and finally designed the major screens of the web app which are shown below.
Landing page: What is Film Up?
The first time users enter the platform, they will find a landing page where the differences and advantages that Film Up represents with respect to the rest of the streaming video platforms are briefly explained. They will also be able to access the Premieres section to view a maximum of one film and the Blog section to learn more about what is being done on the platform and to have more details in case they are interested, but not convinced to sign up for the service.
Sign up and login process
Users can login using email and password or they can also use their Facebook, Google or Apple accounts to log in faster. To sign up users can either use existing email or their Google account.
Onboarding & Personalization
Users can choose 3 different plans: Basic, Standard and Premium. Depending on the plan they choose, they will have more services available and they will also have more money to invest in the productions of the platform. The minimum that a user can invest in 1 project is €0.50. This means that if a user selects the Premium plan of €15 per month, they will be able to invest monthly in up to a maximum of 30 projects. The most important and distinctive thing about FilmUp is that you pay what you pay, the money is yours and you can only use it to produce projects created by other users or by yourself, and that money is accumulated each month with your subscription. But if you stop paying, you lose the right to view the videos on the platform, to finance projects (once you have spent all your accumulated credit) or create your own.
Users must also choose the role that best suits their needs: Viewer, Creator or Professional. By default, all startup users are Viewers, but if the reason for subscribing is due to their interest in seeking funding for a project, they can set up their profile so they can start seeking funding as soon as possible. In case that the user is a Professional looking for work within the sector, they can create a profile for this purpose and be hired by a Creator looking for personnel to produce and shoot her/his film.
Creating your project
After the user has created his Creator profile, he will be able to generate new projects on the platform. A project consists of different tasks or actions that must be completed in each phase of the production. The phases of a project are: Preproduction, Shooting, Post production and Distribution. To start the search for investors, the Creator must fill in at least the Title, Storyline, Synopsis, Genre, Language, Poster, Calendar and Budget fields of the film.
If the user does not have the knowledge or tools to design a Poster for his film or does not know how to make a professional Budget taking into account real market prices, Film Up offers him the possibility of hiring the services of a Professional of the Platform Community. Film Up offers the following services to complete and secure the objectives of a project: Script Analysis, Poster Design, Teaser Shooting and Budget Calculator.
Managing the project
To have an overview of a project, manage its pending tasks and team, the user can consult the project dashboard. There you can see the time you have left to achieve the objectives of the project phase, the last investors, pending tasks, calendar, last messages from the team and services available to contract.
Profiling the best team
To form a project team, the user has 2 sections in the project management menu: Crew and Cast. In each section you can add Departments/Categories to classify team members and present the Crew and Cast by departments and Categories to investors. If you already know the people you want to add to your team, you can click the Add member button, write the name in the Professional Community search engine and add them to your team. To add a professional to a team, this user must be registered as a professional on the platform.
An Open Position / Open Casting button has also been added to find project crew members or actors/actresses with a certain profile. This functionality allows users unknown to the creator to apply for one of the vacancies in the project.
If the user wants to search by himself for professionals or actors/actresses, he can search in the community where he can filter by Role, Location and Maximum price per hour. If the user wants to know more details about that professional, he can see his/her Profile.
Professional profile
The Professional user profile is made up of 2 pages: Reel and Published Projects. In this way we can see his presentation reel and the projects he has worked on the platform to know his level of experience. On the left side of the page there is a brief presentation of his profile, follow, send a message and share his profile buttons, price of his services, his activity on the platform and whether or not he is available for work and what roles can cover within a work team.
Adding a new member to the team
To add a professional to a project, the user must select the project and department to which he wants to add him and define his role in case the professional he is hiring has more than one role in his profile.
Finding investors
Once the essential information has been filled in and the Creator user publishes his project on the platform, it will become visible to Viewer users on the Productions page.
Viewers will decide if they want to invest in a production in progress or not and to make that decision they can take into account the following elements: Poster, Title, Synopsis, Origin of the film, Percentage of investment achieved and days left to finish the search for investment.
If a viewer isn’t too sure about investing in that movie or no longer has credit to invest that month, they can save the project to their favorites list so they don’t lose track of it and invest later if it’s still possible.
More details about the project
If a user wants to have more information before making the decision to invest, he can open the page with all the details of the project. There the user can learn more about the story, the casting, the technical team and the production plan of the film.
In the Cast and Crew section, a notice will also appear in case the creators of the project have open vacancies to participate in the project as an actor or technician. If the user wishes to apply to one of these vacancies, the user must have a professional profile. If the user does not have, he/she can go to his/her profile and modify the type of profile to apply for the position.
Investing
When the user proceeds to invest in a project, he will be allowed to choose the amount he wants to invest. The investment will be refunded if the project fails to raise the investment required to produce the film.
After the user confirms the investment, the project will be saved in the My investments section, where as a history, the user can quickly check the status of all their investments classified by production phases: Pre-producing, Shooting , Post-producing and Published.
Tracking the project
The production process of a film or television series is normally long. That is why the Blog section is really important. The Creators, through the editor of their project, can write posts periodically to keep their investors informed of the latest news and make them feel involved in the entire production process.
In the Blog, all investors will be able to view the latest news of the projects in which they have invested. The Blog has 2 filters: Projects and Categories. In Projects, the titles of all the projects where the user has invested will appear and the user will be able to read all the posts of a certain project that have been published on the blog. In Categories the user will be able to filter between 3 types: Projects, Tools and Tips. The posts with the Tools and Tips categories are intended to improve or help creators to do their work and sell some of the paid services offered by the platform.
Distributing and watching the films
When a project is finished and uploaded to the platform, the user who has invested in that project receives a notification and the film is added to the My Investments carousel.
While the users are watching the movie, the upper control menu shows the message thanking them for their investment and at the bottom a button that allows the user to invest in a second part if the creator has started the production of a sequel.
CONCLUSION
Testing & next steps
I conducted user testing & cognitive walkthroughs to find out usability issues in the interface of the webapp. Most of the users found the application user friendly and could easily navigate between the screens. They faced some trouble in understanding the different roles they can play within the platform, especially between Creator and Professional. There were some problems when managing the teams of a project and the method of collecting the investments in a bank account to be able to shoot the film which it can be improved by adding tooltips in the onboarding process and a FAQ sections dedicated to addressing all tax and legal issues.
Due to the time constraints, I was only able to do a minimal viable product. With more time, these are some features that I would like to add:
Add Smart Budget Calculator to synchronize the script of the movie with the production needs.
Design the editor and detail of the Blog page.
Improve the publication process of a project.
Collaborate with different film festivals to offer the best distribution service and professional notoriety for creators.
Conduct 5-6 more user evaluations with participants from different professional profiles of the film industry.
Gamify the app with rewards for creators and viewers based on the results of their productions.
Prototype more functionalities that can help the creators to socialize with their investors like a Virtual Event where the investors can invite friends to watch the released movie with the director together as the most fancy premieres.