The Filmbasen project is hosted by the organization Fanzingo and Stockholm County. An important goal is for the website to work as an easy solution for handling project support applications in a transparent way. Another is to provide a platform where young film producers in Stockholm can find people who share their interests and help them communicate with each other. In addition to that, Filmbasen needs good ways to communicate with their external audiences.
We built a Drupal based web site containing several different sections, including regular information pages, a community section where the film makers can present themselves and their film projects, a lightweight bulletin board for communication between members, and also a solution for applying for project funding.
Film producers and projects
In the community section of the site the members can create a public profile where they present themselves and their film related talents. They can also add video clips and create project pages for the projects they're working on.
Project pages are used to present the ideas and the team behind a planned film. When setting up a project team, the project owner connects other Filmbasen members to the project, but it's also possible to invite people who aren't already on Filmbasen via email. Once the project page is complete, the project owner can apply for project support. With just a couple of mouse clicks a formal application is sent to Filmbasen, and the project owner can follow how the application is being processed right on the project page.
On each member's profile page there are lists of all the projects she or he is working on, all the people she or he is cooperating with, and all of the video clips that she or he has added to the site. Anywhere a project or a film producer is listed on the site, they are linked to the corresponding project or profile page, which adds to the dynamic characteristics of the community section.
Community intelligence
Members can communicate with each other in several different ways:
- The bulletin board is a place to write short messages which can be targeted against different types of film workers, such as script writers or photographers. It's possible to comment on the initial post and that in way have discussions on different topics.
- In the project log the film producers can write about how the project comes along and discuss it with other Filmbasen members.
- Each member also has a guest book that other members can post to.
Communicating with the general public
Filmbasen continuously uses the web site's news and newsletter features to write about things going on at Filmbasen and in the world of filmmaking in general. The site is also used to promote Filmbasen's courses, workshops and other events, and members can sign up to these events right on the website.
Behind the scenes
Filmbasen employees have their own section on the web site where they can process applications, members and projects, as well as communicate directly with film producers applying for support. They can also access information like the status of project applications and the average age and gender distribution of project teams.
Implementation
Filmbasen is built on Drupal 6 with a number of contributed modules. The community focus, and the complex and flexible structure of the site's content, made Drupal a good fit. The foundation of the site is all built with standard Drupal building blocks, which have then been glued together and extended with some project specific code.
One feature that we missed in the supply of available Drupal modules at the time was a good solution for converting uploaded video content to a format suitable for web display. We ended up developing the module FFmpeg Converter ourselves, which is now shared with the Drupal community and lives on drupal.org.
The future
The Filmbasen project is ever evolving, and there are many plans for new features and sections on the website, as well as for cooperating and interacting with other projects. Stay tuned!
