Filmaster: Building the best way to discover movies
This is a post from Borys Musielak, the founder and CEO of Filmaster, HackFwd’s first startup from Poland.
It’s an honor for me to introduce my startup, Filmaster.com, a movie discovery service and mobile app which knows what you should watch tonight.
The Team
As I’m a geek and movie buff myself, I always wanted to build a service related to film. I started Filmaster in 2010 together with my pals:
- Pawel is our product guy, focusing on front-end solutions and working on the vision. He specializes in Human-Computer Interaction, User Centered Design, and User Experience in general. Pawel is also the organizer of big European conferences for front-end developers: Front-Trends and Falsy Values.
- Jakub, is Filmaster’s CTO. He is responsible for the research and development of the recommendation engine. Jakub studies Math and Computer Science at University of Warsaw.
Here’s our short team introduction video shot in February, just before our first HackFwd interview:
What problem does Filmaster solve?
People are overwhelmed by choice regarding movies. With constant new releases in cinemas, on Netflix, or TV, they make bad decisions and waste time watching films they don’t like. Filmaster helps by analyzing each user’s taste and suggesting them what to watch or rent out of all the available choices in their current location. It also helps film buffs in the same area meet up by suggesting people with a similar movie taste living nearby. The social aspect of Filmaster is especially useful during film festivals. That’s why more than ten festivals in Poland already cooperate with Filmaster to raise event awareness in social media and the famous UK Raindance Film Festival has just chosen Filmaster mobile app as the official festival companion for 2011. You can get the free Filmaster iPhone app here.
Filmaster is like a guide dog for movie lovers:
So, wondering what movie you should watch downtown? Filmaster gives you relevant suggestions based on your taste, even in that obscure tiny cinema behind the corner. Tired of going to the movies alone? Check-in to screenings, see who else is planning to go and join them! Confused with too much choice at a movie festival? Check what other people with a similar taste liked or hated and plan your schedule accordingly. Simply bored? Browse through our film database, rate movies, read reviews, watch trailers, collect badges and have fun with Filmaster!
Future plans
The website and iPhone app are only the beginning of the road. We’re working on some cool new products, all based on Filmaster API:
- a movie discovery iPad game, which is visually stunning, highly engaging, and very interactive,
- a Facebook app that helps a group of people choose a movie to watch - a typical use case that hasn’t been solved properly until now.
Want to learn more about Filmaster’s business model and see the demo of the iPhone app? The following 3-minute video by Borys and Pawel covers both:
If you want to hear more about Filmaster, read our blog, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. And get the iPhone app for free!
