The British Film Institute

The Challenge

Bringing BID to a Wider Audience

The BFI’s ambition was to make this unparalleled wealth of film and television research data accessible to a broad audience of film enthusiasts and industry professionals. They required a robust web application, built on LAMP technologies, that could present the BID data online through both a user-friendly website and a flexible web service.

A critical aspect of this project was the long-term vision. The new “BID on the Web” application wasn’t merely a static launch; it needed to be a dynamic platform capable of continuous evolution and feature expansion. This necessitated a meticulously crafted database design and application architecture that could seamlessly accommodate future modifications.

Furthermore, a key technical constraint was that the “BID on the Web” application could not directly interface with the existing Oracle BID database. The BFI therefore sought a partner with expertise in custom database development to create a high-performance back-end system, capable of serving BID data to hundreds of concurrent users without compromising speed or stability.

Our team was selected for this challenging undertaking, recognized for our specialized knowledge and extensive, collective experience in LAMP technologies spanning three decades.

The Solution

Collaborative Development & Layered Architecture

A foundational principle of any successful software development endeavor is achieving a profound understanding of the client’s needs. From the outset, we fostered a close working relationship with the BFI’s BID stakeholders and their web design team. Together, we meticulously planned the application from the user’s perspective, a collaborative partnership that proved instrumental throughout the project’s lifecycle and directly contributed to its successful outcome.

To ensure the application’s adaptability and future-proofing, we implemented a sophisticated layered application architecture. This approach systematically compartmentalizes the core functions of the program code into distinct divisions: Data (how information is organized), Logic (how information is manipulated), and Presentation (how information is displayed). Each layer communicates through standardised interfaces, allowing for controlled and efficient modifications. For instance, adding new data fields becomes a contained change within the relevant layer, minimising ripple effects across the system. While this design principle is well-established, its successful application to the BID on the Web project demanded rigorous analysis, precise design, and disciplined coding.

To bolster this architecture, we leveraged the enhanced Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) capabilities of PHP and employed XML and XSLT for a clear separation of data from its visual presentation. This layered methodology enabled us to ensure that all functionalities available to web browser users were equally accessible via the web service. For the browser interface, strict adherence to XHTML and CSS standards further reinforced the data-presentation split, empowering the BFI’s web design team to focus on the site’s aesthetic while we honed the core database application.

The BFI’s enthusiasm for the BID on the Web project was palpable from day one. Recognising these high expectations, we adopted a production process that actively involved the BFI at every critical juncture, transforming their excitement into productive input for the design process. To achieve this, we developed a series of prototype applications preceding the alpha and beta versions, allowing the BFI to witness the application’s evolution firsthand and directly influence its development.

The Result

The BFI Film and Television Database

The “BID on the Web” project culminated in the official launch of the BFI Film and Television Database, now publicly available.

This powerful database empowered users with diverse search capabilities: a straightforward keyword search, a category-based search, and an advanced, complex search allowing users to construct queries based on multiple criteria. Once within a database record, users could seamlessly navigate between various views of a film or television work, accessing synopses, cast details, and production information. Clicking on a cast member or organisation provided a comprehensive overview of their career, with options to explore all their credits and associated events. Virtually every field within a filmographic record was clickable, leading users to deeper views of the data, inviting them to spend hours exploring the fascinating national and international film and television heritage. Users could then navigate between different views of a film or television work, showing synopses, cast and production details. Clicking on a cast member or organisation took you to a page summarising their career with the options to view all the accreditations and events they were associated with. Almost every field that was shown for a filmographic record could be clicked upon to take you to another view of the data and users could spend hours browsing fascinating national and international film and television heritage.