BAFTA View a Modern VOD Solution for Awards Viewing

BAFTA View is a bespoke Video on Demand (VOD) platform developed exclusively for BAFTA members to review Film, Television, and Games content submitted for the BAFTA Awards. Prior to 2020, distributors relied on DVD screeners, a costly practice—reaching up to ￡50k per film—that often created disparities for filmmakers with smaller budgets. As DVDs became obsolete, BAFTA faced a critical challenge: how to modernize its viewing process while ensuring equal opportunities for all entrants.

For over a decade, BAFTA had successfully hosted and streamed Television programmes for its annual awards. However, stringent security requirements for pre-release content presented significant barriers for hosting these files. In 2019, BAFTA Media Technology addressed this issue with the development of Screener Hub, an innovative API integration platform. Screener Hub enables studios to host films on their preferred platforms, maintaining ownership and meeting security standards, while seamlessly streaming content to pre-authenticated BAFTA members within BAFTA’s software ecosystem.

Screener Hub’s success was immediate, resolving studio concerns and providing members with comprehensive online access to award entries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when cinema screenings were limited, Screener Hub became indispensable. Yet, a key component was still missing: a sophisticated, user-friendly VOD front end that could centralize video content and metadata, streamlining the awards viewing process.

Since 2002, BAFTA members have voted through a secure online platform, with integrated viewing introduced in 2013 for categories including Television, Games, and Children’s Awards. By 2020, the system’s dated design struggled to meet the growing demands for metadata display and digital assets. Nucleus, BAFTA’s award management system, had evolved to collect and manage vast amounts of metadata, laying the foundation for a modern, centralized viewing experience.

The decision to create BAFTA View—a dynamic front-end platform for Film Awards viewing—was pivotal. Designed by UI Centric, a leading external agency, the platform aimed to embody BAFTA’s identity while supporting the complex workflows required for awards judging. As Product Manager, I was tasked with turning these ambitious designs into a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in just nine months. Working with a part-time development team of three, who were also engaged in other projects, the challenge was significant—but the opportunity to transform BAFTA’s viewing experience was greater.

The Process

Delivering a project as intricate as BAFTA View came with its challenges. I inherited beautifully designed and feature-rich Figma prototypes, but these designs often overlooked the technical complexities of integrating data from Nucleus, BAFTA's awards entry system and database, into the VOD front end.

One of the primary challenges was the diversity of data sources and formats. Standardisation was simply not an option, as BAFTA’s systems had to accommodate a variety of data and image types supplied by entrants. Even seemingly straightforward tasks, like collating a synopsis, proved complex due to the variability in submissions. Unlike commercial VOD platforms that control content presentation, BAFTA must display the materials exactly as submitted, provided they meet guidelines. While managing a multinational VOD platform is undoubtedly challenging, the unique requirements of BAFTA View add layers of complexity that are not immediately apparent.

The first step was to determine how well the designs translated into reality. Did they align with awards processes? Could Nucleus supply the required data in the specified formats? For stakeholders and members, requesting a feature often seems straightforward. Designers can incorporate these ideas into elegant UI layouts, but delivering these features in code is a completely different challenge. Every feature needed careful evaluation to determine if the required data was already available or feasible to integrate.

For example, a suggested feature was the ability to sort films by runtime, a useful tool for members. However, Nucleus does not store runtime metadata, as BAFTA does not always receive video assets directly. Instead, runtime data is collected during the entry submission process, primarily for eligibility checks. Unfortunately, these figures are often inaccurate, as films are frequently submitted before final edits are complete. While this inaccuracy could lead to discrepancies—for instance, a user expecting a 90-minute film may find it runs 100 minutes—removing the sort functionality entirely would have been a greater drawback for users. The solution, though imperfect, was to include the feature with the understanding that some runtimes might not reflect the final version.

This example highlights the nuanced decision-making process required for each feature, often balancing usability with resource constraints. Compromise is frequently the best solution in such scenarios.

Building the Platform

Once the designs were reviewed, my focus shifted to execution. The first priority was to deconstruct the designs into individual components, creating detailed Jira tickets for the development team to build a component library. My role was to ensure that these components adhered closely to the original designs, avoiding any misinterpretations during implementation.

Next, I developed user stories to outline the platform's required features. Collaborating with the product owner and stakeholders, I identified which features were essential for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which could be postponed, and which lacked sufficient user demand to justify development. Time constraints demanded a pragmatic approach: delivering a clean, functional site with foundational features, leaving more complex or speculative functionalities for future iterations.

This approach was guided by a key insight from my previous experiences: once users begin interacting with a system, their needs and priorities often shift. By reserving resources for post-launch research and refinement, we ensured that BAFTA View’s development could adapt to real-world feedback. This strategy was validated during the awards season following the platform's launch, with user feedback directly informing subsequent updates.

Decisions

Given the limited development resources and a fixed timeline, I needed to find areas where we could optimise efforts and reduce workload while still delivering a fully functional VOD system with API integration across three separate systems. This meant making some key decisions that balanced usability, resource allocation, and overall project goals.

One of the major decisions was regarding the administration of BAFTA View. BAFTA’s awards admins were already juggling multiple logins across various products, and I wanted to avoid burdening them with yet another system to manage. Creating a new admin interface would have required additional development resources, so I decided to take a different approach. Rather than building a standalone admin site, I opted to manage BAFTA View through the existing BAFTA Voting Site and Awards Management System. Using an API integration tool, metadata fields could be populated and placed in the appropriate sections of BAFTA View. The site’s menus and page structure were hard-coded, while admins could still curate the content through the established systems. This decision streamlined both the admin process and the development workload, helping us stay on track for the delivery timeline.

Another key change was in the user authentication process. Originally, BAFTA had plans to implement a Single Sign-On (SSO) solution for members to seamlessly navigate between various products such as the membership area in Salesforce communities, BAFTA Events (our ticketing platform), BAFTA Voting, and BAFTA View. Since BAFTA View required members to only have access to content they could vote on—allocated at the category level—I recognised that the voting platform already managed user credentials and permissions through its integration with Salesforce. This meant we could leverage the existing authentication process rather than creating a new solution from scratch. By using the voting site’s authentication with existing two-factor authentication (2FA), we ensured that members were properly verified before gaining access to BAFTA View. This integration also meant members would have to complete mandatory surveys and courses before accessing the content, helping streamline user verification across platforms.

The third significant decision was to outsource the help section to WordPress. The initial designs for the help section were detailed and included bespoke instructions that the Membership Team would manage. However, with the decision not to build an administration interface, creating a custom content management system (CMS) just for the help section seemed unnecessary and resource-intensive. After exploring options, WordPress emerged as a cost-effective solution. WordPress already offered a well-established, flexible CMS, so why reinvent the wheel? By purchasing a WordPress theme specifically designed for help/FAQ sites, we were able to set up the framework quickly. The developers applied the BAFTA View styling to the theme, and the Membership Team now had a fully editable, easily maintainable platform for creating new sections and articles as needed. This provided an efficient and scalable solution, reducing long-term maintenance efforts.

The API

At the heart of BAFTA View is the API, which acts as the central data hub, pulling essential information from BAFTA’s systems into the viewing platform. This data is then used by the front end to populate the pages, ensuring that everything displayed is up-to-date and accurate. Both BAFTA Voting and Nucleus, BAFTA’s awards management systems, are built around the core concepts of Awards and Categories. As a result, BAFTA View had to adhere to the same structure to ensure that members had access to the correct content based on their voting privileges.

One of the key challenges was the variety of metadata required for different award types. While the core structure of data was consistent, each award type had its own unique set of metadata needs. This meant that BAFTA View had to be flexible enough to support the varied requirements for each award, which added a layer of complexity to the integration process.

To address this, I analysed the page designs provided by the designers and created a comprehensive table listing the metadata required for each page, per award type. This breakdown allowed me to create a detailed mapping for each piece of content. For example, the film synopsis was required on two different pages, so a specific mapping for this was created within the API. This mapping served as a reference for the developers, enabling them to pull the correct data and display the synopsis on the relevant pages.

Rather than building a bespoke mappings page in Nucleus, I decided to leverage the question-building functionality already present in the system. This approach streamlined the process and saved development time. By breaking down each mapping type and linking it to a specific question type, we ensured that the system could handle a variety of data types efficiently. For instance, the synopsis mapping was tied to a text-area input field, while video content mappings were linked to a video upload input field. Once these mappings were established, they were applied to the relevant question types in Nucleus, allowing the admins to easily input and manage the data.

Development

Building BAFTA View posed several challenges, not least the task of creating a fully responsive, accessible web application that would perform seamlessly across mobile, TV, and desktop platforms. The platform had to adapt dynamically based on the number of awards, categories, and entries available to view at any given time. Once the component library was finalised, the next step was to develop the individual pages, ensuring they matched the designs and worked efficiently across various user scenarios.

To manage this, I used Confluence and Jira to map out all the components required for each page. Given the feature-heavy nature of the product, each Jira ticket contained detailed information to guide the development process. However, translating the design into a functional product wasn’t without its challenges. While the designs showcased pages filled with rich content, the real-world application needed to work just as well with minimal content. This was something that became evident only when development began, and a valuable lesson learned for future projects was to request design examples with both full and minimal content. In my future work, this will be a key consideration.

The next phase involved building the functionality. Beautiful designs and an API are only useful when the front end works as expected. This part of the process was long and iterative, often requiring trial and error to align the designs with the functional aspects of BAFTA View. What was especially tricky was ensuring that changes on one page didn't unintentionally affect the functionality of others. The interplay between pages and components required continuous testing and fine-tuning. User stories were created in Jira, with tickets being added, updated, and recreated as needed. During the testing process, new functionality would often emerge that hadn't been anticipated from the designs, particularly around user navigation. Despite the challenges, the site gradually came together and began to function seamlessly.

Testing itself was another intensive aspect of development. Setting up a test environment took significant time, particularly as Nucleus, BAFTA’s awards management system, is efficient at exporting entry forms but not the entry data itself. As a result, I had to manually create many example entries to populate the site. This was crucial to see how the metadata would be pulled through and displayed on the front end. While this process added time, it provided invaluable insight into the final look and feel of the platform, allowing us to address issues early and refine the user experience.

Conclusion

Reflecting on the journey of delivering BAFTA View, I am immensely proud of what we achieved with a small team, a limited budget, and a challenging timeframe. Despite the constraints, we successfully created a powerful and intuitive platform that has transformed the way BAFTA members engage with the awards process. The overwhelmingly positive feedback, particularly regarding the user interface and overall design, highlights the value of the platform to its users and affirms the technical achievements of the project.

In hindsight, opting for a minimum viable product (MVP) approach was the right decision. By prioritising core functionalities, we ensured that the platform met the immediate needs of BAFTA’s members while leaving space for future enhancements. Interestingly, many of the features initially suggested for future versions have not been raised since launch, reinforcing the importance of focusing on what truly matters to users in the first iteration.

Now, over two years since the launch, BAFTA View continues to serve its purpose, and the lessons learned from this project have shaped how we approach future developments. Looking ahead, the platform has the potential to expand further, bringing additional BAFTA awards—such as those for Games, Television, and Children’s—into the same streamlined experience.

BAFTA View stands as a testament to the power of collaboration, thoughtful prioritisation, and user-centred design. It not only met the technical goals we set for the 2021 release but laid a solid foundation for continued growth and evolution in the years to come.