Movies + is an app I developed with my wife, Gabi Moore, for the 10k app contest held by A List Apart. The version that was submitted to the competition used the AnyClip API to take a search term and then show posters from the first dozen or so movies that match the search. On the back of each poster was the piece of metadata that “hit” in the search query, whether it’s a scene title or description, quote, or general tag. However, the API was still in development when I used it, and has since been changed significantly, breaking the app. You can see the original contest entry page here.

I have since rebuilt the app, so it will work with the new version of the API. However, there were a few changes that led me to change the way the app works. Now, instead of metadata about the clips returned, the app just gives you the clip itself. While there is no text to explicitly show you the connection between seemingly unrelated clips, you can watch them and discover it for yourself. Which I think is even more fun.

One interesting thing I about this app, was that we spent more time talking about it and figuring out what exactly it should be than actually building it. After we had dissected the original idea, taking into consideration usability issues, trouble spots in the user experience (discovering which things were confusing or would seem disconnected to the user) we settled on the thing we wanted to focus on: Take a word, and see a bunch of movies, many of which you already know and love. Then, show exactly how these seemingly disconnected movies are in fact connected. Once we had that concept, the rest was easy.