INFPRJ01 – Project 1: A website for a cinema

For this project we were asked to build a website for a new (fictitious) cinema in Rotterdam. One particular point of interest was these pricing-model we were asked to implement. Ticket-prices were based on the position of the seat in the theater: seats in the middle of the theater were the most expensive, but there was also a growing premium towards the back of the theater. However, there were 3 sizes of theaters. And not every show would use the same prices and distribution of prices. For instance, the middle of the theater isn’t as valuable for a romantic comedy, as it is for a special effects driven blockbuster.

Using JavaScript I built a model that would map out the different prices into a table, dividing the prices in color-coded ranks. In the prototype I used input fields for all relevant variables, so that the client would be able to set up different profiles for different types of shows. Those profiles were then entered into a database, to be used on the final website.

On the website, the client wanted to give visitors the opportunity to get pricing-information about their favorite seats. To accomplish this, I added a slider set that would grey-out the seats that are of no interest to the visitor.

Here’s a link to the final version of the Bioscoop Filmpje website. The assignment also called for a mobile version and a version that could be used on a touchscreen terminal. These versions all rely on the same basic code, with browser detection doing the initial switch for mobile browsers.

For this project students were also asked to make “Making of” video. Here’s what we came up with:

Website for About Today 2010

Not satisfied by the WordPress-blog we were using, I decided to build a website from scratch. After much debate about the layout, we decided on a horizontal layout of the website. Although it can be a bit confusing for first-time visitors, it does break away from the standard long column based layouts that are such commonplace at this moment.
The most interesting feature of the site at this moment is the images-page. It is entirely based on the band’s Flickr account and the Flickr API. On entry the page loads the batch of photos that was uploaded last. In a side bar the visitor can pick from a list of sets or tags, populated through the Flickr API.
It is also possible to add certain variables to the url of the page, to display photos taken in a particular time span. This is a feature we can use in blogposts, for instance to link to photos of a particular gig without having to reserve a page for every show we did.

Here’s a link to the About Today website from 2010.

One of the plans for this website is to add to the video-page (which is based on our YouTube account) the same functionalities I described for the images-pages.
Also, I want to add a proper blogging-system. At this moment, separate php-files are pulled from a particular folder and combined into the blog page. I haven’t decided whether I will use an existing platform, or will try to build something for myself.

Edit: The site-design is now replaced by a newer, one-page design. I never got around to building or implementing a blog, because we soon realized our audience was more likely to read Facebook posts than to visit the website to read blogposts.