Houston Halloween Film Festival

    5. Allow filmmakers to create secure accounts.

We created a multi-user registration feature, enabling Festival entrants to create secure usernames and passwords with which to login to a special "entrants only" section at any time. Upon entering the entrants area, an entrant is shown a list of items he or she still needs to submit, the requirements that have already been satisfied, and an up-to-date countdown to important dates concerning the festival.

As described in more detail below, in this area users can also download an entry form, edit their personal and movie details, upload images and pay their registration fees online.

    6. Allow filmmakers to upload images to represent their films.

An image upload feature was developed so entrants can easily upload a static image associated with their films to be later used by the Festival organizers in creating a print program as well as in an online gallery. Entrants are able to upload their images in a variety of print-compatible formats using only a web browser. Once uploaded to the server, our solution automatically converts and resizes the images to display perfectly online, as well as preserving the original version for print use. Moreover, entrants may log back in to their accounts to update their images should the need arise.

    7. Dynamically generated personalized PDF forms.

A requirement for the festival was that entrants must submit a signed rules form and licens agreement and send it in the mail. Printable PDF forms were used for this purpose, and we took it a step further -- through database integration these PDF forms are generated in real-time and contain information personalized to the specific user logged into the site.

    8. Allow filmmakers to pay entry fees online.

A custom transaction solution was designed to integrate with the Festival's existing payment provider so that entrants could pay their registration fees securely. Response data from the payment provider is received by the server, and the user's account is instantly updated to reflect the payment. Moreover, return data from the payment provider is logged by the application and instantly viewable via the administrative console.