avatarSupratim Samanta

Summary

The web content describes how an individual uses Notion to manage a personal movie catalog, leveraging digital copies, cloud storage, and the Movies Anywhere service, with plans to integrate automation through the Notion API and IMDb for enhanced data management.

Abstract

The article outlines a comprehensive system for managing a movie collection using Notion. The author, a self-proclaimed movie enthusiast, has transitioned from physical DVDs to digital copies, embracing the convenience of cloud-based access. The system includes tracking movie purchases, directors, genres, and viewing history. It also features compatibility with Movies Anywhere, allowing the author to watch purchased movies across various platforms. The Notion database is designed to record details such as title, director, genre, price, and date of purchase, along with a seen/unseen status. The author plans to automate data updates using the Notion API, IMDb ratings, and a Discord bot, aiming to streamline the process of managing the collection and tracking viewing habits.

Opinions

  • The author values the ease of access and perpetuity of digital movie copies over physical DVDs.
  • There is an appreciation for the Movies Anywhere service, which simplifies access to purchased movies across different platforms.
  • The author enjoys learning about the filmmaking process, including details about directors and writers.
  • The creation of a Notion database is seen as a necessity to manage the author's extensive movie collection effectively.
  • The author intends to enhance the movie management system through automation and integration with external APIs like IMDb.
  • There is a sense of community engagement as the author encourages readers to interact with the post and considers membership on Medium to support writers.

Using Notion to manage everything

My super awesome movie catalog in Notion

Let’s have some fun. Let’s see an effective movie management system in Notion.

Photo by Tyson Moultrie on Unsplash

I am a movie buff. I love all kinds of movies. Be it drama, comedy, action packed thriller or an adventure. I am also a collector. I have been collecting DVDs from my early college days, when I had little money, I used to buy movies in huge deals. I even copied friends DVDs, guilty me.

As time went on, I switched from DVD to digital copies as I can own them for perpetuity and don’t have to manage or carry them. I can simply turn on the TV and can see whatever I want, if I own it without any subscription. I also don’t need to own dvds, it’s all in the cloud.

I am not only a collector of movies, I love to learn about directors, writers and their movie making processes. I try to find similar works like the movies I love to see. In order to achieve and manage all my movie data, I needed a way…

As like anything else in my life recently, needing management, I made a notion database.

Find the template if you need it:

I generally buy movies from iTunes with good deals and are of Movies Anywhere capable.

For them, who don’t know Movies Anywhere, it’s an online service, which lets you see your purchased movies from all supported platform like iTunes, google play, Youtube, amazon, Microsoft movies, xfinity, Vudu.

You buy once and watch them thorough all the platforms

I use these websites to see all the available deals

I have a huge collection of around 400 movies I have purchased over the years, most of them are purchased during holiday season with huge deals and some are free.

I have all these movies through Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Microsoft, Vudu.

Not all of them are Movies Anywhere compatible. So I needed a way to manage and keep track of them.

Here is the notion database…

These are the ways, I am using this:

  1. When I buy a movie, I create a record with title, director, genre, price, date purchased, provider, quality.
  2. The MA (Movies Anywhere) column, let’s me know if any movie I own is MA compatible or not, so that I know, if I want to see it, where to watch
  3. The seen/unseen column lets me know if I have seen it or not, when I buy as a package, I get some movies which I may not have seen.
  4. I group movies based on director, genre and the play count tells me, what type of movies I may like next.
  5. The price column and the date column helps me to keep track, how much I am spending every month

Automation

Here is a very simple automation I put on Automate.io to update movie data from Discord.

I am using Discord to update the year of a movie based on it’s title. Here it is a very simple example. I intend to make it more complex to update any attribute. They I will automate this process with IMDB api with a bot.

Next steps

I want to automate some actions with Notion API

  1. Get ratings from IMDB and rotten tomato and add them in the movies
  2. Update the play count when I see a movie
  3. Update total movie watch time when I see a movie and understand how much time am using for entertainment.
  4. I want to add thumbnails from IMDB via automation

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Movies
Automation
Notion
Streaming
Passion
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