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Ask HN: How to build a personal database for creative work

23 points by sprafa ↗ HN
Hello HN,

I'm a film/VFX person and I've come to realize over the years that one of the most important things for me to finish a job properly is organisation. Yet more and more I've realised that no one is really offering a tool that can help me organize the vast amounts of information that I get from the Web and want to keep for later inspiration in my creative work.

Right now I use: Pinterest for visual stuff Pinboard for links Simplenote for my own notetaking

All of this is labelled and organised, within its own platform. But there is no ONE platform that allows me to have all of this organised and searching through all 3 or 4 of them is hard. Not even to mention how many iPhone photos I have

Let's say for instance I want to make a short Film with some VFX work on it.

I need: Celtx or Final Draft where I'll write the screenplay Pinterest/instagram where I might look for inspiration for the VFX/locations/look I might see things on the street and take iPhone photos I'll use pinboard web links

I am visual guy, do some HTML/CSS and branching out into other languages. Now because this issue is getting worse and worse for me I'm starting to think that I might need to learn MySQL or something similar.

The idea of relational databases for my work seems very powerful. I need something that combines the power of Simplenote/Pinterest/Pinboard into one consolidated Platform.

I imagine this might take me 1/2 years to figure out, I'm fine with that. But considering the vast knowledge of the HN crowd, can anyone think of a better solution for this? Am I on the right Track? Does anyone have a better suggestion on what I could do?

Cheers

20 comments

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tixocloud
It sounds like what you're describing is something like Adobe Bridge but an online version of it and additional features to clip images from the web.
sprafa
Something richer. Take a look at the web app Notion. it's pretty close, but it still has the problem of having to upload everything into their platform all the time.

A rich media pinboard is my idea. I love pinboard, but it needs to allow for visual search, that way you could store and later search for images with it as well. It would also need to absorb my iPhone photos.

cubecul
Airtable might need some work on the rich media front but it's a start for making the idea of relational databases accessible.
peternicky
I second Airtable. Such a well designed and feature-rich alternative to spreadsheets and relational databases.
sprafa
Wow! This just blew me away. Very VERY close to what I was thinking. Going to try this now.
howsta
Cofounder of Airtable here. Video production is a common use case for us! Here's some relevant community-generated templates: https://airtable.com/universe/category/creative-production
howsta
Also this page links to some in-depth case studies about how it's used: https://airtable.com?try=videoproduction
sprafa
thank you. You have a great product there. I'm sure a lot of design/film production studios were looking for this. Right now managing a design studio usually means 3/4 platforms. Your platform has a real chance to take over that field.

If I can offer a suggestion, take a look into ftrack and try to copy some of their core featureset (unless maybe you can already do that, in which case just make a template! ).

tomek_zemla
You might find some interesting leads in previous HN discussions around systems for note taking and organizing personal knowledge. For example search for 'personal knowledge' keywords lists this project as top hit: http://www.acuriousmix.com/2014/09/03/designing-a-personal-k...

Please post your findings here if you discover interesting answers.

downrightmike
Or, you know, OneNote will do this amazingly well.
sprafa
Hmm all of it? Does it have grids for photos?
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doublerebel
I have plans on how to build such a rich media mindmap, it's a path many have gone down and usually get stuck on minutiae.

I don't really think such a thing exists yet, every implementation is either targeted to a specific need or is very technical -- which does make sense due to the possible complexity of a general solution.

My clue to you is you need a format that:

* Is not locked into a single platform

* Can link to other data

* Can refer to binary types

* Is human-readable

* Can be viewed by timeline (contains a timestamp)

My design so far is to use YAML-fronted markdown with a hierarchical namespaced real-word naming scheme that includes URL+hash to link binaries. This can use the local filesystem or be loaded into a graph database.

If this sounds like what someone is interested in building please contact me.

Mz
I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around the exact use case here. But, I am wondering if something like a private BlogSpot blog would serve your needs.

You can add links and photos. You can get a Blogger App and potentially use that directly from your phone to make notes and/or post your photos from your phone. You can add labels to posts. Etc.

I have a OneNote account. I never use it. I have some other big name note taking account. I rarely use it and haven't logged in for ages.

But I have multiple private BlogSpot blogs to track various categories of information. Of all the things I have tried, that has worked best for me for organizing information in a way that works for me and is accessible from any device.