Film Production Chat App
A custom Electron app commissioned for a feature film shoot, designed to display real-time chat conversations on an actor's laptop as an on-screen prop. I am now independently rebulding with React and Vite.
About the Project
Role
- Design
- Development
Stack
- React
- Vite
- Electron
- JavaScript
- CSS
Status
- Refactor in progress
Two interfaces
The on-camera view lets the actor type and send messages, and the logged-in user can be swapped to show the conversation from different characters' perspectives. The crew interface handles everything else: adding and editing users, changing online status, sending messages as other users, saving templated messages for reshoots, and switching the screen between direct messages and video chats.
Iterating on set
After the first shoot day, the crew needed a way to reshoot without manually retyping the script. They also needed the ability to reorder and edit messages sent in the chat. I added a template system that posts pre-written messages with a configurable typing-indicator delay and implemented a custom right click menu for editing messages in the chat.
React and Vite migration
The original codebase grew organically under production pressure. The ongoing refactor introduces component-based architecture, a slide-out settings panel, and cleaner separation between the two interfaces.
