Inspiration
Going through the skills in the Alexa skills store I saw that there are many skills related to movies but there wasn't a single skill which could give me a brief overview or a synopsis of a movie so that I could decide whether to watch it this weekend or not. When I directly ask Alexa about a movie I either got no response or the description of the movie was not accurate. In India, people watch a lot of Bollywood movies but again in many cases Alexa wasn't able to recognise my query. That was the moment I realised it is important to create a skill which will work for all types of movies.
What it does
Movie Info is very simple to use. It will give you a brief overview or synopsis of any movie, be it an old movie or an unreleased movie.
For example just ask "Alexa ask movie info to give me a synopsis of The Godfather".
How I built it
As recommended in the Alexa documentation, I used an AWS lambda function to handle Alexa requests. I used the TMDb API to search the movie asked by the user and then return the appropriate results.
Challenges I ran into
I built this entire skill on my own, as a student, in the middle of a semester. It was very difficult to find time to consistently work on this. Also sometimes it might get a little difficult to pass the certification process but going through the official documentation always helps !
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
You can use this skill to even get synopsis of regional movies of any language. I believe this simple skill would be very useful as you get the results instantly. The skill is certified and published to the Alexa Skill Store.
What I learned
I have acquired more experience around the Alexa built-in slots and how Alexa manages the utterances. I have understood that the best way is to keep it simple, but with some tweaks in the logic, everything can potentially be achieved.
What's next for Movie Info
Currently the skill supports searching only movies but it will also support TV shows in the future. I will also be releasing the skill in other languages too.
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