A Chat with Craig Heyworth, Founder at FILMD

Tell us about FILMD

FILMD is the home of filmmaking – a network and workflow platform where cast, crew and creatives can actually run their careers and their productions in one place, instead of across endless spreadsheets, emails and WhatsApp threads.

At the simplest level, filmmakers join FILMD to build a full, industry-ready profile: credits, showreels, skills, kit, representation, links and location. From there they can navigate the members map, connect with collaborators, and find or post work – anything from short films and passion projects through to larger indie and HETV roles. On the production side, teams use FILMD to crew up, manage productions, keep all their documents and call sheets in one place, and communicate with cast and crew without everything disappearing into scattered group chats and silos.

We launched our mobile apps in July 2024 and since then the network has grown to over 14,500 filmmakers, with tens of thousands of private messages and hundreds of productions created on the platform so far. The bigger vision is to build the operating system the film industry runs on: one trusted home where talent is discovered, teams form, productions run and careers grow – whether you’re in London, Leeds or Larne.

What makes FILMD unique?

What makes FILMD unique is that it isn’t “just another jobs board” or “just another production tool” – it’s both and more, in one living network.

Most of the industry still runs on a patchwork of casting sites, Facebook groups, spreadsheets, email chains and WhatsApp. One place helps you find a job, another holds your call sheets, another is where you share work and films. None of them talk to each other, and your career is scattered across all of them. FILMD is built as a single home where those pieces actually join up.

What also sets FILMD apart is the focus. It’s deliberately built around careers, not one-off gigs. We care about your body of work, who you’ve worked with and the relationships you build over time, not just whether you land one job this week. Everything we’re building – from discovery and hiring through to running productions – is aimed at helping filmmakers string those experiences into a real, long-term career.

And because I started on the acting side before moving into tech, FILMD is grounded in the real rhythms of set life, not a theoretical idea of how filmmaking “should” work. It’s infrastructure designed by someone who has been on both sides of the table – in the audition room and in the codebase.

How has FILMD evolved?

In the very beginning FILMD was essentially a simple way for filmmakers to find each other – profiles, a map, and a basic way to post and respond to opportunities. It came out of a very straightforward frustration: anything meaningful in film requires a whole range of other filmmakers and skills to collaborate with, and there was nowhere that felt like a proper home for that wider community.

Since then it’s evolved into a much deeper network and workflow platform. We’ve added richer profiles, a live members map, a community feed, a Screening Room for sharing work, and a growing set of tools for running actual productions – from posting roles and handling applications, through to organising teams and keeping key documents in one place instead of buried in email chains. 

The launch of the mobile apps in July 2024 was a big step, because it shifted FILMD from “a site you check now and then” to something you can carry with you on set and between jobs.

The other big evolution has been mindset. We started out thinking mainly about discovery – “how do I get seen?” – and we still care deeply about that. But as the network has grown past 14,500 filmmakers, we’ve become much more focused on careers and workflows: how do we help people build a body of work, strengthen relationships, and make productions run more smoothly, rather than just helping them land one gig and disappear again. Step by step, FILMD is moving from “nice-to-have community” to core infrastructure that the independent end of the industry can actually rely on.

What can we see from FILMD in the future?

In short, you’ll see FILMD lean harder into being the home of filmmaking and less into “yet another place to list a job”.

On the workflow side, we’re pushing further into the day-to-day reality of running productions from script to screen. That means deeper tools for crewing up, handling applications, building and sharing call sheets, keeping documents and contracts in one place, and making announcements to cast and crew without everything dissolving back into fragmented group chats and silos. I want a producer to be able to say, “If it isn’t on FILMD, it doesn’t exist yet.”

You’ll also see a big focus on trust. Over time, FILMD will evolve into more of a live industry passport – a place where your credits, experience and credentials can be displayed and, where appropriate, verified. Alongside that, we’re building out the rails for safer hiring and, eventually, payments, so that more of the financial and contractual side of indie production can happen inside one trusted environment.

Beyond that, it’s about scale and depth. We’ll keep growing the UK network across more regions, deepen our work with schools, festivals and companies who want to plug their communities into FILMD, and then carefully expand to other English-speaking markets. 

Through all of that, the purpose stays the same: to give filmmakers a single home to discover opportunity, prove their craft, run their projects and belong to something bigger than themselves – so that more stories get made, more talent gets seen, and more filmmakers get the chance to build the careers they dream of.