When Ty was coming up with the idea for “this app to collect his movie tickets”, he kept coming back to the event of seeing a movie. Being able to take a ticket out of a jar, and BLAST to the past, even just for a moment. Or taking a ticket out for a movie that isn’t critically acclaimed per se, but was “an absolute BLAST” of a theater experience.

When I was in high school, I was gifted a mason jar full of my favorite candy, Skittles. When I depleted the jar (in a few days), I transitioned my very minuscule collection of movie tickets into the jar, and made it a goal to one day fill the jar to the brim. The logo is a direct nod to my very own ticket collection. The collection that made me want to develop this app in the first place.

Womp womp.

Just kidding. At the bottom of every theater list, there is a button that says “Don’t see your theater?” That button will direct you to our website where you can submit information for it to be added to our database. We have literally nothing better to do during the day, and Steve’s up all night, so it shouldn’t take more than 1 business day for us to add your theater to the Blast app!

In October of 2022, I drove FOUR HOURS to Milwaukee to go see Halloween Ends with Ty. It was a movie we were both incredibly excited to see, and when we finally got to the theater and sat down, we watched one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life. The entire audience was laughing at the cringe-inducing dialogue and corny plotlines, and as soon as we left Ty simply said he needed the strongest drink he could find.

That is an A+ Blast Grade and a D- Movie Grade. We’ve all had experiences like Halloween Ends, and that’s why the Blast Grade was so important to us in making this app. A Blast Grade is meant to capture how much you enjoyed a movie, or how it made you feel. A Movie Grade is meant to grade how good a film is on a more objective scale.

Yes, but we’ve made it tricky to do so. Blast is trying to build not just film culture, but theater culture. It’s incredibly easy to go on Disney+ and watch The Phantom Menace, but seeing “Duel of the Fates'' on the big screen is an experience like no other. That’s why it made over 10 million dollars in just six days upon re-release.* At Blast, we believe there’s no better way to see a movie than on the big screen, and we want to make sure that viewing experience never dies.

However, if you have a great viewing experience at home, there is a way for your ticket to say “N/A” in place of the theater name, you’ll just have to do some detective work to figure it out.

* per Collider

Blast operates closer to a photo album than a movie review app or website. When you open the app, instead of being prompted with trending movies with the highest scores, you'll be greeted with your friends' most recent special movie moments. Catch up on what they've watched, who they've watched with, and which theaters they frequent. Apps and websites like Letterboxd, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDb prioritize the collective while Blast focuses on the individual.

Our goal is to have logos incorporated in a future state of the app. Our theater database was built with Steve’s bare hands (in Excel). Some datasets do provide logos, but they cost far too much to be considered at this time. In the future, we’d love to include theater logos and showtimes, along with a few more tweaks we are excited about.