David Lortal, Product Manager, explains how BMT used Nucleus Automations, webhooks, Make and AI to automate the transfer of films into the European Film Academy’s VOD Platform.
In 2024, the European Film Academy approached us with the desire to streamline their process of migrating films from Nucleus to their Academy VOD platform. They were using Nucleus to manage their film submission and Vimeo OTT as their internal viewing portal for Academy members containing both an archive and the films eligible for the current voting, but transferring approved films between the two systems was entirely manual.
For every entry, someone needed to copy the metadata, retrieve the image and video, and recreate the content in Vimeo. With around 100 films processed during each cycle, this created a significant amount of repetitive work. We initially explored a bespoke integration, but the development cost was higher than the available budget, so the process remained manual.
I revisited the problem in 2025 after beginning to use AI Workflow Automation Software & Tools for Nucleus workflows and other automation projects. Rather than building a traditional point-to-point integration, I wanted to see whether we could combine the existing Nucleus API with an automation platform to deliver the same outcome more affordably.
The first prototype used an automated email triggered when an entry was approved. It included the Award ID and Entry ID, allowing Make to retrieve the relevant information through the authenticated Nucleus API before collecting the metadata, image and video and creating the corresponding item in Vimeo OTT.
Within a week, the prototype was working. It demonstrated that the integration could be delivered without funding a large bespoke build and gave us a clear understanding of the remaining work.
The production version became an early use of the new webhook functionality within Nucleus Automations. Instead of relying on an email, Nucleus now sends the identifiers needed to start the external workflow whenever the relevant automation runs. Make then retrieves the full entry securely through the Nucleus API.
One of the main challenges was preparing the metadata in the exact format Vimeo required. The European Film Awards related forms can contain multiple fields for directors and other credited roles, while the internal question names may change when forms are recreated for a new awards cycle. A manually mapped workflow would therefore have been fragile and required regular maintenance.
We instead used an AI module to interpret the Nucleus API response and return structured JSON in the format required by the European Film Academy. Because the model identifies information by meaning rather than relying entirely on fixed field names, the same approach can be reused across different forms and award cycles.
Manual mapping would have been cheaper to run, but more expensive to maintain and more likely to break when forms changed. The AI-supported approach costs approximately $5 for every 100 videos processed and provides a more flexible long-term solution.
The image import created a separate issue. Nucleus supplies images through secure CloudFront links, but Vimeo appeared to alter part of the URL when retrieving the file, invalidating its security signature.
A member of the BMT team proposed an alternative using a Make data store and a second webhook. The workflow temporarily stores the original image link, retrieves the file and returns the image directly to Vimeo through a clean webhook URL, allowing the process to remain fully automated without requiring a change from Vimeo.
The workflow has been live with the European Film Awards since June 2026. Following several refinements during the implementation, the European Film Academy has successfully processed all subsequent films which were presented successively to the Academy members on their VOD platform.
What previously required someone to copy and upload every video, image and piece of metadata now happens automatically after an entry is approved in Nucleus. The project solved a problem first raised two years earlier while also demonstrating how Nucleus Automations and webhooks can make integrations with third-party platforms more affordable and easier to maintain.
Want to find out how Nucleus Automations and webhooks could support your organisation? Get in touch to learn more and book a demo.
BMT (BAFTA Media Technology) is the software research and development arm of BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and operates under an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified Information Security Management System.
