RE: Movie making Vs Software Development

> From: 88Pro [mailto:catchgod-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> 
> Andy has posted a challenge to come up with repeatable process for
> movie making. 
> 
> http://www.toolshed.com/blog/SoftwareDevelopment/CmmMovies.html,v
> 
> I don't quite agree on that since I don't believe there are comparable
> in the first place, here is why!

Hi Senthoor,

In my opinion, defining requirements for movies and for some common types 
of software is very similar. For example, when creating a so-called
shrink wrapped software product there is often no specific end user who 
provides the software requirements. There are many potential consumers
of the software with varying and potentially conflicting desires. Part
of the marketing challenge for this type of product is to understand
the characteristics of the group of potential customers and determine
a feature set that will result in as many purchases as possible. This 
is a "guess" as you described it, but an educated one. During the course
of doing market research (which often continues well into the product 
development phase), the feature set and related requirements will
probably change as the target customer group is better understood or if
their needs change signficantly.

My understanding is that big budget movies are similar. A marketing
group defines the movie "features" based on an analysis of movie consumers.
The director and production staff define the high level and then detailed
design of the movie (shooting scripts, required props, locations, 
storyboards, special effects requirements). I've never produced a movie,
but I'm guessing that many of these designs and plans must be altered
frequently as the movie is being shot. 

One significant difference I see between movie making and software 
development is that the final movie is a small subset of the film footage 
that was recorded during production. If we wrote software where the
final product has 10% of the code that we wrote during development we'd
probably think we were being very efficient. In this sense, it seems that
movie makers usually overproduce content and then piece together the 
final product based on the quality of the content and knowledge of the
business environment at the time the movie is edited. This attribute
seems to make a CMM analogy questionable.

There are definitely repeatable formulas in the film making industry.
There aren't any that guarantee a hit movie independent of the the
talent of the movie makers and actors -- and that seemed to be Andy's
point. 

Steve



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Yahoo! Domains - Claim yours for only $14.70
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Z1wmxD/DREIAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pragprog/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     pragprog-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/