...Kezrin Asfar “The Business of Making” Movies Article Summary The article, “The Business of Making Movies”, written by Mark Young, James Gong and Wima Vanderstede, describes the economical sides of making movies today. It is extremely informative and very interesting especially from the standpoint of a student accountant who loves to enjoy movies as entertainment. It starts off by putting the industry in perspective and showing the reader how complex and important to our economy and culture the industry is. The movie making industry actually has a major influence on the United States Economy, at the very beginning the authors state the motion picture industry in the U.S. is ‘one of the country’s largest exporters and exerts cultural influence worldwide’. The industry is worldwide and very competitive. About 3,000 movies made it to theatres in 2006 in the U.S., but that is less than 1% of the entire amount of movies that made it film festivals alone. Predicting what movies are going to be successful is an extremely thorough process that does not allow many ideas or movies to ever make it. And even if they do make it, sometimes movie goers just don’t appeal to it as much. There seems to be a group of major studios that have control of the market and which movies get to make into theatres. I never knew that DreamWorks, the studio that made movies like Shrek, was actually a subsidiary company from the larger studio of Paramount Pictures. These major studios seem to ultimately...
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...Marts, 2011 Line-item budgeting and film production – Exploring some benefits of constraints on creativity and aesthetic value creation Thomas Frandsen, Ivar Friis, and Allan Hansen*) Solbjerg Plads 3 2000 Frederiksberg Copenhagen Business School Denmark *) Corresponding author: ah.om@cbs.dk Early work – Please do not quote without the permission from the authors Paper to be presented at the workshop on Creativity and Control Sponsored by Accounting Organizations and Society 4–5 April 2011, Barcelona, Spain Abstract: This paper explores the role of budgeting in the Danish film industry and seeks to illustrate the positive effects a line-budget might have on the creativity and innovativeness in film production. In our analysis we provide illustrative examples of the enabling and facilitating role of budget constraints on film production from the Danish film industry in general as well as from a case study of the process of making the Danish film “The Island of Lost Souls” in particular. We draw on Elster (2000)’s constraint theory and suggest that the constraints imposed on agents by line-item budgeting under some circumstances lead to situations where ‘less is more’ as line-item budgeting might be used to focus creative behavior as well as pre-commit the agent against passion and time inconsistency. 1 I. Introduction The dysfunctional consequences of constraints imposed by budgets on agents dealing with uncertain, complex or dynamic organizational...
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...leader in developing, manufacturing, and marketing different imaging products for leisure, commercial, and medical use. * Recently, Kodak attempted to reorganize its architecture * Kodak has been slowly executing a plan to make the transition from a film business, to a profitable and sustainable digital company. Kodak has faced great difficulties such as: * Restructuring costs * High competition * Rapid growth * Low profit margins. * Our company’s architectural restructuring plan was motivated by: * Competition * Our virtual monopoly was eroded through the entry of other firms. * Technological Advancement * Advances in technology have allowed firms to produce new products faster. * Changing Market Environment * These changes have caused us to fall from a once prominent monopoly in the film industry, to such a small player in the digital industry. * To win back market share and increase profits, Kodak did a mass restructuring that failed to provide the expected results. * Decentralize Decision Making * Altering the decision making process from a top-level approval requirement to a more decentralized decision making process of small business units and managers. * Management Annual Performance Plan (MAPP) * Implemented to help motivate our managers to be more innovative, productive, and responsible for customers’ demands and needs. * During this process...
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...The Responsibility Project The Responsibility Project ETH 316 The Responsibility Project A short film was chosen to view on the Responsibility Project website. The film chosen was named Greyston Bakery. The ethical principles in the film is used to address organizational issues. The two biggest issues located in the film is given. The importance of the issues located in the film is explained. The role of external social pressures occurred on Greyston Bakery show how social pressures effects the organizational ethics. Three reasons why the issues are relevant to the organization and personal decisions is given as well. The relationship between legal and ethical issues located in the film is produced along with explanation of how domains can conflict and possible solutions to end the conflict. The short film is about Greyston Bakery in which shows how the bakery supports the community. The bakery gives back to the community from profits of the bakery goods sold (Liberty Mutual, 2010). The biggest item sold is the brownie they have that is used in the social enterprise in direction to reach social and profit mission (Liberty Mutual, 2010). The biggest issues in the film is open hiring and community development. Open hiring allows the business to hire people within the community to provide a opportunity to allow people employment regardless of past history (Liberty Mutual, 2010). Community development is developed by using profits...
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...motivated Kodak to change its organizational architecture? When Kodak began making changes to its organizational architecture in 1984, its current architecture did not fit the business environment for the industry. The largest factor that motivated Kodak to make this change was increased competition and decreased market share. Until the early 1980’s, Kodak owned the film production market with very little competition. This suddenly changed when Fuji Corporation and many other generic store brands began producing high quality film as well (Brickley, 2009, p. 358). Another factor in this change was technology advancements. As technology rapidly expanded in the 1980’s, other competitors obtained the ability bring new products to market in a much shorter timeframe (Brickley, 2009, p. 358). Film and related products became more readily available, resulting in a more competitive film production industry. With this changing market environment and technological advancement, Kodak lost its monopoly in the film production market and was forced to make a change. 2) What mistakes did Kodak make in changing its architecture? In order to regain some of its lost market share, the company made some rapid and unbalanced changes to its architecture. However when making changes to one area of the company, it failed to coordinate the changes to other areas. In 1984, the company restructured and changed its decision making process to become more decentralized. As a result, 17 new departments...
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...Mariano, Ryan Martin, L. BSIT 0556-0512-12013 Philosophy and Logic/TTH/3:00-5:00pm In the film entitled Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I will argue to the claim about the minds inconsistency in making decisions and why do people tend to escape from their destined life, the emotions conquering our decisions that we are making, and so, also some thoughts and points that I would like to argue about the film. The First or rather striking part is that Joel who met Clementine at the Montauk. Draw from their different personalities they became lovers. And an argument follows which results or makes a life decision and that decision is to erase all of their memory about Clementine and as so Clementine did it before he has done it... In that case they have both tried to become strangers in a way of erasing their memories... Secondly is Joel’s dreaming part in the movie, or in which case is, the memory clearing part. It automatically strikes me as a viewer that Joel try to escape from the real situation, even if his memory is being cleared and even it is not possible to bring it back or to stop it, he still fought for his feelings, and I’ll be arguing also with the following topics... Thirdly is what happened to Joel and Clementine at the start and at the end of the said. At the first cycle is that it so happens that they had a bad relationship which resulted in to forgetting each other. And at the second cycle they’ve become strangers again and so finding out what...
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...The Responsibility Project Daphne Kennedy ETH/316 May 22, 2012 Dr Steve Wyre The Responsibility Project The film called Avalon is an inspiring one. The link to the film is: http://responsibility-project.libertymutual.com/films/the-entrepreneurial-spirit-avalon#fbid=NsvA-zAC7Jw. Two women endeavored to start a new small business in the city of Detroit. The business is baking bread. They show how brave they are and that healing a city can happen. They demonstrate how to use ethical principles to address organizational issues. The issues in the film involve the city of Detroit. This city experienced a huge downfall with the crash of the economy. According to Huffington Post the Detroit News reports that Detroit has an enormous unemployment rate nearly 50% because of layoffs of the major auto manufacturers (Huffington Post, 2011). The women who started Avalon saw the need to heal the city and create jobs. The organizational ethics portrayed in this film are amazing. As stated in the film by one of the founders who have three bottom lines. “One is the responsibility to the earth, one the responsibility to the employees and the other is the responsibility to the community” (Liberty Mutual The Responsibility Project, 2012). The external pressure of the later is major. The social pressure influencing this business decision is the community needed them to start this business. Their decision to start a business was a big risk, especially starting a business they...
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...In this film The Greyston Bakery are doing good for all people around, employees who work for them, and people of the community. Greyston bakery is a bakery who make specialty brownies, their brownies are features in ice-cream for Ben and Jerry's and Do-Goodie brownies. The issues in this film are important because poverty is a high rate in many areas, people are jobless and have no money to take care of their families. In this film, Greyston Bakery has actually saved many lives with their tough lives that they were living. Greyston Bakery has a social mission in which to higher people of the community who are struggling, giving them the opportunity to take care of themselves and family. The bakery also has open-hiring, this is where everyone has a chance at employment. The profit from the Greyston Bakery goes to the Greyston Foundation, which provides housing, child care services, and healthcare. External social pressures plays a big role in influencing organizational ethics. In this film, poverty of the community plays a role in influencing Greyston Bakery. Organizations need to give strong consideration to social expectations in the areas of general community involvement and environmental responsibility. The community is poor, they need money, jobs, education, and healthcare. If external social pressures within a community is ignored, sooner or later the community will find out by internet for example, or by other communication and cause the community to go against the organization...
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...The Responsibility Project 1 RUNNING HEAD: The Responsibility Project The Responsibility Project ETH 316 January 27, 2014 Professor Mary Sortino The Responsibility Project 2 The Responsibility Project A short film was chosen to view on the Responsibility Project website. The film chosen was named Greyston Bakery. The film highlights some very important issues concerning business and their place within their community. The film explores how external social pressures influenced the organizational ethics of the bakery and its management. These issues have proven relevant to both personal and organizational decision making. The film also presents the viewer with information regarding the relationship between ethics and the law as they pertain to business operation. The short film is about Greyston Bakery which is famous for the brownies it makes and sells. Despite the success of the brownie Greyston CEO Julius Walls Jr wants people to be aware of what is happening behind the scenes at his company. He views the profits of his company as the means to supporting a mission. Walls Jr classifies Greyton as a social enterprise in which there are two bottom lines, one for profits and one for a social mission. The film presents the external social pressure of giving back to the community. Greyston Bakery focuses one of its social efforts on providing employment to people within its own community using an open hiring process. Open hiring allows an opportunity for employment to anyone...
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...deciding the fate of a young Puerto Rican boy in a murder trial. It is phenomenal that a movie with a running time of just 96 minutes and shot in just one room could be so impactful and so intellectually stimulating that it could be a source of immense learning for generations to come in the field of psychology, social psychology, Organizational Behavior anddecision making. In this paper, we will be exploring 3 wide dimensions/theories in the field of OB and their application in the movie by citing specific examples from the film. We will start off by exploring the phenomenon of Perception and Individual Decision Making where we would be exploring the decision making process at an individual level, explaining the underlying theories and biases involved in individual decision making and try to map those to specific instances in the film. This will be followed by a discussion on the phenomenon of Group Behavior with particular emphasis on group formation, group decision making and Groupthink. Finally, we will explore how Personality influences the decision making environment. Perception and Individual Decision Making One of the theories that were seen at play was Attribution Theory. Attribution theory is a phenomenon that is characterized by individuals observing behavior followed by an attempt to gauge whether the event was externally or internally caused where internal causes under the person’s control while external causes are not. For example, the architect made more external...
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...Institutional Affiliation Managerial Economics Case Studies #1. Three aspects of organizational architecture The three vital components of organizational architecture are: a) assignment of decision rights; b) methods of rewarding individuals; and c) structure of systems to evaluate the performance of both individuals and business units. First, assignment of decision rights involves giving the responsibility of decision-making to top-level executives. It is imperative that an organization is able to delegate the duty of making a decision to a manager who has relevant information and knowledge on the internal and external factors that affects the operations and goals of the organization. The architecture of an organization and its environment will determine who will be the decision-maker for the company. In some organizations, the top-level executive may have them most relevant information and thus, a centralized decision-making process can be adopted. There are instances when the lower-level employees may have the most relevant information, thus, decision-making rights become decentralized. Second, methods of rewarding individuals determine how the organization will provide incentives to its employees. Organizational goals and employee’s productivity play great roles in determining a scheme of remuneration. Some organizations repay their employees through financial rewards such as the monthly wage, and cost of living allowance, and other benefits. Also, some firms offer nonfinancial...
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...experienced. Group dynamics refers to a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (intragroup dynamics), or between social groups (intergroup dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behavior, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies.Group dynamics are at the core of understanding racism, sexism, and other forms of social prejudice and discrimination. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, business, and communication studies. 12 Angry Men is one such movie which shows how group dynamics can actually lead to success or failures.12 Angry Men is a classic movie which was released in 1957.In the movie 12 men are put in one single room to discuss a case and reach a final decision on it. Until they don’t come up with a final decision no one is allowed to leave. Much similar to a typical GD session.Group dynamics is related with the structure and functioning of groups as well as the different types of roles each individual plays. In the film, twelve men are brought together in a room to decide whether a boy is guilty of killing his father. In the whole movie, each member has been crafted very carefully. He has been given a proper role to play in the group dynamics. The whole spectrum of humanity...
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...PERSONAL GROWTH LAB ASSIGNMENT Analysis Of: EK RUKA HUA FAISLA Submitted by- CHARU DHINGRA PGDM-HR (2009-11) 13 EK RUKA HUA FAISLA Que 1) Map the personality profile of each member and discuss its impact on their respective behavior/stand taken. Ans. 1) The story revolves around twelve male members of a jury who have gathered together in room to deliberate on charges of murder against a young boy accused of killing his father. The case against the boy looks irrefutable and indomitable. All the jury members, except one – Juror 8, are convinced that the boy is guilty of the crime. Juror 8 is not completely convinced about the case and he starts the deliberations, in which all the members have to participate to reach a common conclusion. The main characters are:- Juror 1 | Deepak Kejriwal | Juror 2 | Amitabh Srivastava | Juror 3 | Pankaj Kapur | Juror 4 | S. M. Zaheer | Juror 5 | Subhash Udghate | Juror 6 | Hemant Mishra | Juror 7 | M. K. Raina | Juror 8 | K. K. Raina | Juror 9 | Anu Kapoor | Juror 10 | Subbiraj | Juror 11 | Shailendra Goel | Juror 12 | Aziz Qureshi | The nature of each character is slowly revealed through the process of the discussions which reflect their personal beliefs, convictions, notions, idiosyncrasies, prejudices, and cultural & social backgrounds. In this paper I have tried to determine the personality of each of these characters on the basis of the structure...
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...and killed his father. The jury is further instructed that a guilty verdict will be accompanied by a mandatory death sentence. The jury of 12 retires to the jury room, where they spend a short while getting acquainted before they are called to order. All the jury members except one (Mr K.K.Raina) are convinced that the boy is guilty of the crime and that task before them is to reach a unanimous decision to expedite the case. His is the only "not guilty" in a preliminary vote. His stated reason is that there is too much at stake for him to go along with the verdict without at least talking about it first. His vote annoys several of the others, the most vociferous of whom is Juror number 7 who has tickets for the evening's movie show. The film then revolves around the jury's difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict, mainly due to several of the jurors' personal prejudices. Juror number 8 says that the evidence presented is circumstantial, and the boy deserves a careful consideration—whereupon he questions the accuracy and reliability of the only two witnesses to the murder, the fact that the knife used in the murder is not as unusual as testimony promotes (to prove his point, he produces an identical one from his pocket), and the overall questionable circumstances (the fact that a train was passing by at the time of the crime calls the two witnesses' testimonies into doubt). Having argued several points and gotten no favourable response from other jurors, he reluctantly agrees...
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...yet people continue to smoke. In the film, Thank You for Smoking, Nick Naylor works for the tobacco industry; his company forces him to uses his talking skills to argue how cigarettes are really not as bad as what everyone believes. At times, Naylor is ambiguous about what he does, advocating for a product that is known to be bad for us. However, he continues to prove to his son the power of supporting an argument successfully. He tells him that “the beauty of an argument is that if you argue correctly, you’re never wrong.” Nick Naylor made many different appearances and his reasons for smoking weren’t all the same. He had a different argument for every person and every statement. Nick visited his son at school for career day and he made a point that his job is just to make enough money to support his family so he is going to do whatever it takes. He also wanted the children to know that when they are making decisions in life, make the decision whether or not to smoke and the decision should be left up to them and no one else. A young girl in the classroom raised her hand and said that her mother told her cigarettes kill people, but Nick won the argument before she was even finished talking. Nick Naylor is also supposed to research links between disease and smoking but he has never been able to find anything conclusive. On Joan Lunden's show, he protests that he doesn’t want to be a customer to die and he accuses the doctor of making money off of cancer patients. Nick uses...
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