Project management as applied in TV and film production

Project Management for Media

Introduction

Television production industry proffers many benefits while practicing the project management, involving technical advancement, developed methodologies, quality management, or come across important setback s with promptness. These points lead to increase difficulty and density of the process of production. In spite of problems and complexity inbuilt in TV production industry, it is continuously flourishing. It is possible for TV production to manage the projects with experience, dignity and excellence within the available resources, expertise and large amount of experiences (Ika, 2009). Excellent project management becomes important or essential for the demanding nature of the TV production. Form the view point of the project management, the TV production industry proposes many prospects.

Exploration and Critical Analysis TV or Film Production to Qualify as a Project

In the culture of production, expert investigates the culture and belief system practices and the behavior of production workers including those who in top position like producers, directors and below the line workers like editors, gaffers and camera operators in the production industry. Then analyze the situation, description and practices with the help of which workers or labors can make sense of their work, criticize the TV and film industry. Industry continuously depict itself and its process of the production to the local people, workers and giving them ideas about the production industry which are surrounded in their daily routine practices which they create (Yates, & Paquette, 2011).

For any project for which to be qualified, it is mandatory that firm or media house must have the feasibility report which indicates the flow of activities to be carried out. For example the newly built TV production has intention to make the TV serial about any societal issues, it should at least send the proposal to the interested parties. The newly built TV house must have all the necessary facilities or set of the number of technical devices and operatives machineries that is used in the TV production (Yates, & Paquette, 2011). Also when the proposal are sent to interested parties, TV production house makes it compulsory for all interested media outlets to meet the requirement that includes the experts producers, cameramen, editors and latest machinery and equipment that is used in the process.

According to Madden (2012), TV production house might make certain decision keeping the demand of pace of work in which project is to be completed. Skilled workers means that able and competent producer should be part of the TV production house who have a vast amount of knowledge and information about the every step and activity which are supposed to be more helpful in the completion of TV serial. Similarly, in the completion of TV serial, number of elements related to human workforce exists like actor, co-producer, cameramen, light engineer, sound engineer and others.

When the human job role is particularly defined then tasks to be done become more easily and without any trouble a successful journey starts towards the completion of TV serial (Madden, 2012). It is more imperative for TV production house must use the latest technology and sophisticated devices for production purpose. TV or Movies of Hollywood use the latest technology which makes the production and off-camera activities easier. The use of newly arrived technology also helps the production house to make any kind of changes dueling the production processes.

It will enhance the viewership with great admiration. Technical labor is also requisite for TV industry as minor mistake during the phase of project related to TV serial can cause in bringing huge financial losses and can happen to stall the project. Therefore, along with the skilled and technical labor, another important aspect of the TV or film industry is the script writing which are to be visualized by the physical movements and image of various known actors and actress (Napier, Keil, & Tan, 2009). As the scriptwriting is an art which is the sole responsibility of playwright who assembles the ideas into words and it is the role of director who bring ideas or words into physical movements of actors and actress which is highly appreciated by viewers.

Animation are also used by director and producers which show the reality of object which is placed by technical team during the production set. Even the arrival of new innovative technology is bringing more revolution in the TV industry and Hollywood is the only place which is actively engaged in using new and innovative technology in every scene of movies or drama which appeal the viewers to watch. But it is up to the choice of the viewers to like or dislike in the movie or drama as ultimately TV production house can only make efforts to entertain audiences through the use of varieties of technologies but decision of either acceptance or rejection resides in the minds and hands of audience (Napier, Keil, & Tan, 2009).

Elements of Project Management for Successful Execution of Film or TV Production

Film production is the process of film making which involves or includes various numbers of distinct levels. Film production takes place across the world with the wide range of social, political, and economic perspective by using diversity of cinematic techniques and advance technologies. Usually it involves a large number of human resources for their projects. And for creating and maintaining the quality it needs to have enormous efforts from very skilled people. And when it comes for communicating or coordinating the tasks like feedback from stakeholders across the world or across the time zone or any other things or tasks it becomes hard to look after or control the whole setup so it needs to have proper implementation of main elements of Project Management (Remidez, & Jones, 2012).

And for that we need to know what the main elements of Project Management are? As we all know that project management is the series of several important steps or activities which are interrelated and complex for attainment of the single goal. And the important aspect of booming project management is to see and consider the whole process interlinked. Completion of project may face constraints if it’s not proper planned because without proper planning, risk management, WBS successful execution of film production cannot be possible (Remidez, & Jones, 2012). These elements are very necessary for the film production’s successful execution.

Planning

For successful execution of film production with the help of project management it is necessary that planning level should be accurate and should have assured that plan is effectively and efficiently control and executed. There are some models which can be used in the stage of planning. Few examples of planning stage’s model are Gantt chart, PERT etc.

Gantt chart

A specific bar chart which shows the current progress of the project activities along with the project completion dates (Madden, 2012).

PERT

PERT is an evaluation program with the technique reviews; it is a planning method of networks for managing and controlling the projects like in our case film production. It has six steps.

• All activities should be visibly explained.

• Prior activities should be identified and put ting them in sequence.

• There should be a diagram which reflects series relationships.

• Each activity should be determined with estimation or allocation of time.

• System should be assessing by estimating the critical ways.

• When the project start progressing, exact activity time should be recorded so that it can be helpful in case of any adjustment and revision (Madden, 2012).

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

WBS can be defined as an oriented breakdown of work to be carryout by the team to attain the objectives of the project and can create the compulsory deliverables. For creating an excellent WBS it will need a considerable amount of time, people and energy. But the first question which comes into our mind that why is it necessary to create WBS for our projects? (in our case film production).Three reasons are there to use WBS. Firstly it gives clear and accurate picture with exclusively organize and define the scope of the total project. Secondly it assess and give the ideas for allocating the resources, assigning the responsibilities, monitoring and controlling the project (Ika, 2009). Last but not the least it helps in double checking and ensuring that there is no lacking or overlapping in the project completion.

Risk Management

Risk management is related to assess or measure the natural risk. It is the process of identifying, evaluating the risk and making contingency plan and developing different strategies to manage the risk in present and future. It helps in reducing the risk factors (Yates, & Paquette, 2011). A proper department of risk management in film production can help them in successful execution.

Conclusion

In last we can conclude that no one can deny the importance of Project Management in any business whether it is TV industry or Film production or Educational sector etc. We all know that project management is the series of several important steps or activities which are interrelated and complex for attainment of the single goal. Like all industry it has very important place in film production. Without production management no one can be able to deal with the problems which they can face while dealing with others human resources, allocation of resources, assignment of the task.

References

Ika, L. A. (2009). Project success as a topic in project management journals.Project Management Journal,40(4), 6-19. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pmj.20137/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

Yates, D., & Paquette, S. (2011). Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: A case study of the 2010 Haitian earthquake.International Journal of Information Management,31(1), 6-13. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401210001453

Napier, N. P., Keil, M., & Tan, F. B. (2009). IT project managers’ construction of successful project management practice: a repertory grid investigation.Information Systems Journal,19(3), 255-282. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2575.2007.00264.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

Remidez, H., & Jones, N. B. (2012). Developing a model for social media in project management communications.International Journal of Business and Social Science,3(3), 33-36. http://www.ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_3_February_2012/3.pdf

Madden, M. (2012). Privacy management on social media sites.Pew Internet Report, 1-20. http://www.isaca.org/Groups/Professional-English/privacy-data-protection/GroupDocuments/PIP_Privacy%20mgt%20on%20social%20media%20sites%20Feb%202012.pdf