HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CASE STUDY

Problem: A prominent Hollywood film and television studio is comprised of Executives, specialty divisions and independent production companies. All of these entities were using many different software applications for their daily work. There was no solution with continuity for these offices to log phone calls, keep track of script submissions and keep all the information organized in a shareable/relational database. Call lists or phone logs were confined to the desktop only and not available on mobile devices, making constant contact with the office a necessity if an Executive wanted to know what calls had come into the office.

Most of the call list and script log databases were built using Filemaker. No two were alike, which posed problems for the assistants floating between offices trying to acclimate themselves when presented with different interfaces.

When maintenance or programming was required for the Filemaker databases, the studio had to hire outside consultants paying them an hourly fee and often had problems finding a suitable outside vendor. Costs were high because the consultant needed extra time to gain familiarity with the database and the user interface.

Internal support costs were a factor as well. The IT Department had to support the desktop computer users when problems occurred. Since each office had what amounted to a custom application, troubleshooting problems became a time consuming endeavor.