When you run history at fast forward

In the next chapter we shall be seeing how and why the film making business uses a collaborative rather than a cooperative organisational framework. But, before going there, we might bear in mind that there are substantial differences between making films and creating e-businesses.

First and foremost, film making is based upon a set plan. This plan is the story and script of the film. This is more or less finalised before shooting starts and forms a definitive organisational framework around which all other activities are based: determining what kind and what number of collaborators are needed in a production

The content, or basic story, is used to create a shooting script. From this shooting script a production schedule will be planned. This production plan is known as the sub plot of the film, where scenes are filmed out of sequence for better efficiency. An example might be where the film story involves returning to a particular scene several times during a film. To save reassembling cast and crew a number of different times, all the scenes involving a particular set or location will be shot together, but, out of sequence with how they will appear in the final editing.

For similar reasons, out of sequence scenes will be shot to make the most efficient use of actors and actresses. Their time might be very expensive and it will obviously be preferable to shoot the scenes they are in all together, so that they are involved for the least possible time. Similar considerations are made for the participation and involvement of all the collaborators in a film making project, to ensure that the money being spent on these services is minimised as much as possible.

In this sense, film making is fundamentally different from the creation of an e-business because the existence of the plan - the script - allows managerial skills to be brought into play to optimise the efficiency of the film making procedures. This allows the work of the film director to be divided into two quite distinct categories: creative and managerial.

Because the management side of film production can be described and defined, managerial functions are best handled by a professional film production manager who will have been schooled and trained in all aspects of film production. This will leave the director free to concentrate on the more enigmatic features of film making - allowing him or her to be more of an auteur than a manager.

This arrangement works extremely well in the film making industry, but, it can easily be disrupted by what is known as LMGIs (last minute good ideas). This is where the director arrives in the production office just before filming a scene saying, "Last night I had this wonderful idea to improve the film". Both directors and production managers are primed to avoid this kind of situation like the plague because it can disrupt production in all kinds of unexpected ways. Ideas have to be properly evaluated, budgeted and scheduled in order to fit into the planned production of the film. Trying to fit new ideas in at the last minute can play havoc with costs and schedules.

In the creation of an e-business, the rapidly changing technology and competition will produce effects very similar to LMGIs. It's not that a director will come up with a new idea, its that new ideas, that were not available in the planning stage, suddenly impinge themselves on the production because of a new technological advance or an unanticipated competitor's strategy.

In the film making business, it is possible to outlaw the use of LMGIs because of the relatively slow rate of change. The technology and film making techniques wouldn't be expected to change dramatically and unexpectedly over the course of the time in which the film is being made. Certainly not anything major, that would be unpredictable to an experienced and knowledgeable director and production management team.

The situation in the creation of an e-business solutions is considerably different. This can appreciated if the same rate of change being experienced in the e-business environment could be imagined to have happened in the film industry. Consider how the film industry might have evolved if all the changes and developments in film making during the twentieth century had been speeded up so that every change and development that occurred over a one hundred year time span happened over the course of just five years. From one reelers to multi reelers in months. Within a year sound introduced. Within two years films become coloured.

Imagine starting the production of a film with a one reeler and by the time it was distributed the cinemas were demanding multi reelers. Imagine choosing a cast of actors and actors skilled at mime and then finding that the market needed to hear them speak as well. Imagine starting a film in black and white then discovering that the target audience will only go to films made in colour. Imagine planning and preparing to make a musical with a cast of thousands only to find that they've gone out of fashion before you'd finished shooting.

Film making is about producing entertainment that people want to experience. People will want change and novelty; this will be subject to changing fashions. In the twentieth century, the rate of such change in demands and fashion could to some degree be anticipated, so that a director could be reasonably sure that the kind of film planned at its inception would be in fashion at the time of showing. In a fast forward scenario where the time elapsing between unpredictable fashion changes is less than production times, a director could never be sure that an initial idea would still be viable at the time of the premiere. This is the state of affairs in the world of e-business.

Putting the history of film making into fast forward mode, to imagine everything that happened in a century of film making happens in about five years, gives a pretty good approximation of the rate at which the world of e-business is changing today. If the film industry had changed at that rate, what kind of strategy would an auteur have had to have? More interesting to most, what strategy should the actors, actresses, crew, technicians,screen writers and all the other kinds of collaborators have to employ? They would be just as vulnerable in a rapidly changing, volatile environment as any auteur director.

Note: The various kinds of auxiliary collaborators involved in any collaborative project will be far more numerous than the auteurs initiating and directing e-business projects. So, it is likely that the reader might not be able to self identify with the role of an auteur or an entrepreneur. But, as we shall see later, the optimum strategies for success used by different kinds of collaborators have many more similarities than is readily apparent and will be far more aligned than would be supposed.