This thesis is motivated by the steep increase in grass-root content production and the transformation of Web2.0 consumers into “prosumers”, a concept that pre-dated the web itself (Toffler 1980). The notion of “prosumers” in the Web 2.0 and beyond presumes an increasingly wider-scale ability for content creation with a much deeper understanding of the implications and associated risks (at all levels from quality to IPR and copyright aspects). Technology today offers the possibility to easily master complex processes such as video/image editing with a home computer or a laptop yet this is not sufficient for managing all the decision points involved in an informed fashion. The widespread availability of office-automation solutions powerful enough to handle fairly complex processes of monitoring and management, raises the research question as to the feasibility of providing a didactic model and support tools that could better serve the increased desire of web users to become content producers.

1. David Luigi FUSCHI

2.  Topic: Media content production
 Issue: monitoring and managing the
decision making process while
understanding the embedded risks
 Approach: a formula-based media
content production planning, monitoring
and risk management system

3.  A project management approach to the
description of creative media content
production processes and related risks
 A comparative analysis of creative media
content production processes
 A clear indication of intra-process
dependencies, relations and risks

4.  A complete reference model for the
Filmmaking process from Concept to
Fruition
 A didactic support for teaching Content
Production Planning and Risk Management
 A customisable system for Content
Production Planning and Risk Management

6. Film TV/Radio Book
Decision
makers
Financers Producer
Director Author
Composer
Board of
Directors
Producer
Publisher
Editor
Author
Operative
Crew
Staff
Crew
Staff
Author

7.  Creativity in media production is paramount
 Related processes complexity is remarkable
 The process is characterised by blurred
boundaries between roles and responsibili-
ties with significant embedded risks
 There is a need for process monitoring and
control support at each decision level
 Little work has been done in this respect
with the exception of YAWL4Film

8.  Workflow is often limited to automation, but
 Workflow is not necessarily automation
 Artificial Intelligence and Workflow have
been used for:
 understand and recreate narrative
 storytelling
 poetry
 conversational agents
 content creation & processing

9.  Media industry people are reluctant to
use/adopt technology perceived as possibly
hampering creativity
 The growing complexity and cost of
development advocates for monitoring and
risk management tools
 This dialectic situation resolves with the
adoption of minimal technology for the
management side and the usage of as much
technology as needed for the production side

10.  The complex “creative media content
production process” can be described
and formalised in terms of models of
interacting processes and constraints
that can be integrated within a model-
based and data-driven DSS to serve
media content creation and production
management for non-professional users
working within an office automation
computing environment.

11.  Is it possible to provide didactically
sound and informative support
throughout the process to non-
professionals by exploiting the
functionalities and possibilities offered
by simple solutions like those available
in office automation?

12.  Describe and model the “creative content
production process” in its entirety?
 Describe the “creative content production
process” in terms of “workflow”?
 Describe the “workflow” relations among
“actions”, “actors” and “objects” using a
“state-machine-based” approach?
 Implement and support a “workflow” by
using only simple solutions like those
provided by office automation?

13.  Workflow modelling
 Modelling and simulation
 Decision support systems
 Project Management

14.  System Theory (Von Bertalanffy)
 Abstraction Principle (MacLennan)
 Activity Theory (Alexei Leont'ev and Sergei Rubinstein)
 Threshold Concept (Meyer and Land)

16.  Interviews with:
 Producers (3)
 Directors (4)
 Director of Photography (2)
 Production Manager (1)
 Author (1)
 Multimedia / Game Producers (2)
 Multimedia / Game Developers (1)
 Graphic creator / CGI Expert (1)

17.  Interviews, commentaries and make-of
footage of selected movies
 Information extracted
 Difficulties encountered
 Logic and Method adopted
 Directors’ intention and work-method
 Crew / Cast opinions and experience
 Data available via the Internet Movie
Database (IMDb)

18. Observation
Analysis
Modelling
Experimentation
System Development
Evaluation
Activity
Conclusions
Time

19. Theoretical part

23.  And dynamics
induced among
actors by the nature
of the filmmaking
industry
 There are
interdependencies
occurring in the line
of management

30.  Development
 Pre-Production
 Production
 Post-Production
 Marketing
 Distribution
ISO 5807:1985 - Information processing -- Documentation symbols and conventions for data,
program and system flowcharts, program network charts and system resources charts
ISO 1028:1973 Information processing -- Flowchart symbols
ISO 2636:1973 Information processing -- Conventions for incorporating flowchart symbols in
flowcharts
ISO 10628:1997 Flow diagrams for process plants -- General rules

37.  The content production life-cycle is being
compressed adding constraints to its
management
 Grass-root content production further
shortens this timeframe making content
available soon after production

38.  The multimedia cycle
 The game cycle
 The publishing cycle
 They are all relevant for
grass-root content
production as there are
already examples available

39. Formula Purpose
=IF(AND(_expenseDate<>0,
NOT(AND(_expenseAmount<>0,
_accountNumber<>0,
_authorisedBy<>0,
_authotisedOn<>0))),
TRUE, FALSE)
If the _expenseDate has been introduced, but is missing either the
_expenseAmount or the _accountNumber or the
_authorisedBy or the _authotisedOn then the record is
incomplete and therefore highlighted in Orange
For an efficient management it is necessary to keep track of expenses, therefore the records that have missing
fields are highlighted in this very basic archive.. Data related to an expense may be easily recovered close to the
occurrence of the expense itself and become harder once times goes by.

40. Practical part

41. Practical part

44.  Combination of different shooting
techniques implies heavy constraints on
set and lighting management
 Experimental productions aimed at proving
technical advances/innovation are not
fully-suitable for narrative purposes
 Management of experimental productions
strongly deviates from standard practices

45. Experimental part

46.  Producer
 Producer & DoP
 Director & Producer
 Director & DoP
 Director
 Multimedia Producer & Workflow Expert
 Developer of Multimedia productions
 Specialist in PR & Marketing

47. System Usability
Av. 72.5
Stdv. 1.86006

48.  Thorough modelling effort
 High-quality model implementation
 Almost complete coverage
 Adds value to the understanding of the
intra-process implications and
dependencies
 Well suited for teaching and explaining
process complexity

49.  Adopted abstraction and overall
coverage of the process implies loss on
specificity in specific areas
 The balance between generality and
specificity penalises the latter
 Producers do not monitor the whole
process as describe (they usually ignore
distribution)
 More suitable for teaching than practice

50.  Through Observation data was gathered
 The performed Analysis led to Modelling
 Models defined were used to guide the
system development
 Experimentation and evaluation was then
performed

51.  It is possible to describe and model the
“creative content production process” in
its entirety although not in a very fine
granularity
 It is possible to describe the “creative
content production process” in terms of
“workflow” although usability depends
on the adopted granularity level

52.  Describing a “workflow” in terms of
relations among “actions”, “actors” and
“objects” using a “state-machine-based”
approach helps identifying risks
 It is possible to implement and support a
“workflow” by using only simple office
automation although this is not a practical
solution for end-users, but rather a good
complement for teaching and learning

53.  Some of the received comments need to
be implemented
 Revision of some of the labels in the
diagrams
 More thorough explanation of some
passages in the flow
 Transformation into an application that could
allow for better flexibility in the HCI

55.  Extension of the implementation to the
other modelled cycles
 Transformation of the overall into a specific
training with tutorials and devoted
slides/video
 Possible split-up of the present single file
approach into a multi-file one

56. Thank you!