A Cinematographic Approach To Project Management

A project is a set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations and project management is planning, scheduling and orchestrating of these project activities to achieve objectives within a specified period of time with the specified resources.  There are several different project management approaches available such as Scrum, Kanban, Agile, Lean, etc. Traditional approach is most used in business projects as well as in movie making. Steps in the traditional project management approach for business and movie projects are as follows:  

• Initiation
• Planning and Design
• Executing
• Monitoring and Controlling
• Closing

Movies are large business projects in nature and movie making definitely requires an intensive project management. Especially in commercial movies, large number of staff, large sum of money and tight schedules are involved. Without applying certain principles of project management, keeping everything and everyone on track would be highly difficult. This is the main reason for the producers of the large commercial movies always hire a project manager to oversight all production. Similarly in business projects, without applying proper project management techniques, the projects are more likely bound to fail. Although, some different terminologies are used, the steps of project management in movies and in business are quite similar:

Movie Projects	Business Projects
Developing an idea Getting a producer Scripting Storyboarding Getting resources Scheduling Filming Editing Releasing the movie	Developing an idea Getting management approval Breaking down tasks Prototyping Getting resources Scheduling Executing Auditing Launching the project

For a successful project management in movies or business; definition and the objective of the project should be clear and concise, schedule should be realistic, the budget should be carefully considered and should be very accurate, resource planning should be viable, all the risks should be assessed beforehand and contingency plans should be developed, throughout the project, budget and all the other resources carefully monitored and all progress and problems should be communicated with everyone involved. Failing to do any of these properly might cause projects to fail.

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