Comments on: Some late-night musings on production http://www.mexploitation.org/2005/12/06/some-late-night-musings-on-production/ One Norwegian's adventures in Mexican direct to video film production Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:37:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: joakim http://www.mexploitation.org/2005/12/06/some-late-night-musings-on-production/comment-page-1/#comment-56 joakim Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:30:55 +0000 http://www.mexploitation.org/2005/12/06/some-late-night-musings-on-production/#comment-56 Hey, Bob. I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I think code reuse would probably be best done through stuff that's already in libraries, avoiding forks of existing code bases, to keep things neat, but that's a technical detail. There's a general tendency for useful code in free software to migrate to libraries anyway. If you're interested in further discussions of this, read the new post I added, at http://mexploitation.blogmexicano.com/2005/12/12/on-screenwriting-software/ and if you want, comment, or drop me a line at joakim at avmaria.com Hey, Bob.

I agree with pretty much everything you say here. I think code reuse would probably be best done through stuff that’s already in libraries, avoiding forks of existing code bases, to keep things neat, but that’s a technical detail. There’s a general tendency for useful code in free software to migrate to libraries anyway.

If you’re interested in further discussions of this, read the new post I added, at http://mexploitation.blogmexicano.com/2005/12/12/on-screenwriting-software/ and if you want, comment, or drop me a line at joakim at avmaria.com

]]> By: bob http://www.mexploitation.org/2005/12/06/some-late-night-musings-on-production/comment-page-1/#comment-55 bob Tue, 13 Dec 2005 00:03:40 +0000 http://www.mexploitation.org/2005/12/06/some-late-night-musings-on-production/#comment-55 I work in film and television production and you are absolutely right. It's a perfect niche for open source development. Professional post-production is well covered by a range of quality proprietary products like Avid, Smoke, Final Cut, Flame, Pro Tools, etc. But the software that writers, producers and production management use is almost universally not very good, outrageously overpriced, and poorly supported. And I say that not just as a paid-up user of Final Draft, but of a zillion other products, like Movie Magic / EP Budgeting, Movie Magic Scheduling, Point Zero, etc. They all suck. And all could be implemented as "minor" variations of existing codebases. How different is Final Draft from Abiword or OO Writer? Point Zero (or any AICP-type budgeting software, used on most small productions and commercials) is based on Excel, but would work even better as a customized Gnumeric or OO Calc. Scheduling and AD-type software could be based on something like Planner. Location managers would kill for a photo manager that was more suited to their needs than iPhoto (built-in panoramic stitching, for example), and that sounds like a job for gThumb or F-spot. And so on. There's a lot of work that would need to be done, but a lot of the infrastructure is already there. I could go on and on about software that would make various production work easier but either doesn't exist but exists and sucks. There's even a good business potential here, because of the unique structure of the production market. At the low end there are a million people who need or want this software because they're cranking out low-budget work, guerilla filmmaking, film school projects, writing The Great American Screenplay in their spare time, etc. Most of these people are using pirated versions of the above mentioned products or nothing at all, and most would welcome a free alternative. But at the high end, studios and production companies demand enterprise-level support - and are willing and able to pay for it. A movie studio depends on Final Draft or Movie Magic every bit as much as an enterprise depends on a server OS. A company that offered a suite of well-supported, well-integrated open source production software could become the Red Hat of the film industry overnight. Key to the strategy would be Mac support. Macs dominate production (and are at least an equal player in post). You will often walk into a production office of 50 people and not find a single PC. I'm typing this an iBook I own for no other reason than the need to interoperate with others in my business. Imendio's GTK port is a good start, I guess. I work in film and television production and you are absolutely right. It’s a perfect niche for open source development. Professional post-production is well covered by a range of quality proprietary products like Avid, Smoke, Final Cut, Flame, Pro Tools, etc. But the software that writers, producers and production management use is almost universally not very good, outrageously overpriced, and poorly supported. And I say that not just as a paid-up user of Final Draft, but of a zillion other products, like Movie Magic / EP Budgeting, Movie Magic Scheduling, Point Zero, etc.

They all suck. And all could be implemented as “minor” variations of existing codebases. How different is Final Draft from Abiword or OO Writer? Point Zero (or any AICP-type budgeting software, used on most small productions and commercials) is based on Excel, but would work even better as a customized Gnumeric or OO Calc. Scheduling and AD-type software could be based on something like Planner. Location managers would kill for a photo manager that was more suited to their needs than iPhoto (built-in panoramic stitching, for example), and that sounds like a job for gThumb or F-spot. And so on. There’s a lot of work that would need to be done, but a lot of the infrastructure is already there. I could go on and on about software that would make various production work easier but either doesn’t exist but exists and sucks.

There’s even a good business potential here, because of the unique structure of the production market. At the low end there are a million people who need or want this software because they’re cranking out low-budget work, guerilla filmmaking, film school projects, writing The Great American Screenplay in their spare time, etc. Most of these people are using pirated versions of the above mentioned products or nothing at all, and most would welcome a free alternative. But at the high end, studios and production companies demand enterprise-level support – and are willing and able to pay for it. A movie studio depends on Final Draft or Movie Magic every bit as much as an enterprise depends on a server OS. A company that offered a suite of well-supported, well-integrated open source production software could become the Red Hat of the film industry overnight.

Key to the strategy would be Mac support. Macs dominate production (and are at least an equal player in post). You will often walk into a production office of 50 people and not find a single PC. I’m typing this an iBook I own for no other reason than the need to interoperate with others in my business. Imendio’s GTK port is a good start, I guess.

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