Big Screens Big Failure-Stephen

Case Summary Big Screen Studios is one of the largest Hollywood movies studios. Buck Knox, the president of Big Screen has established Big Screen as a studio that produced cost-efficient and profitable films. The studio also had a good reputation for being supportive of the creative side of film making. However, in the last two years Big Screen had invested in several major productions that for various reasons had all performed well below expectation. Knox heard that some of the board members were prepared to force him out of the presidency if Big Screen did not come up with a hit soon. Knox contacted Mark Frazier, the director who had made several profitable movies and had a reputation as being a maverick with a â€Å"vision†. Frazier wants the script that he’s been writing to be filmed by Big Screen, the story about two strong male lead characters, a beautiful woman the men encountered in South America whose affection they fought over, battles, sea journeys, and challenging journeys over mountains and through jungles. Knox enchanted by the script; however Knox could also see that this movie might be extremely expensive to produce. Frazier convinces Knox that it will pay off. After a serious consideration, Knox decided to produce Frazier’s movie with $50 million budget agreement. John Connor, one of Knox’s trusted vice presidents, act as the studio’s liaison with Frazier and to be executive producer on the film. Connor was a veteran of many years experienced in working with directors and budgets. The first major problem the film encountered involved casting. Frazier’s first signing was Cole Rogan, a famous actions star, to be one of the male leads. Knox and Connor felt that Rogan was an asset because he had a reputation as a star who could â€Å"open† a film (audience would come to a movie just because he was in it). However, Frazier then decided to cast Frank Monaco as the other male lead. Monaco had made only a few films to date, and those were fluffy romantic comedies. Monaco had never proved himself in an epic adventure role, and he was an accomplished enough actor that he would make the rather wooden Rogan look bad. Knox suggests recasting Rogan’s role. Unfortunately, it turned out that Frazier had signed Rogan to a â€Å"pay or play† deal, meaning that if the studio released Rogan from the project, the studio would have to pay him a considerable sum of money. Rogan was replaced by Marty Jones, an actor who had had some success in films but mostly in supporting roles. A few weeks after casting was completed, Frazier insists the majority of the production be filmed in the jungles of South America, rather than in the studio. Frazier also insists that he needed to bring along most of the crew that had worked on his previous films. This also means that the budget will be increased. Knox agreed to raise the budget to $75 million as he was afraid of Frazier would go to another studio if he was not allowed to film on location in South America. Frazier, Connor, and the cast and crew headed off to the South American jungles for a scheduled two-month shoot. After two weeks had passed, Frazier was shooting scenes several times over- not because the actors or the crew were making mistakes, or because there was something wrong with the scene, but because the output just didn’t meet his artistic standards. Also, because the filming locations were so remote, the cast and crew were spending nearly four hours of a scheduled seven hour workday traveling to and from location. The production was incurring huge overtime costs. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the progress showed that Monaco and Jones didn’t have any chemistry as a pair, and Gia Norman, the female lead characters, had such a heavy accent that most of her lines couldn’t be understood. As the troubles that come up, Knox headed to the location to meet with Frazier. Knox will put $5 million more into the movie and tell Frazier that the movie must be done within the budget. Knox thought, Connor was doing a good job of reporting, but he didn’t seem to be doing much to correct the budget problems he was observing. After three and half month Frazier came back to California and started editing the film. He refused to allow anyone associated with the studio to be in the editing room. Three weeks into the editing Frazier ask that he want to hire a ship and bring the actors and crew back to perfecting the prologue which would cost the studio another additional cost. Knox agrees after he had a discussion with the board member.

Research Report Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Report - Research Paper Example Breeding of genetically modified animals is counted as a procedure too (Jha 1). The use of animals has increase by 1% in 2010. This includes the 1.6 million procedures done involving the genetically modified mice. According to Judy McArthur, a chief inspector at the animals’ scientific procedures inspectorate of the Home office, excluding the genetically modified animals, the increase is less than 1%. This is because of the increase of the number of fish up to 23%, which counts for about 93 000 of the total animals. Dogs, primates, cats and horses are protected by the law, therefore, the total number of the procedures done using the animals is 19, 773, which accounts for around 0.5% of the total. The number of the dogs used in the procedures dropped by 2%, and that of cats dropped by 32%. In toxicology tests, the number of animals used dropped by 11%. Barney Reed, a senior scientist at the RSPCA described the rise of these procedures as astonishing. He pointed out that the rate of carrying out the procedure had incerased by 37% for the past one decade. Martin Walsh, the head of the Home Office’s animals scientific procedure division, provided that efforts are being made to reduce the number of animals used for research, as well as ending the use of animals as household products. The main ethical question raised in the article is why scientists breed the genetically modified animals, yet they could be endangered by such procedures. Here, according to professor Dominic Wells from the royal veterinary college, one of the reasons why the scientists produce more of the genetically modified animals is because they have refined their procedures. The scientists, therefore, produce two lines of mice that do not show any adverse phenotype until they are crossed. This enables them to generate any number that they want before they conduct any procedure. Breeding of the mice help the scientists

International competition and risk management of Ultra Electronics Essay

International competition and risk management of Ultra Electronics Holdings - Essay Example To a large extent therefore, a company that wants to compete effectively must be in a position to identify what customer needs are, how other competitors are meeting up with these needs, and devising strategies to counteract the provisions being made by their competitors. This way, we say a competitive advantage has been created (David & Desheng, 2008). But what is more interesting is the fact that as companies try to create competitive urge over their competitors, a not too pleasant situation with risk sets in, creating the need to management the risks alongside the creation of competitive advantage. In this paper therefore, how Debenhams Plc undertakes international competition and manage risk are critically discussed. Company description Listed on the London Stock Exchange and a member of the FTSE 250 Index, the eighteenth century founded Debenhams plc now has over 172 locations across the UK, Denmark and Ireland (Fredriksson and Patrik, 2009). The company operates mainly as a ret ail chain with a departmental store outlook in the United Kingdom. There are also a number of area monopoly stores in other countries, making Debenhams a trading international company faced with the task and need to engage in international competition. Stores in UK, Ireland and Denmark serve as the major market segments for the company. Some of its international franchise however includes 68 stores that are operated under license in as any as 25 countries. This means that for each of the countries, the company establishes its market presence firmly there by having 2 to 3 operating stores (Biasi, 2011). in the next 5 years, the company has plans of increasing its international franchise stores to 150 so that it can be a more vibrant competitor and have an increased market share as it currently lags behind some key competitors whose major competitive advantage is in their market visibility (Chapman, 1996). Debenhams plc is mainly engaged in the departmental stores industry, trading in products such as shoes, accessories, fashion clothing, cosmetics, electrical, gifts, home furniture, electronics, and toys. With an employee strength of 29,000 as of the close of 2012, the managed to raise revenue of ?2,229.8 million in the same year period, out of which ?125.3 million was their net income with operating income of ?158.3 million (Biasi, 2011). Latest market reports indicated an average of 0.45% growth rate over the last 6 months, but not being strong enough to equal market share growth rate for the same period last year (Davis, Eppen and Mattsson, 2004). For example, as of November 2013, the company’s price in GBX was 93.40 with 1.72m shares traded representing a beta of 1.5. This value is however a declining growth for the company as the share traded in 1 year represents a change of as many as 20.10%. As a departmental store, the company is not directly involved in manufacturing but in retailing. To this end, it does not deal with suppliers who are directly into raw materials but engages in outsourcing of finished products in the areas of products that it trades in as has been stated above. Financial Performance Profitability Performance Financially, the performance of the company over the past five years can be said to have been a mixed one. This is because there has often been rises in revenue and growth at some point in time, and at other times, falls in revenue and g