Nexus Distribution is a small film distribution agency that focuses on limited release art-house films. It has been in business for a decade and has an existing information system for administering its business processes. Joy Moody started Nexus with her long-time professional contact Deane Jackson. Joy has a leadership and marketing role and Deane manages operations. Louise Taylor and Elizabeth Page are spotters who attend film festivals (eg Sundance, Cannes, Sydney, Toronto, London, etc), identifying films that align with the Nexus Distribution focus, bidding for, and often signing, those films. This team of four work closely to sign 15-20 films each year, optimising the distribution of each film so that returns for Nexus and for their clients (the film-makers and the theatres) are maximised.

The existing information system consists of three databases.

• Catalogue
• DistributionNetwork
• Travel

Louise and Elizabeth do most of their work while travelling and they communicate with Deane via email, text messaging and phone calls. Louise and Elizabeth attend only the largest film festivals together; usually they work independently of each other. When they are at a film festival, they work highly irregular hours and, in addition to the tasks outlined above, their work includes socialising with, and occasionally entertaining, potential and existing clients. Clients are entertained when the film they have made is of such high quality that more than one distribution agency is competing for its distribution rights. In these cases, Elizabeth and Louise take the clients out for dinner or to a bar in order to build robust working relationships and to create an opportunity for uninterrupted discussion of why and how the clients interests are best served by Nexus. Louise and Elizabeth are consummate networkers; they are confident, good-humoured and charming in all social circumstances, building relationships with and between people working at all levels of the international art-house film industry.

However, the communication practices between Nexus staff are not up to date and this has led to inefficiencies and wastage of Louise and Elizabeths talents and efforts. As their time at film festivals is expensive (flights, accommodation, registration fees, entertainment costs, etc) it is desirable that their time is not wasted. For example, a new film may be shown at several film festivals simultaneously; if Elizabeth has already seen it at Toronto and passed on it (or bid for it and signed it), when Louise is at the Venice film festival, she does not need to waste her time viewing that film and can focus on other films. There are many other instances in which their communication practices fail to optimise the (mostly asynchronous) day-to-day collaborations between Louise, Elizabeth and Deane.

While Louise and Elizabeth work on building Nexuss catalogue, Deane builds its distribution network (in addition to his significant administrative role). This entails signing various distribution service providers (both independent and chain) to the Nexus distribution network. A distribution service provider might be a VOD (Video on Demand) provider, a chain of theatres, an independent theatre, etc. Deane spends about half of his recruitment effort approaching providers that do not already screen art-house films. The other half is spent on providers which already adopt an art-house focus. While it is a key facet of the Nexus business model, building the distribution network does not consume anywhere near as much effort, money and time as spotting films. Deane estimates that for every dollar spent on building the distribution network, a hundred are spent on spotting films.

Deane is directly responsible for accounting, travel arrangements and reporting. Also, he is indirectly responsible for contracts, which he outsources to a legal firm specialising in contracts for this type of work.

Joys role is largely centred on vision and leadership. However, prior to starting Nexus she built a reputation in film marketing and her practical skills in this area are an essential ingredient in Nexuss success. Every time a new film is signed to Nexus, Joy, Deane, Louise, Elizabeth and the film-makers have a four hour meeting. Occasionally, these meetings are in person, but more often they are held online. These meetings can be hard to schedule because participants are very busy and in different time zones.

During these meetings, in order to design the films marketing strategy, they leverage Louise or Elizabeths observations of the film, Deanes knowledge of the Nexus distribution network, Joys marketing expertise and the clients vision. A marketing strategy includes artistic vision, media, release windows and release schedule.

Artistic vision is primarily driven by the client and Joy with input from Louise or Elizabeth. It is actioned by Deane, who reviews the artists who have worked with Nexus in the past, considers the artistic vision, and prioritises the artists according to how well their unique talent, reliability and experience match up with the marketing strategys artistic vision. After the meeting, Deane approaches the artists one by one to discuss their availability and to eventually establish a contract.

Media (film, video, television, DVD, VOD, etc) is negotiated between Joy, whose mission is to optimise returns, and the film-maker, whose mission is exposure. With input from Louise and Elizabeth, who have viewed more films than anyone else in the meeting and who therefore have the most comprehensive view of the international market, a binding consensus is reached and documented.

Joy and Deane, who aim to maximise the size of the audience, are largely responsible for determining release windows and schedule, however the clients needs are taken into consideration. This is achieved by application of market intelligence and expertise. In most cases, a film is screened in theatres on a schedule that will maximise the audience (eg avoidance of major cultural events, avoidance of similar films, knowledge of forthcoming films, etc). Also, films are screened in theatres (primary distribution service providers) prior to being released via secondary distribution service providers (eg VOD service providers, DVD runs, etc). The duration for which the film is screened in theatres depends upon various factors (audience, the films performance in other markets, the agreement between Nexus and the film-makers, the agreement between Nexus and the theatres, etc). For most films, the theatrical release date is preceded by four weeks of postering and trailers, wherever possible working with the film-makers in order to leverage the social profiles of those who worked on the film (eg the actors and crew). For highly anticipated films, these four weeks may extend to six or eight and may require Deane to schedule interviews for the film-makers or actors with local media.

Although the existing IS meets Nexuss administrative needs, the ongoing daily communication problems and the difficulties of scheduling and running online meetings need to be addressed. Deane thinks Nexus needs its own app so that database updates can be done by anyone at any time and he has contacted your workplace, IT Foundry, to enquire further. You have been allocated the task of systems planning for the development of an app for Nexus.

Also, although they are very talented, experienced and respected in their fields, the entire Nexus team are inexperienced in systems analysis and design. They are confident you will come up with relevant ideas, they anticipate your suggestions and they expect you to catalyse and drive all technical aspects of the project. These clients are very much open to suggestion.

As you have never worked in this field before, you begin by reading about film distribution on Wikipedia. Then, you move forward with systems planning.

1. Design a user interface storyboard for the meeting scheduling system.

Put your answer here.

2. Determine the data required to store a new clients information. Design an input source document that will be used to capture this data.

Put your answer here.

3. What data validation checks should be performed on the data fields mentioned in the questions (Question 2) above. Please be detailed.

Put your answer here.

4. Design a report containing summaries of recent business activity for Joy. Refer to the requirements listed in the case study to understand what should be included as part of the report.

Put your answer here.

Appendix One is a table with sample client relationship details data in 1NF.

5. Normalise the table to 2NF.

Put your answer here.

6. Normalise the table(s) to 3NF.

Put your answer here.

7. Drawn an ERD to describe the 3NF tables.

Put your answer here.

You have completed the data design and begin to think about system architecture design. You run through the system architecture checklist.

8. Which items on the system architecture checklist are relevant to the meeting scheduling system?

Put your answer here.

9. Prioritise the items that you identified in question 8. Briefly explain (one or two sentences) these priorities.

Put your answer here.

10. Do you recommend fat or thin clients for the case study? Why?