Comedy Central's wildly successful animated television show South Park may have raised a few eyebrows with its irreverent style of humor. But behind the scenes, the production department takes its job very seriously. To stay on top of rigid production deadlines the upcoming feature–length film, "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" to be released by Summer 1999 from Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, the production team tracked every single shot in the movie, from layout to final animation, in FileMaker Pro for Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 3.1, and Mac OS, the award–winning database solution from FileMaker Inc.

Business Challenge

Each production department has "marker point" deadlines that it must meet in order for the film to complete on time. Each shot is stored as a record in a main FileMaker Pro database that all departments access. This enables Naito and her staff to query the database to determine which departments have finished which shots, as well as which departments are falling behind, over any specified time period. She can also gain an instant view of the overall film progress and how much more has yet to be completed.

Successful Solution

Built by production manager Ramsey Ann Naito the system contains every shot in the film — a number Nitel estimates will hit 3,000 before production is complete. The system is actually an adapted version of an earlier application Naito built for another film she was working on. "I didn't have a programming background at all," she explains. "But it had to be done, so I did it." She chose FileMaker Pro because it was the most intuitive, easy–to–use program available.

I didn't have a programming background at all. But it had to be done, so I did it.

— Ramsey Ann Naito, Production Manager, Comedy Central