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Comedy Central

FileMaker Pro Keeps "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” Rolling

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.

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.

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.

Especially valuable is FileMaker Pro's ability to let users view several layouts and see the same information in different ways. "This alone,” she says, "saves us considerable time in data entry and reporting.” Progress reports that would otherwise take upwards of three hours to generate can complete in less than three minutes in FileMaker Pro.

Not only has FileMaker Pro made life easier for everyone on the movie production staff, but it has kept the film on track -- which means that "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” will soon be out in theaters near you.

For more information, please contact:
"South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut”
Ramsey Ann Naito "
Production Manager
310-821-9577

Filemaker Contact:

Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com

• FileMaker Pro is hard at work behind the scenes of "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut". The film's production department uses FileMaker Pro to track every shot in the movie -- from layout to final animation. The FileMaker Pro solution was built in-house by Production Manager Rasey Ann Naito, who had no programming background at all.

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