A casting director makes available the manpower required by a director for his script. He has to spot the talent, and becomes a conduit for the talent to reach the director. He keeps an eye on the performance of the talent. He first listens to the script, and makes points. It leads to a common brief. The search then starts for people and doing the auditions. The audition tape is handed over to the director. Either it goes through or it bounces off. Generally, it takes 2-4 months to cast for a film. At times: it takes a year or more. A casting director is paid depending on the size of the film.On an average, he is paid Rs. 10-20 lac.
Author: Shabbir Chunawalla
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Goldfinger –James Bond Movie Turns 50
September 2014. James Bond movie Goldfinger turns 50. Bond is the most popular character in the history of cinema. He has to his credit 23 films over a span of 52 years. Goldgfinger is not the first Bond movie. Dr. No and From Russia with Love preceded it. However, this is the film that made the Bond formula click. It is a mix of humour, high-tech gadgets and a villain bent on world domination. All this is combined with action, sexy girls and exotic life style. These parts put together work synergistically — the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Goldfinger triggered a whole new genre of spy films and spy spoofs. Goldfinger’s author Ian Fleming died one month before the movie was released. Bond evolved as a hero and kept pace with the public tastes over a period of time. This has kept him relevant.
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Pran – Creator of Chacha Chowdhary
Pran was born in Kasur now in Pakistan. The family shifted to India at the time of partition. His eldest brother Kanwarnath was an artist who graduated from Jaipur School of Art. He influenced Pran.Pran sent his cartoons to the periodicals and they were published. This motivated him. Initially, he drew pocket cartoons, most of which were political. Then he explored cartooning around a theme and discussed this with Dharmveer Bharati, the then editor of Dharmyug.Thus he drew cartoons using line from the famous poets such as Dinkar, Pant and Nirala. The series was called Kavita Cartoon. In order to counter the foreign cartoon syndication agencies, Pran started his own Pran Features Syndicate, and started drawing comic strips under his own banner. He wrote and drew his comics, and then made copies.He posted them to publications. Slowly, the publications started accepting.
He wanted to create a cartoon character as against the superheroes of the West. He wanted to deviate from the stereotype. He thought of an old man — short, not very good-looking and frail too. Pran based him on Chanakya and gave him the power of wit. This is how Chacha Chowdhary was conceived.
Chacha started as a village simpleton with a turban and dhoti-kurta. he was given a laathi too. Over a period of time, he was made modern — wearing a vest, a tie, sports shoes and carrying a walking stick. But his two prominent features still remain — totally desi — his moustache and his turban. His stories changed too.He was formerly fighting petty criminals. In the 1970s, he started fighting dacoits. Later, the stories incorporated plane hijacking, terrorism and cricket matches.
Chacha and Saboo are fond of food just as Pran himself was. Chacha’s pet dog was Rocket. Cartoonist Pran Sharma expired in August, 2014.
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Payment Gateways
These are the days of e-commerce and e-tailing.These companies have to receive payment through the customers. There is facility of COD or cash on delivery. here the courier collects the amount in cash after delivering the ordered item and deposits the money in company account.Another method is to use the electronic payment through the card. This is managed by a payment gateway company. When a customer buys goods from the e-commerce site, the payment gateway company collects his basic details if he wants to pay from his bank account through netbanking.There is a netbanking transaction where the gateway engages the customer’s bank directly.The realised payment is passed on to the e-commecrce site.The payment gateway company keeps around 3.0 per cent as its own commission.Another route is when card payment is used.As in the previous case, the basic details are passed on and verification is handed over to the Big Banks who act as intermediary between the card issuing bank and customers and make the payments on behalf of the issuing bank. Big bank tie up their funds and so they charge 0.2 per cent of the billed amount.Big banks check with Visa/Master network.These networks charge 0.35 per cent of the bill transaction.After the card is verified, card issuing bank debits the customer and pays the payment either to the payment gateway company or the big bank. Issuing bank charges 1.25 per cent as commission.Payment gateway company passes on the proceeds to the e-commece site, retaing aroun 3.0 per cent as commission
The biggest bug bear is the failure rate which is the failure of the process after initiation by the customer, something or the other going wrong.When a transaction fails, the customer should not return to square one. Instead he should find himself at the payments page with the particulars he had filled in.This reduces the customer’s frustration level, and increases his chances of second try.
Well-known payment gateways companies are CCA Venue, BillDesk and TechProcess.The new companies are Citrus, Zaakpay and PayU.
A customer has to pass through eight separate hops or fresh web pages before the transaction is completed. At each hop, there is a chance of failure.If you reduce the number of hops, it makes an immediate difference. Ideally, it should be one-click payment solution.
The global brands are eBay’s Paypal and Alibaba’s Alipay which is China-based.
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Chakra : An Indian Superhero
Graphic India is a comic book and animation company. They requested Stan Lee to create a superhero. Stan Lee first started work in Timely Comics (1939) as an ink-well filler. He co-created Spiderman, Daredevil, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor and X-men. He is creating Chakra, the first superhero for the Indian market. Chakra will be featured in a tele-movie The Invincible. Chakra is a Mumbai boy Raju Rai who gets superpowers with the use of a magic suit that unlocks his yogic chakras. Lee did the conceptual work for the story and the characters. Sharad built the edifice on this foundation. Jeevan developed the designs and costumes of the characters. Lee gave the feedback on the art and scripts. Lee feels that the superheroes must be interesting characters. The audience should care for what they do and how they feel and should appreciate their personal problems. The audience should be involved in the solutions to these problems. These problems actually make superheroes real. Chakra is also a compelling story. There are personal challenges and struggles for Raju Rai.That makes him relatable.
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Smart Phone : Making
A smart phone consists of a circuit board which mechanically supports and electrically connects the components, using the conductive tracks, pads and other features, etched from copper sheets, laminated on a non-conductive substrate. In a smart phone, all the parts are integrated onto a single chipset, and this is called System-on-a-Chip (SoC). In a smart phone, the battery takes so much space and so there is no room to have different chipsets. The SoC carries CPU, GPU, memory and other sub-processors such as video encoders and decoders, camera operation, and audio playback. Sometimes, a phone’s modems (wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 3G/4G ) are also integrated into SoC.
The top smart phone SoC makers are Nvidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Samsung. Apple’s SoCs are AX chips (A4, A5 and A5X).
The circuit boards are made by sophisticated machines. The components are adhered to the board. Certain components are pasted. The boards are inspected and cleaned. Then they are placed in a tray and sent for packing. A finished circuit board is used either in a computer or a smart phone.
The major parts of a smart phone are the circuit board, screen, antennae, micophone, battery, speaker, camera, GPs and sensors.
Qualcomm’s market share is 63 per cent in the processor market.
Cost Break Up of iPhone6
Display and Touch Screen $41.50
Connectivity(cellular,wi-fi, Bluetooth) Processor $40.40
Camera $37.00
Memory and Storage $14
Other Materials and Assembly $77.50
Total Parts and Assembly Cost $227.00
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Big Data
There is huge amount of data around us and it keeps growing each nano-second. There is a digital trail of each online activity. That adds to this pool. At the same time, powerful tools employing complex algorithms are used to plough through this data. It would not have been possible to do so through traditional research methods. The mining of this data is called Big Data. It includes searching, capturing, storing, analysing and eventually sharing relevant information with target audience.
Big Data drives the business decisions and may eventually shape the way the world functions. Big Data alters the way we process and perceive things. Big Data sample size is large and diverse. It cannot give the ‘margin of error’ which traditional surveys give with their limited sample size.
However, such exactness is not necessary. Insights obtained through Big Data could be far more useful. What are to be emphasised are the correlations rather than causality. However, there should not be over-reliance on Big Data, especially while looking at sensitive issues such as crime. it is also not necessary to follow blindly what Big Data throws up. India’s Aadhar card project is a Big Data project. It links an identification number to the demographic and biometric information.
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Chintoo – Cartoon Strip
This cartoon strip is popular amongst Marathi speaking population for the past 25 years. It is the brain child of Charuhas Pandit and Prabhakar Wadekar. It has been featured in over 5000 strips. The reason behind its popularity is the humour and its real life characters which common people relate to. So far 30 volumes of books on the character have been published. Besides, two films have been released in the last five years. Pribhakar wadekar, the co-creator of Chintoo died of brain hemorrhage on June 15, 2013 at the age of 56.
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Changing Contours of Marketing Research
Marketing research is based upon the collection , processing and interpretation of data to aid the decision making in the marketing area. By data, we mean both the quantitative data and the qualitative data. Data collection thus is one major component of marketing research. Data was collected primarily through surveys in which questionnaires were used, and the field staff used to fill in the answers by putting the questions to the sample. Internet has changed this –we now have more real time data either through cell phones or the social media. The client thus gets more authentic data than the traditional techniques.
In a sense, what we call Big Data these days once upon a time started as marketing research.
The data collection work can be automated. The qualitative inputs interpreted by trained people still holds as you have to get into human psychology here.
Instead of field investigators, the work first shifted to the call centers or BPOs. Later online research took over. Big Data is based on analytics. Data collection no longer makes money in the marketing research field. The premium is now placed on research expertise and the asking of right questions. Big Data has facilitated MR and also threatens it. However, Big Data facilitated only when the complex social issues are understood. A client may need to know how to motivate a community to adopt family planning.Or for that matter, how the mid-day meals lead to better attendance at schools. How to make people hygeine conscious in India? These are all valid questions but these would not be addressed by Big Data. An MR agency uses today data from social media, cell phones, online communities. Its a combination. Online behaviour also generates valuable data. An MR agency is the data integrator which designs questions after collecting data from all the sources.
The difference in IT and MR is getting blurred. It is used to do the research. Behavioural economists and psychologists are used to put appropriate questions. A major part of the business is still creative and analytical in combination.
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Digital Advertising
In any industry, we come across disruptive events. In advertising, the first disruptive event was the advent of TV in the 1940s. Thereafter, we had just incremental changes — print to video. It was all an era of mass advertising. Another disruptive event is the advent of digital advertising. It is a far bigger shift than the previous three shifts –print to radio to TV — put together. It is not just a change in the media — but a change from the mass media to personalised media. It is the beginning of customised ads — a different phase of creativity and distribution. The ads are tailored to user needs. Thus shaving gel ads will be shown to men only and diaper ads to new mothers. The old media will continue to co-exist with the new media but most innovations will happen in digital space. A search engine may figure out an individual’s personality and preferences and may project the relevant ads to him.
Traditionally, an Agency has the creative, production and media departments. Media buying is related to radio, TV, print or a mix of them. Digital buying is not so simple. There are display ads, search or campaigns on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. Each has a different social graph. Creative and media will work together, along with the techies. There will be emphasis on user data. It will influence the structure of the agencies.
Nissan Mexico’s launch of the Pathfinder was done in digital space. In India, there was YouTube campaign around Lifebuoy.
The chase for the ‘holy grail for advertising’ has just begun — one ad for every individual. The surface has just been scratched. The next ten years are important.