OPTIMAL SCHEDULING IN FILM PRODUCTION TO MINIMIZE TALENT HOLD COST

Abstract

The problem of minimizing the cost due to talent hold days in the production of a feature film is considered. A combinatorial model is developed for the sequencing of shooting days in a film shoot. The problem is shown to be strongly NP-hard. A branch-and-bound solution algorithm and a heuristic solution method for large instances of the problem (15 shooting days or more) are developed and implemented on a computer. A number of randomly generated problem instances are solved to study the power and speed of the algorithms. The computational results reveal that the heuristic solution method is effective and efficient in obtaining near-optimal solutions.