A metadata-driven production system Hollywood eventually built 15 years later
This one makes me laugh, because it sits right at the strange intersection between imagination, systems thinking, and total naïveté. In the mid-90s, I honestly thought about pitching this idea to Spielberg. Not joking. Spielberg.
And the funny thing is… it actually would’ve been useful.
Back then, filmmaking was organised chaos.
Scripts were physical binders.
Continuity was Polaroid photos stuffed in envelopes.
Props lists were scraps of paper.
Costume continuity lived in someone’s head.
Directors rebooked locations five times because the shoot jumped back and forth chronologically.
And I remember thinking, hang on, we have databases. Why aren’t we using them?
My idea was simple; build a database where every scene is a record.
Every record stores:
the location
the actors required
camera angles
props needed
costumes and wardrobe states
continuity notes
lighting requirements
special effects notes
and where it appears in the script
Then, generate a shooting blueprint that re-orders scenes efficiently.
If the entire cast is on a 737 set that appears 12 times in the script, shoot all 12 in one session. No rebooking. No rebuilds. No chaos.
Give every department a printed daily sheet and let the metadata run the production.
When I described this to a friend back then, they shrugged; “surely they already do that.”
Nope.
Not even close.
Hollywood didn’t adopt digital continuity and metadata-driven production pipelines until the mid-2000s.
Tools like Shotgun, Final Draft Tagging, Scenechronize, Movie Magic Scheduling; these all arrived 10–15 years after my little epiphany.
Today, this kind of relational script engine is ESSENTIAL for filmmaking.
It’s the backbone of VFX workflows, continuity, pre-visualisation, and production scheduling.
But in the 90s?
They were nowhere near it.
Would Spielberg have laughed me out of the room?
Possibly!
But the idea itself was solid.
The industry just needed time to catch up.
And that’s the lesson I’ve taken from it over the years.
Sometimes you’re early. Sometimes you’re too early. But the thinking still matters.
Because when the world finally gets there, you realise you were walking the right path all along.