Effective Application of Financial Concepts Essay

Effective Application of Financial Concepts - Essay Example Firstly, Project Alpha has the shortest payback period. This implies that it will take the project a shorter period of time to repay its initial investment out of the net cash inflow (Kinney & Raiborn, 2009: 555). The rest of the amount will be profit. Secondly, it has a higher ARR of 29.4% compared to merely 1.6% of the Beta project, making the investment more attractive. The Alpha project is, therefore, more profitable than the Beta project. Finally, Project Alpha has a higher NPV than project Beta. Project Alpha has more cash inflows than project Beta. Payback period is the time that a project takes to recover its expenditure or the amount of time required for a project to repay its initial investment amount out of its cash inflows (Atrill & McLaney, 2011, p.364). PP provides a measure of liquidity founded on the projects expected cash flows (Weingartner 1969: 594). When using payback period, companies normally base their decisions on a maximum time limit that is predefined for projects. A project with the shortest projected time is chosen (Atrill & McLaney, 2011). This method is more realistic because it uses cash flows and not accounting profit. It is simple to calculate and is more useful in situations where there is the rapid change in technology as well as improving investment conditions. Finally, the method favours quick returns by maximising liquidity, minimising risks and helping company growth. The greatest flaw of PP is that it fails to take into consideration the returns after the payback period. It ignores cash flow timings as well as overall project profitability. The method is subjective because it fails to give definite investment signal. Even though payback period gives high emphasis on liquidity, it ignores profitability. It also ignores cash flow after the payback period making it less effective in gauging a project. When using ARR, companies normally base their decisions on a predefined minimum target ARR for projects.  Ã‚  

Why the auteurist theory has become so important to film analysis Essay

Why the auteurist theory has become so important to film analysis - Essay Example The paper throws light on the theory of auteurism as a one of the most useful approaches to writing about films. Simply put, the auteurist theory in cinema is based on the idea that there should be identified a single creator of the film, with his own visionary approach – just as we identify an author for any work of art or literature. While within the auteurist theory film critics attempt to identify the film’s author, the theory also aims at to study the whole body of work produced by one specific author, like, for example, studies devoted to Alfred Hitchcock. While critics of the second half of the 20th century recognized the theory very useful due its librating effect – it allowed applying their initially naive suggestions about the role of authorship in a particular movie, it has acquired a more post-structural shape of late. To illustrate, within the latter the auterurist theory allows examining the work of a certain director not as the expression of his ge nius, but as the site where a biography encounters a historical moment, an institutional context, and, lastly, an intertext. The usefulness of this theory is also determined by its practicality since it requires focusing on just one person. One of the major arguments against the auteurist theory is that it is believed that movies have nothing in common with any other form of arts, e.g. paintings. Rather they are viewed as results of collaborative efforts by a number of artists. It is argued that one person cannot be credited with so much influence and importance that he/she is recognized the sole author of a movie. Another argument is that it is virtually impossible to identify a sole author since critics are not a part of films’ development and assess the movie’s auteur by a mere guess. Plus, the criticism of the auteurist theory deals with its suggested impact on boosting some director’s egos and reducing the role of input by other members of the crew. Therefo re, the criticism may be rely too much on a personality of a director ignoring the contribution of other people. For example, in a marketing campaign of the Psycho film (1960), directed by Alfred Hitchock, it was mentioned that that was the film by Hitchcock, which was intended to make people see the movie, although the most famous scene in the film, the shower scene, has been recognized the result of creative collaborative work with Saul Bass. The Jaws is cited as a good example of the misunderstanding rooted in the auteurist approach. While the plot was conceived by Peter Benchley, an author of the related novel and a co-author of the screenplay (along with Carl Gottlieb), the film was shot by Bill Butler, edited by Verna Fidelis, and filled with compositions by Joh Williams, attributing the authorship of The Jaws to one single director seems unfair and not objective. Of course, â€Å"Steven Spielberg’s film† sounds goof for a marketing campaign, since it advertises the film by the use of the famous name, yet it is hard to disagree with Goldman who asks, â€Å"How in the world is Steven Spielberg the â€Å"author† of that? † (Goldman, 1983, p.101). 8. After watching three of the ten movie clips listed in the Multimedia section, below, describe how they fit into a specific genre (or subgenre). What elements of the film are characteristic of that genre? How does it fulfill the expectations of that genre? How does it play against these expectations? I have watched two movie clips from