The following attributes represent data about a movie copy at a video rental sto

Question

The following attributes represent data about a movie copy at a video rental store. Each movie is identified by a movie number and has a title and information about the director and the studio that produced the movie. Each movie has one or several characters, and there is exactly one actor playing the role of each of the characters (but one actor can play multiple roles in each of the movies). A video store has multiple copies of the same movie, and the store differentiates copies with a movie copy number, which is unique within a single movie but not unique between different movies. Each movie copy has a rental status and return date; in addition, each copy has a type (VHS, DVD, or Bluray). The rental price depends on the movie and the copy type, but the price is the same for all copies of the same type. The attributes are as follows: Movie Nbr, Title, Director ID, Director Name, Studio ID, Studio Name, Studio Location, Studio CEO, Character, Actor ID, Name, Movie Copy Nbr, Movie Copy Type, Movie Rental Price, Copy Rental Status, Copy Return Date A sample data set regarding a movie would be as follows (the data in the curly brackets are character/actor data, in this case for four different characters): 567, It s a Wonderful Life , 25, Frank Capra , 234, Liberty Films , Hollywood, CA , Orson Wells , { George Bailey , 245, James Stewart | Mary Bailey , 236, Donna Reed | Clarence Oddbody , 765, Henry Travers | Henry F. Potter , 325, Lionel Barrymore }, 5434, DVD , 2.95, Rented , 12/15/2010 Based on this information, a. Identify the functional dependencies between the attributes. b. Identify the reasons why this set of data items is not in 3NF and tell what normal form (if any) it is in. c. Present the attributes organized into 3NF relations that have been named appropriately.

Explanation / Answer

It’s perhaps fitting that an industry that produces illusions is in itself an illusion. The absence of public scrutiny of its finances and business model leads to a lot of myths or misconceptions. Some of these are discussed anecdotally in books and other works[1], but the absence of data makes the anecdotal evidence unsatisfying to an analyst. What if we could find patterns in data about the industry to confirm or deny these oral histories? Fortunately some data actually exists. There are collections of data about movies released and some of the attributes of these releases such as box office receipts, theaters opening, budgets (sparsely), and distributors. This data is typically used for marketing purposes to celebrate the “hits” and thus entice more people to see the movies. However, other information can also be obtained through analysis of the data. In fact, a rather compelling story can be told. That’s the purpose of this post. Our story will be expanded over time but this first draft should be enough to allow a discussion to begin. The story is built in four sub-stories: Drama / Comedy vs. Adventure / Fantasy: Why the Ancient Greeks had it all wrong. The magic of summertime: Market access and school schedules The perpetual incumbency: What happens to Hollywood startups The Popcorn economy: The peculiar power of theaters in an age of television These stories were the result of observations in data alone. We have no first-hand knowledge of the industry and have only used basic software tools to seek out patterns in public data[1]. The data set includes approximately 12,000 titles released between 1975 and present with various degree of completeness. Some of these years are not completely populated and some data is undoubtedly in error. However the large sample should offer enough substance for patterns to emerge in spite of this

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.