Niklas writes (in Swedish) about Justin Wyatt’s book High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. I had never heard of high concept before, but the text on the back cover of the book sounded interesting:
Steven Spielberg once said, “I like ideas, especially movie ideas, that you can hold in your hand. If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, it’s going to make a pretty good movie.” Spielberg’s comment embodies the essence of the high concept film, which can be condensed into one simple sentence that inspires marketing campaigns, lures audiences, and separates success from failure at the box office.
Ideally, a software architecture should be expressed in a short sentence and still suggest how the piece of software is organized to someone not familiar with it. In the field of movies, a phrase such as “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…” suggests a lot to the prospective moviegoer – provided he or she have seen a certain number of movies in the same genre already.