Making Multimedia & Multimedia Skills

• Introduction to Making Multimedia

• Guidance and suggestions for getting started
• Multimedia Skills
• What skills required
• Introduction to Making Multimedia
• What we need?
• Hardware
• Software
• Good ideas
• Talent
• Skill
• Good organization of works
Introduction to Making Multimedia
• The stages of a project:
• Planning and costing
• Idea/objectives
• Multimedia expertise required
• Structure & navigation system
• Time & cost estimation
• Designing & producing
• Testing
• Delivering
Introduction to Making Multimedia
• Hardware
• 2 most significance platforms:
• Macintosh OS
• Intel-based IBM PC or PC Clone (MS Windows)
• Development environment
• Powerful workstation (Silicon Graphics, Sun
Microsystems, or mainframe)
• Apple (Macintosh OS) more suitable for multimedia
editing
• Cross platform format (both Mac & Windows)
Introduction to Making Multimedia
• Software:
• Multimedia software tells the hardware what to do
• Text, images, sounds, and video.
• Capturing images, translating between file formats,
and editing your resources
• Photoshop, soundForge, Premiere, GIF Animator,
etc.
• Multimedia authoring
• Macromedia Director or flash
• Everybody can make multimedia project!!
Introduction to Making Multimedia

• Creativity:
• Develop a sense of its scope and content
• Difficult to learn creativity
• “but like classical artists who work in paint, marble,
or bronze, the better you know your medium, the
better able you are to express your creativity”
• Know your hardware & software first!!
Introduction to Making Multimedia

• Organization
• Develop an organized outline a a plan that rationally
details the skills, time, budget, tools, and resources we
will need for a project
 Multimedia Skills

• Multimedia developers come from all corners of the

computer, art, literacy, film, and audio worlds
• To produce good multimedia, need detailed knowledge of
computers, text, graphics arts, sound, and video
• Normally multimedia project – team effort.
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team
• Executive Producer
• Script Writer

• Producer/Project Manager
• Animator (2D/3D)

• Creative
• Sound Producer
Director/Multimedia • Music Composer
Designer • Video Producer
• Art Director/Visual Designer • Multimedia
• Artist Programmer
• Interface Designer • HTML Coder
• Game Designer • Lawyer/Media
• Subject Matter Expert
Acquisition

• Instructional
• Marketing Director
Designer/Training Specialist
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team
• Project Manager
• Center of action
• Responsible for overall development and implementation of a
project as well as day-to-day operations
• Budgets
• Schedules
• Creative sessions
• Time sheets
• Illness
• Invoices
• Team dynamics
• Technical & operational expert
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team
• Multimedia Designer
• Designing the look & feel of a multimedia project
• Screen color, visual consistency, meaningful icons,
simple screen elements, content layout, content
structure
• Graphics Designer, illustrators, animators, and
image processing specialist – visual
• Instructional Designer – navigation pathways and
content maps
• Information Designer – structure content,
determine user pathways and feedback, and select
presentation media
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team

• Interface Designer
• Interface provides control to the people who use it
• Backgrounds, icons, control panels – result of am
interface designer
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team
• Writer
• Create character, action, and point of view – create
creativity
• Write proposals, script voice-over and actors’
narrations, write text screens to deliver messages, and
develop characters designed for an interactive
environment
• Glean information from content experts, synthesize it,
and then communicate it in a clear and concise manner
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team

• Video Specialist
• Videographers, sound technician, lighting designers,
set designers, script supervisors, grips, production
assistants, and actors.
• Skilled in managing all phases of production, from
concept to final edit
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team

• Audio Specialist
• Wizards who make a multimedia program come alive,
designing and producing music, voice-over narrations,
and sound effects.
• Selecting suitable music and talent, scheduling
recording sessions, and digitizing and editing recorded
material into computer filest
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team
• Multimedia Programmer
• Software engineer
• Integrates all the multimedia elements of a project into
a seamless whole using authoring system or
programming language
• JavaScript, OpenScript, Lingo, Authorware, Java, C++,
etc.
 Multimedia Skills –
The Team

• Producer, Multimedia for the Web

• Network Engineer
• Putting together a coordinated set of pages for the World
Wide Web
• Creative process, skillsets
• Website never finished, remain dynamics
• Most of the time maintaining the multimedia program for
easily access by user
 Planning & Costing
• Project Planning •Hardware
• The process of Making •Available Skills and Software
Multimedia •Idea Management Software
•Building a Team
• Idea Analysis •Pilot Projects and Prototyping
• Pretesting •Task Planning
•Scheduling
• Prototype •Costing
Development •Billing rates
• Alpha Development •Example Cost Sheets
• Beta Development
• Delivery
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia

• Idea Analysis
• Ideas = purpose or goal against the feasibility and cost
of production and delivery • How to distribute the final project?
• Use note paper
• Who, what, why, where, when & how?
• What is the essence of what you want to do?
• Audience analysis: Who is it for?
What is your purpose and message
• How can you organize your project? • Needs analysis: Why develop it?
• What multimedia element will best deliver • Content analysis: What will it cover?
your message?
• Resource analysis: How and how
• Content material? much?
• Creating something new or improvise old • Estimate: When will it get done?
version?
• Hardware? Enough?
• Think about marketing and
distribution.
• Storage needed? How much?
• Hardware available for your end user?
• Multimedia software available?
• Capabilities & skills – hardware & software
• Team or individual?
• Time?
• Money?
• How to distribute the final project?
• .
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia
• Pretesting
• Define project goals in greater detail
• Skills required
• Content
• Costing (money & time)
• How to sell it
• Prototype on paper with an explanation of how it will
work
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia

• Prototype Development
• Develop working prototype
• Building screen mock-ups, human interface menu & button
• Select a small portion of a large project & get that part working as it
would in the final product
• Test your prototype along several fronts:
• Cost
• Market
• Human Interface
• Purpose: test the initial implementation of your idea and improve on
it based upon test results.
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia

• Alpha Development
• Detail the storyboard – bring in end user for gathered
information
• Graphic art
• Sound and video production
• Test on working prototype
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia

• Beta Development
• Too late to bail out
• Committed serious money, time and energy
• Wider tester
• Concern should be simply successfully steering the
project to its well-defined goal.
 Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia

• Delivery
• Worries toward the marketplace
• How will your project be received by its intended
audience?
• Issues:
• Hotline, after sales maintenance, server co-
location,
 Project Planning: Hardware
• Most common limiting factor for realizing a multimedia
idea: no sound board; no sound effects; no synthesizer;
no MIDI composer by you on-site; no high-resolution
color display; no modem or network; no network
• Listing the hardware capabilities of the end users’
computer platform
• If the capabilities are not enough, discuss with end
user (examine the cost)
 Project Planning:
Available Skills and Software

• Make a list of skills & software capabilities available

• Budget for new and more powerful software and for the
learning curve required
 Project Planning:
Idea Management Software

• SiteSpring, Microsoft Project, Designer’s Edge, Screenplay

System’s Screenwriter and Story View ~ useful for arranging
ideas and tasks, work items, employee resources, and cost
required for multimedia project
• To help you stay within tight schedule and budget
• Project Management Software provides Critical Path Method
(CPM) scheduling functions to calculate the total duration of a
project based upon each identified task, earmarking task that
are critical and that, if lengthened, will result a delay in
project completion
• Used of Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT), Gantt
Chart
 Project Planning:
Building a Team
• Multimedia requires a set of skills so broad
• Need a team, know what expertise required for a project
• Building a matrix chart of required skills is helpful
 Project Planning:
Pilot Projects and Prototyping

• Pilot project phase

• Test ideas, mock up interfaces, exercise the hardware platform
• Determine the actual cost of the project
 Project Planning:
Task Planning
• Brief checklist of action item for which we
should plan ahead:
◼DigitizeAudio and Video
• Design Instructional Framework ◼Take Still Photographs
• Hold Creative Idea Session ◼Program and Author
◼Test Functionality
• Determine Delivery Platform
◼Fix Bugs
• Assay Available Content
◼Conduct Beta Test
• Draw navigation Map ◼Create Golden Master

• Create Storyboard ◼Replicate

◼Prepare Package
• Design Interface
◼Deliver or Install at Web Site
• Design Information Containers ◼Award Bonuses
• Research/Gather Content ◼Throw Party

• Assemble Team
•Create Graphics
• Build Prototype •Create Animations
• Conduct User Test •Produce Audio
•Produce Video
• Revise Design
 Project Planning: Scheduling

• Timeline
• Estimate total time required for each task and then
allocate this time among the number of persons will be
asynchronously working on the project
• Scheduling difficult for multimedia:
• Making multimedia is artistic trial and error
• Technological upgrade during development
• Client feedback
 Costing
• Production and manufacturing industries – simple matter to estimate cost and effort
• Multimedia is not a repetitive manufacturing process
• Multimedia development is a continuous research and development effort
characterized by creative trial and error
• Production cost (30-second commercial spot storyboard costs about RM50K)
• Storyboard production
• Postproduction editing
• Actor (per hour)
• Composer (audio production)
• Animator (graphical production)
• Administration and management cost
• Three elements in project estimates:
• Time
• Money
• People
 Costing: Billing Rates

• Set according cost of doing business plus a reasonable

profit margin
• Contractor and consultant can bring specialized skills
such as graphic art. Programming, database expertise,
music composition.
• Make sure your billing rate is higher than theirs
 Costing:
Example Cost Sheets
 Proposal

• Executive summary, briefly describing the project’s goal,

how the goal will be achieved and the cost
• Creative issues, technical issues, project estimation and
project plan, cost estimation for each phase, contract
terms.
 Assignment 1: Proposal
Dateline:

• The cover page

• Table of contents
• Need Analysis and Description
• Target audience
• Creative strategy
• A description of the look and feel of the project
• Project implementation
• task scheduling
• Budget
• Relate directly to the scope of work in Project implementation
• Limitations of the proposal (if any)