Making Multimedia &

Multimedia Skills

Introduction to Making Multimedia

Guidance and suggestions for getting

started

Multimedia Skills

What skills required

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

What we need?

Hardware
Software
Good ideas
Talent
Skill
Good organization of works

Introduction to Making
Multimedia

Hardware

2 most significance platforms:

Development environment

Macintosh OS
Intel-based IBM PC or PC Clone (MS Windows)
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.

Multimedia authoring

Capturing images, translating between file

formats, and editing your resources
Photoshop, soundForge, Premiere, GIF Animator,
etc.
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

Multimedia Team (Prof. Wes Baker Cedarville University, Ohio):

Executive Producer
Producer/Project Manager
Creative Director/Multimedia Designer
Art Director/Visual Designer
Artist
Interface Designer
Game Designer
Subject Matter Expert
Instructional Designer/Training Specialist
Script Writer
Animator (2D/3D)
Sound Producer
Music Composer
Video Producer
Multimedia Programmer
HTML Coder
Lawyer/Media Acquisition
Marketing Director

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
files

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

The process of Making Multimedia

Idea Analysis
Pretesting
Prototype Development
Alpha Development
Beta Development
Delivery

Hardware
Available Skills and Software
Idea Management Software
Building a Team
Pilot Projects and Prototyping
Task Planning
Scheduling

Costing

Billing rates
Example Cost Sheets

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
Use note paper
What is the essence of what you want to do? What is your purpose and message
How can you organize your project?
What multimedia element will best deliver your message?
Content material?
Creating something new or improvise old version?
Hardware? Enough?
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?
Who, what, why, where, when & how?
Audience analysis: Who is it for?
Needs analysis: Why develop it?
Content analysis: What will it cover?
Resource analysis: How and how much?
Estimate: When will it get done?
Think about marketing and distribution.

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 colocation,

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, Designers Edge,

Screenplay Systems 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:

Design Instructional Framework Digitize Audio and Video
Hold Creative Idea Session
Take Still Photographs
Determine Delivery Platform
Program and Author
Assay Available Content
Test Functionality
Draw navigation Map
Fix Bugs
Create Storyboard
Conduct Beta Test
Design Interface
Create Golden Master
Design Information Containers
Replicate
Research/Gather Content
Prepare Package
Assemble Team
Deliver or Install at Web Site
Build Prototype
Award Bonuses
Conduct User Test
Throw Party
Revise Design
Create Graphics
Create Animations
Produce Audio
Produce Video

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

Production cost (30-second commercial spot storyboard costs

about RM50K)

Multimedia development is a continuous research and

development effort characterized by creative trial and error

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: Week 4 (4th August 2006)

The cover page

Table of contents
Need Analysis and Description
Target audience
Creative strategy

Project implementation

Gantt Chart/PERT, task scheduling

Budget

A description of the look and feel of the project

Relate directly to the scope of work in Project

implementation

Limitations of the proposal (if any)