School of
Creative Media
SM 2233
Multimedia Production
Introduction
What is this course about?





“the big picture” – how multimedia products are
produced
How do we achieve goal?
What are the different roles in a multimedia
production?
What is the process? You got to involve in the
process!!!!
Nothing can substitute experience!
What is this course about?

Many other courses look at individual media, small set
of tools and techniques

Real-life project use multiple types of media, use many
different tools

How do these tools interact? Do they work together?
How do we set up a “production line” to produce the
final product
What is this course about?

We will talk about:
Proposals
Budgets
Scheduling
Management
Reports
What is this course about?

To make the course more interesting we
will focus on :
Work in a practical context
Understand group dynamics
Focus in the process
What is Multimedia?







Multimedia is the use of several different media to convey
information.
Multimedia may include text, spoken audio, music, images,
animation, video and interactivity.
Multimedia also refers to specific computer system
Not all multimedia product / project involve computers. But
using computer devices becoming a common practice.
A communication form that uses any combination of
different media;
Multimedia programs are often interactive and include
games, online presentations, live events and creative
projects.
Also referred to as newmedia.
Types of Multimedia Projects


Many type of projects in multimedia:
some typical categories:
 Websites
 Educational/Training software
 Games/Entertainment
 Commercial presentations/Advertising campaigns
 Exhibition/Trade show
 Art/Performance
 What else you can think of?
Types of Multimedia Projects

Project differ in:
Risk
Size / length of time
Team size
Team composition
Innovation
Risk
High risk types:
 Commercial presentations (For game deveopment,
risk could be as high as 90%)
 Live events
 Projects with tight deadline
 Projects without a clear goal
More interesting multimedia projects. Lower risk:
 Art projects, no definite guideline for judgment
Risk

How can we determine the level of risk?
Project size – smaller projects are safer
Team size and composition – large varied
teams introduce management problems
New tools and techniques – doing something
new is a source of risk
Experience – the more experience the better
Project Size
A commercial presentation may take one
person a few days to prepare
 A game could take a team of 75 three years
to produce
 As projects get bigger they become harder
to manage - longer time & more people

Team Size




Small teams can be quite informal, no need for
management.
Easier for small team to keep track of means towards
the goal / final product.
Problems occur when teams get larger.
Large teams may loose sight of the final product as a
whole, as individuals tends to focus on particular
portion only.
Team Composition
How diverse is the team?
 Are there only creative talents, or are there
technical people as well?
 How do you manage both technicians and
artists, motivated by different things?
 Different work cultures can produce issues
in the production process

Politics
Larger teams divided into groups or
departments
 Groups will fight over:

Resources – money and facilities
Responsibilities – two groups wanting to do
the same thing
Blame – whose fault is it when something does
wrong
Innovation

Is there something new about this project?
New media type?
New technology?
New tools ?
New effects ?
Innovation
How does innovation affect a project?
Pro:
 Increase value of the project – commercial, artistic,
academic, etc.
 Increase multimedia production standard
Con:
 Adds risk!
 More planning
 More time, more training,
 Lack experience with new technique/media, need to
experiment, develop prototypes
Production Process
For standard products can have a relatively
standard production process - what needs to
be done according timeline
 For rapidly developing areas this is much
harder, don’t fully understand the media,
hard to standardize production process

Production Process

There are three areas where a standard
process is starting to emerge:
Websites (Rich-media)
CD-ROM / DVD – commercial/advertising
presentations
Games
Live events

Websites and CD/DVD are quite similar traditional approach
Web / Media Presentation
Usually done with relatively small teams,
mainly creative people
 Relatively short term, several weeks/months
 Projects tend to be client driven, hired to
produce a particular product

Games
High risk, high innovation projects
 Usually larger teams with a mixture of
creative and technical people
 Long term projects, usually taking several
years to complete
 Involve certain peripheral products, like
character figurines, posters, etc.

Live Events / Presentation






More interactive
Direct contact with participants/ audience
Large amount of production deal with time
issue
All media elements need to be produced and
“rehearsed” (tested)
More interesting – can be creative in electronic
media design, as well as performance
elements (stage design, music, speech,
lighting, etc.)
Instant response / feedback of the project