Making Multimedia &
Multimedia Skills
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Introduction to Making Multimedia
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Guidance and suggestions for getting
started
Multimedia Skills
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What skills required
Introduction to Making
Multimedia
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The stages of a project:
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Planning and costing
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Idea/objectives
Multimedia expertise required
Structure & navigation system
Time & cost estimation
Designing & producing
Testing
Delivering
Introduction to Making
Multimedia
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What we need?
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Hardware
Software
Good ideas
Talent
Skill
Good organization of works
Introduction to Making
Multimedia
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Hardware
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2 most significance platforms:
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Development environment
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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
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Software:
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Multimedia software tells the hardware what
to do
Text, images, sounds, and video.
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Multimedia authoring
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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
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Creativity:
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Develop a sense of its scope and content
Difficult to learn creativity
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“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
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Organization
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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
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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
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Multimedia Team (Prof. Wes Baker – Cedarville University, Ohio):
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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
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Project Manager
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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
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Multimedia Designer
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Designing the look & feel of a multimedia
project
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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
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Interface Designer
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Interface provides control to the people who
use it
Backgrounds, icons, control panels – result
of am interface designer
Multimedia Skills –
The Team
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Writer
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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
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Video Specialist
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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
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Audio Specialist
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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
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Multimedia Programmer
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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
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Producer, Multimedia for the Web
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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
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Project Planning
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The process of Making Multimedia
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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
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Billing rates
Example Cost Sheets
Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia
Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia
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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.
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Project Planning:
The Process of Making Multimedia
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Pretesting
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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
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Prototype Development
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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:
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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
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Alpha Development
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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
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Beta Development
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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
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Delivery
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Worries toward the marketplace
How will your project be received by its
intended audience?
Issues:
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Hotline, after sales maintenance, server colocation,
Project Planning: Hardware
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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
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If the capabilities are not enough, discuss
with end user (examine the cost)
Project Planning:
Available Skills and Software
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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
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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
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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
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Pilot project phase
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Test ideas, mock up interfaces, exercise the
hardware platform
Determine the actual cost of the project
Project Planning:
Task Planning
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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
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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:
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Making multimedia is artistic trial and error
Technological upgrade during development
Client feedback
Costing
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Production and manufacturing industries – simple matter to
estimate cost and effort
Multimedia is not a repetitive manufacturing process
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Production cost (30-second commercial spot storyboard costs
about RM50K)
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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:
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Time
Money
People
Costing: Billing Rates
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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.
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Make sure your billing rate is higher than
theirs
Costing:
Example Cost Sheets
Proposal
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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)
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The cover page
Table of contents
Need Analysis and Description
Target audience
Creative strategy
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Project implementation
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Gantt Chart/PERT, task scheduling
Budget
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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)