Module 5 MULTIMEDIA PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Managing Multimedia Design Projects

Producing effective Multimedia is a very challenging task which involves several people, several steps, a definite financial commitment, and normally a final product or deliverable. In other words, there are usually several steps and processes, which need to take place in order to successfully produce multimedia.

This section deals primarily with Project Management Techniques and the techniques are customized from the generic project management schema and used to design, develop, and produce multimedia products.

Multimedia Production involves a series of processes and it can be best described as a team effort. The Project Manager is the catalyst and coordinator of the project, managing all resources and overseeing the progress of the design and development team. Some of the key people in multimedia development are the following:

1. Project Manager

2. Multimedia Designer

3. Writer

4. Video specialist

5. Audio Specialist

6. Multimedia Programmer

Multimedia designer includes information designers, graphic designers, illustrators, animators, image processing specialists, instructional designers, and interface designers.

Often, the individual members multimedia production team have the several roles:

The graphic designers may also do interface design, scanning, and image processing. A project manager may also be the video producer. Depending on the scope and content of your project and the mix of people required, a team may also employ animators, art directors, composers, and musicians, content

developers, creative directors, digital special effects engineers, editors, photographers, researchers, videographers and others.

1. Role of a Project Manager

The Project Manager:

1. Must be adept and experienced at managing complex projects, preferably with large corporate accounts.

2. Must have solid understanding of interactivity and experience with interactive media- ideally interactive television.

3. Must have several years of experience with interface design or management thereof and have good design sensibilities.

4. Communication skills a must; must be articulate and effective communicator, an excellent listener, and act as a conduit for information between his own team & the client's team.

5. Superior attention to detail & ability to coordinate large amounts of information a must.

6. Prefer entertainment experience - ideally television or video production.

7. Solid computer or digital media experience and knowledge a must.

8. Travel required to visit focus groups and gather consumer information.

9. Must function well in fast-paced team-oriented environment.

10. Position must be filled immediately.

A Project Manager's role is at the center of the action. He or she is responsible for the overall development and implementation of the project as well as for the day to day operations. The Project Manager must hold the Budgets, schedules, creative sessions, time sheets, illness, invoices, team dynamics.

A good project manager must completely understand the strengths and limitations of hardware and software so that he or she can make good decisions about what to do and what not to do. Apart from this the most important skills are the people skills i.e keeping the team happy and motivated. He should also have good organizational skills and attention to all the myriad details of the

project. At the same time, it's crucial to keep the big picture, the vision, in mind so that everything that needs to get done does in fact get done.

2. Role of a Multimedia Designer

An ideal candidate for Multimedia Designer must have

1. A solid experience in interface design, product prototyping and marketing communication.

2. A knowledge of image manipulation.

3. experience in designing large information and/or entertainment systems.

4. experience in creating system flows and program architectures.

5. solid organizational skills and attention to detail.

Multimedia Designers need a variety of skills. You need to be able to analyze content structurally and match it up with effective presentation methods. You need to be an expert on different media types and be a capable media integrator, in order to create an overall vision. The ability to look at information from different points of view and a willingness to shift your own point of view to be empathetic with end users are absolutely essential. So are interpersonal skills, because you spend so much of your time interacting with other team members, with clients and extracting information from subject matter experts. You must understand the capabilities of your resources both technological and human, and know when to push ahead and when to stop.

3. Role of an Interface Designer

An Interface Designer's best work is always transparent. An interface provides control to the people who use it. It also provides access to the "media" of multimedia- the text, graphics, animation, audio and video- without attention to itself.

The role of an interface designer is to create a software device that organizes the multimedia content, that lets the user access or modify that content and that presents the content on screen. In the real world design responsibilities are often assigned differently depending on the project. An interface designer may also be the multimedia designer or the graphic designer.

1. A good interface designer will create a product that rewards exploration and encourages use.

2. A good interface designer must have a crucial skill of being familiar with a lot of multimedia interfaces so that he is able to visualize ideas as they are discussed. Like, what is the best way to represent this function? Will this program look better using a hierarchical menu or a book metaphor? What will be the user's experience? Being familiar with film or video editing can be helpful, because telling a story with sounds and images is what most multimedia experiences are all about. From a visual perspective, cinematography and film editing are the closest parallels to what is called interface design.

3. Knowing an authoring system is also crucial so that you can develop the ideas in some interactive fashion and be able to present them to your design group.

4. A good interface designer should also have basic drawing skill as it help him in describing how a screen looks using pencil and paper.

4. Role of a Multimedia Writer

The role of a multimedia Writer is the same as a scriptwriter.

1. They write proposals, script voice-overs and actor's narrations, write text screens to deliver messages and develop characters designed for an interactive environment.

2. They are also referred to as content writers- they glean information from content experts, synthesize it and then communicate it in a clear and concise.

3. Scriptwriters write dialog, narration, and voice-overs which can become involved in the overall design.

4. Multimedia writer must be familiar with interactive design and user interface issues.

5. The Multimedia writer must have the ability to work under tight deadlines in a team environment.

The role of the writer changes with each different project, depending on the people you're working with. But multimedia writing is always different from writing a film or video script. In a film or video you're plotting a story the way a dramatist or novelist would. With multimedia, it is more tedious as the writer has to think dramatically in smaller and more discrete units that have to interrelate to each other, that have to be compiled in a puzzle of sorts.

In a traditional drama, there are characters and an inevitability about what happens to those characters. You build circumstances that have certain significance for the characters as they go on to meet their destiny. In multimedia, the writer plots out stories that can go many different ways. Writers should be involved at the conceptual level of a project. But in many projects, it is the flowcharts that are generated first. Then as the writing process unfolds, the writer finds that the flowchart doesn't work because the material isn't what the flowchart wants it to be. When you're working on a dramatic script, you have to make the characters and the drama work first, before you start doing flowcharts.

5. Video Specialist

A video specialist on a multimedia project may be just one person and a camcorder. Or for projects requiring extensive amounts of sophisticated video, a video specialist may be responsible for an entire team of videographers, sound technicians, lighting designers, set designers, script supervisors, gaffers, grips, production assistants, and actors. In a multimedia project, a video specialist must be a seasoned professional, skilled in managing all phases of production from concept to final editing. In addition to knowing the basics about shooting good video, multimedia video specialists must also be thoroughly familiar with the tools and techniques used for digital editing on computers.

A multimedia video specialist does much more than just shoot & edit video. He or she must understand the potentials and limitations of the medium, how these limitations affect the video production itself, and how to get the most out of the video. He or she must also understand interactivity and how it will affect the video.

A good video specialist must have:

1. Strong background in video direction and editing.

2. Good understanding of shooting for interactive programming.

3. Strong background working with blue screens.

6. Audio Specialist

The quality of audio elements can make or break a multimedia project. Audio specialists make a multimedia program come alive, designing and producing music, voice-over narrations and sound effects. They perform a variety of functions on the multimedia team and they may enlist help from composers, audio engineers, or recording technicians. They may be responsible for locating

and selecting suitable music and talent, scheduling recording sessions and digitizing and editing recorded material into computer files.

A good Audio specialist for a multimedia project must :

1. have a strong background in studio recording techniques-preferably with time spent in the trenches as an engineer in a commercial studio working on a wide range of projects.

2. be comfortable working with computers and be open and able to learn new technology and make it work with high quality results.

3. have familiarity with standard recording practices, knowledge of music production and the ability to work with artists.

4. have a fluency in MIDI.

5. have an experience with the sequencing software, patch librarians and synch programming.

6. have a good knowledge of sampling/samplers, hard disk recording and editing.

In addition to having a solid technical foundation, he must be able to survive long hours in the studio riding faders and pushing buttons.

An audio specialist needs a hybrid of talents and interests. Working with multimedia, he needs to have more creative and technical knowledge than a traditional sound artist/engineer.

7. Multimedia Programmer

A multimedia programmer or software engineer integrates all of the multimedia elements of a project into a seamless whole using an authoring system or programming language. Without programming there can be no multimedia.

The programmer on a multimedia team is called on to perform a number of tasks, from assisting producers in organizing their code more effectively to enhancing the production and playback tools. The most important skill a multimedia programmer can bring to a team is the ability to quickly learn and understand systems. And not just understand the various calls, but know why those calls are needed.

Requisites for a good multimedia programmer:

1. He must have a thorough knowledge of any programming language like C++.

2. He must have working familiarity with digital media particularly digital video.

3. He must have a demonstrated track record of delivering quality programming on a tight schedule.

4. He must function well in a fast-paced team-oriented environment.

PHASES OF MULTIMEDIA DEVELOPMENT

Suggestions to improve your Gantt chart plan:

• final deadline – hand-over of project to client is fixed (29/3/07) • contingency measures (top mark band) – allot extra time to allow for

unforeseen • problems (identifying risks was part of your first stage) • review meetings with client/manager (e.g. prototype design) • testing of final draft product - both with client and with a group of

users (build in contingency here, improvements/changes may be needed)

• training period before final handover (client)

• end of product review meeting – crucial! Evaluation stage is based on this as well as your own review.

• user instructions – need to be written

SUMMARY

Multimedia has many different meanings to many different people. To some, multimedia means their computer has a CD-ROM. Multimedia can be defined as using a combination of elements to create a dynamic, visual presentation that catches the viewer's attention and maintains their interest throughout the presentation.

There are seven elements -- text, graphics, photographs, sound, animation, video and interactivity -- that can be included in a multimedia presentation. Obviously, a TRUE multimedia presentation combines all of these elements.