Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Thursday, 21 June 2007
week 11 -sam,daniel,sarah
When it comes to any multimedia productions, we have to apply a sequential method to approach this topic. This is because we will wrestle with crucial works that will continue. If the project involves more than an individual, then constructing a systematic structure would be a strong foundation so that each member will know their roles and production expectations.
Some of the very important start-ups are ensuring the equipment and hardware at your disposal has the caliber to produce a work good enough to gaze and wonder. Even though you are working alone, all the more serious you should be about your equipment and hardware conditions. Discs has an expiry date, hardware may need to reformat, and graphic cards may need to replace.
Some smooth starting ups would be:
-Clear both your mind and workplace of obstructions.
-Attain the best equipment you can afford for strong performance.
-Schedule and manage a good system within the place.
-Get the biggest and the best screen you can afford for the better the resolution, the better the graphics.
-Be ensured of your disk storage space which varies according to the type of work you do.
CLIENTS
When you work with clients, be sure your organization adopts a good system of communication for the flow between you can your clients. This also applies to the people you work with because miscommunication can be pretty costly and losses will slow down an organization's performance and lowers the standards. A good communication flow also ensures good rapport building between any individuals that associates with the organization.
In most cases, customers are always right, because we serve to fulfil a customer's satisfaction for their money, of course. And if we do not meet their expectations we will indefinitely suffer from their complaints and sometimes, their temper. Achieving to meet a strong standard is every organization's goal. Some ways we can do this is by keeping the clients updated, creating a scheme that helps the customer feels ensured that they are in charge of their own products. For example, when a client ask for a specific design or whatever label, the organization can foster an 'appoval seeking attitude' by asking the clients about certain changes that they may want or maybe the client have a sudden idea that wants to change their current order. So, that is how at the end of the production, the customer will achieve a satisfied feeling.
It is also critical that the client has an easy means to review your work. This means transporting of informations or projects across borders using a large scale of storage requires files such as Zip, Jaz, SyQuest and DAT. The most common and time effective method of files transportingovernight courier service.
When you purchase materials for the project, it is wise to keep track of the receipt you get and most importantly keeping them organized always. This is especially convenient when keeping track of how much money that was used in completing the project. Organizing your file names is one of the things you can avoid losing files or misplacing them when you need them the most. Make names specific to your project's structure and store the files in directories of folders with logical names. Make sure that you know the versions of the multimedia software program used with all your files so that tracking editing changes becomes hassle off.
When you have a successful project, obviously you would want to protect and have people appreciate your work. Therefore, inserting copyright statements in your project could be appropriate. But remain the codes, tricks and programming techniques accessible for study, learning and tweaking by others.
One of the last few things you should remember as a designer is that no matter what your client may say or the critiques you get of your work, take that in good spirit because it may act as an aid to your project. Expect problems beyond your control and be prepare to accept and solve them. Some of the common irritants you might go through are like having clients who are not authorized to make decision when they're the only people around, sleepless nights because of the workload, too many complicate custom-coded routines, missed deadlines and so on.
Remember, it's not all about producing a good multimedia project. Its also about having good project management through out the entire process and taking careful measures to ensure that details are looked into thoroughly. Taking such a sincere attitude towards your multimedia work will definitely result in a successful multimedia project.
week 11 -simpin,alvin,canaan
In every multimedia production, the project plan is needed to build the product. The principles for successful project management of multimedia productions are as below.
Producing
This is the first step of the multimedia productions. For the multimedia developers, this plan is doing the construction work which is the hands-on of creation. They will contend with important and continuing organizing the tasks.
Before you start the multimedia project, many important ways that need to check up. For examples, development hardware and software, review organizational, administrative setup. These are very important to ensure your project is working before you begin to do the project. Not only this, to prepare a complete and perfect project, there are some others matters that you need to pay attention to. For example, 512 MB of RAM and 80G of hard disk storage is the least condition of doing a multimedia project. As a multimedia developers, you need to backup of critical files as you won't lost your project. You need to have the latest version of software also.
Working with Clients
To work with clients, you must be sure that the organization of project incorporates a system for good communication between you and the clients as well as among the people actually building the project. Make sure that you provide a good management to avoid endless feedback loops from the clients. On the other hand, if you provide a good project, it will build trust between you and your clients. It develops a scheme that specifies the number and duration of client approval cycles. Multimedia projects need high-capacity storage media, so Zip, Jaz, DAT should be used that the clients be able to review your works easily.
Tracking
You must organize a method for tracking the receipt of material that you will incorporate into your multimedia project. A logical names always give to the files and develop a file-naming convention specific to your project's structure Store the files in directories of folders. Version control of your files need to work on your project also. You must always make sure that use the same version to do your project. Besides, make sure that you remember where you save the files. So that you can find back your files without any problems.
Copyrights
Copyright was also one of the principles to success project management in multimedia production. A copyright statement should be included in the multimedia package to warn user against copyright violation. We have to insert a copyright statement in our project clearly and ilegally but the code and programming techniques must remain accessible for study, learning and tweaking by others
We have to control our emotion and prepared to accept them and solve them. Even though you are the experienced producer and developers or you feel your product do very well but you have to follow what client’s request. That because small annoyance can become serious distractions. So as a producer we have to avoid those problems that may be encounter during the production phase such as missed deadline, too many custom coded routines and meetings, accept criticisms from clients and many more.
week 11 -adriel,nicole,amanda
There are a few factors and principles that makes project management of multimedia productions successful. The first principle or process is the whole production of the multimedia production or project. The most important or significant part of the production is the planning stage. Production is a phase when the project is actually rendered. In this production process, it is important that the storyboards are prepared, navigation maps draft out, and so forth. It is during this phase that important and continuing tasks are most dealt and monitored with.
For example, if the project is built and done by more than one person, it is very important that a management structure is established in advance. This is so that if one person is away on emergency lift or unavailable, the project partner will be able to continue the project from where is was left off. This management structure will include specific milestones that will make monitoring easier. Also, it will include production expectations for each contributor. This will act as a guideline and monitor contributors.
After the production stage comes the start up process. In the start up process, it is important to check all development hardware and software. It is important that all software is available before the start of project. Besides that, there is also the need to review organizational and administrative setup. It does not matter if you alone are handling the project because all these steps will ensure a smooth flow of completing the project.
It is also crucial to determine the capacity of your CPU and RAM- lower capacity means there will be limitations for your project size; while bigger capacity will allow you to explore more on your project and allow space for miscellaneous. Another relevant area is that are there sufficient disk storage space for all work files because these will affect your project outcome.
Another area to monitor is the time factor. It is important to keep track of the time frame given to complete the project and ensure that all management system is in place. The Gantt Chart is a good way of self monitoring throughout your project.
To work on a successful project, one not ony have to concentrate on the project but also to have a good background communication with the clients as they are the sole provider for the financial issue on the project itself. Working with clients are not easy especially the fussy ones. Therefore, the developer will have to build good rapport between he or she to the clients they correspond to especially towards the management level in the big corporations.
In order to do so, always ask the needs and wants of the specification on the project itself. Ask in datail so you could eliminate further changes from the management itself. Another way to make sure is to develop a cheme to the management which specifies the number and duration of client approval cycles. For example, give a number of times which the management can adhere their changes to. For instance, 5 times and later after that the developer may charge them an acess fee if they want to make extra changes from then on. This step is to ensure rectifications to be done in proper timely manner and eliminate changes.
Tracking the workload of the project is another successful way to make sure everything is done in order and in detail as time passes very fast and a dateline on the project could be easily missed out on. One easy way is to develp your name file project to the maximum 8 characters provided which associates with the topic of your project. For the larger project ensure that you have equip yourself with the latest update on the software programming you are using to enhance better quality project. For example, Creative Suite which was launched recently.
The next step of making multimedia productions successeful would be the process of copyrighting. In fact, any form of work whether is be an idea, or a project needs copyrights as they are the safety measures for people who want to make sure their ideas and works are not copied and tampered with by anyone wanting to do so. A person's idea may be good in that it is creative and is getting the interest of clients but if intellectual properties like these are not inserted with a copyright statement, one will risk losing that property to another and make all their hard work go to waste.
Clients may also be a problem as they can sometimes be very fussy and demanding. They may ask for changes and amendments at a wrong time and the way to avoid this is by stating in the clause or contract that should changes be made to the production, extra charges will be incurred. This will discourage them from having too much of their own way and will then give managers and producers of the production less trouble and more time to finish their work. All-nighters, or people who have the tendencey to fail to get enough sleep can also present a hazard. Because of their lack of sleep, they will be unfocused and very unproductive and the way to amend this would be to give a warning to them that should they continue on with their late nights, their position in the team will be in doubt. This can also be applied with deadlines if workers fail to meet them.
week 11 assessment
Discuss the principles for successful project management of multimedia productions.
Thursday, 14 June 2007
week 9 -sarah,daniel,samuel
First of all multimedia content is known as content that defines what the project is all about. It can be practically anything about the elements of multimedia. However, when acquiring rights to using multimedia content, there are certain copyrights and red tapes to go though if you want to use them for your own purpose.
Since the late 1980s, investors in the multimedia marketplace have been quietly purchasing electronic rights to the basic building blocks of content such as, films, videos, photographic collections and textual information bases. Preexisting content can come from a variety of sources be it pictures from your friend’s computer or from a stock house or image bank offering hundreds of thousands of hours of film and video or still images, available for licensing for a fee.
Besides that, there are certain copyright law issues, which the Malaysian Intellectual Property Law consists of three sections them being copyright, patent and trademark. Basically anything tangible can be copyrighted and it can be done by one’s self. Patenting is more abstract like intangibles such as technology and methodology. Trademark though is for protecting logos company names, mottos, etc.
One of the main issues users tend to neglect is when using somebody else’s multimedia project. Before touching anything that doesn’t belong to you, you must first obtain permission from the owner of the copyright. If you fail to do this, you may find yourself being sued for copyright infringement. This is a serious matter as the consequences are taken seriously by the court of law.
In the area of ownership, let’s say you have a friend who’s creating a multimedia project but at the last minute you also contribute to it. In the law, you may have the copyright ownership of a joint ownership. However, if you’re under the category of “work made for hire”, as an employee what ever you do belongs to the employer if the work fits the requirement. Nevertheless, to meet the definition of a work made for hire, several factors must be weighed to determine whether the individual is legally an employee of an independent contractor.
Some of the things that fall into the work made for hire category are works that are part of a motion picture or other AV work, translations and supplementary works. For example, the English subtitles you see in a Chinese drama TV series doesn’t involve rights belonging to the subtitle editor. As for an independent contractor, the copyright ownership work solely belongs to the person unless the work is specially ordered or commissioned for use and qualifies as a work made for hire, in which case the copyright belongs to the entity commissioning the work.
When developing a project, it is wise to obtain rights and take precautions first just in case you get tied up in law issues you don’t wish to be in. You may be able to negotiate outright ownership of copyrighted material. If the owner still doesn’t want to give up or sell ownership rights, you’re still entitled to licensing the rights to use the materials.
week 8 -sarah,daniel,samuel
In order to create a multimedia project, the developer needs to follow a series of steps from the Idea Analysis till the Delivery stage. This is to ensure that the project or material results in good quality due to careful planning and taking strategic measures throughout the process.
Idea Analysis is the first step to developing any multimedia project. This is where you write your idea down on paper, and decide on the purpose and message of your project. You will need to and weigh the cost and measures it will take in order to make your idea a success. There must be a balance between purpose and feasibility which can be done by increasing or decreasing multimedia elements depending on what is relevant to the project at hand.
You will need to think about the content materials and hardware that is needed and how you may obtain them if you don’t already have them. Research is needed to check if your idea is original or if it has already been used in the multimedia market. How big your project is will determine the amount of space you will need in order to store your raw material and later on the finished product. Necessary time and money are also important factors to consider before continuing your project.
Alpha development is the stage where you draw out your storyboard and flowcharts in detail. Include the finalized story scripts as well. Graphic art should be chosen to suit the idea and concept of the project. It plays an important part in giving the overall feel of the project to appeal to your target market. Including sound and video in your project will enhance usability and optimize the options for interaction. For example, if it’s an educational multimedia project, a video tutorial would explain your content better than just an audio player and will be more interesting than text because it allows demonstrations. In the process of putting all these elements together, you might face minor technical problems. Solve all technical problems and test prototype once again before moving to the next stage.
Beta development is one step before the final delivery stage. Your project is sent out to a limited list of users who will test your program or project in case you might have missed out any details. Your project should be usable on the proposed delivery platform. In testing the program, respond to bug reports from the computer. Analyze the scripting code error and fix it. You should also prepare a user document to make your program user-friendly. This can be in a hardcopy format of a program manual, or a softcopy document made available in the file. Design the packaging for your project according to what is suitable. Create a range of varied gold candidates of your project so that one may be chosen as the gold master copy. Once that is done, inform PR personnel so a press release may be written to launch your new program or project.
Delivery is the final stage where you prepare technical support for your project in case of any malfunctions. Install a sales team to support your launch and make replicates of your gold master copy. Hold launch seminars to further promote the newly launched program. Finally, arrange to ship your products to various companies who have requested it.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
week 9 -canaan,alvin,sim pin
How will the content be delivered?
User need to gain authorized rights to public display to multimedia content that owned by another party, this rights come in terms of the method to deliver the content in what media and what way the user want it to be display.
Is that license for a set period of time?
License for copyright is being set for a due date. Once the copyright date come to a due, the particular individual or company cannot publish or use the content of the owner anymore. To use the content again, user need to gain another license to use it for the time to come.
Is the license exclusive or non-exclusive?
License involving copyright in terms of exclusive or not make sure that the owner sells the rights to a party or to others party at the same time. To avoid misunderstanding among the user and owner, agreement is achieved to clarify the copyright issues. When AIG’s associated company- AIA sells the right to
Do you intend to use the material in its entirety or just a portion of it?
Agreement need to be obtained whether the owner allows how many parts or whole parts of the content being use by the buyers. Buyer need to follow the agreement made to use the multimedia content.
What rights do you need?
This rights including the rights of copying, changing, selling or public display the multimedia content that the buyer had bought. The owner had the authority to state whether the user allows changing their content or not allowing doing so. In 2004, Arsenal F.C. allow the Emirates flight company to display the pictures of their football stars in the plane, however, assuming that Arsenal F.C. allowing them to do whatever they want with the pictures, Emirates display the players pictures by adding Arabian country background and surrounded by few others crew. Arsenal F.C. claimed that they only allow Emirates Flight Company to display the PLAIN player’s picture.
Does the content owner have the authority to assign rights to you?
Owner has the right to assign and stated terms and conditions apply to the content in terms of authority over the user in the whole process of usage.
Will the copyright owner receive remuneration for the license?
The owner will asked for commission payment for their products in term of one shot payment, by sales of the product sold, by percentage of usage and etc.
In what format do you wish to receive the content?
Agreement had to achieve in what method user which to receive the multimedia content. By soft copy, hard copy, advertisement and etc. For examples, In Summer 2006, CNN Company had managed to gain copyright to published NY Yankees baseball team news exclusively by receiving the first hand news daily through person in charge. In this case, CNN receive the content in news form through the necessary methods and ways.
week 9 -adriel,amanda,nicole
For obtaining rights to multimedia contents, the first thing that should be considered is the ways and means to deliver the content. For example, will your content be delivered in a CD-ROM or a web site. The following issue to consider is if the license applied for is for a set of period of time. If so, how long is it? This is important as once the license expires, the right no longer belongs to you if you do not renew it immediately. The next issue is if the license is exclusive or non-exclusive to applicants to these rights. If your content arrangement is done out of the ordinary, it can be an exclusive right only to you. Whereas, some rights obtained are non-exclusive. It is important to know these license right because should there be an infringement done, you have the advantage of gaining compensation.
Do you intent to use the material its entirely? For this, the user must decide if he or she would like to use the copyrighted material entirely or just a small portion of it. As both in comparision, if the user would like to use the material entirely he would pay the payment of the copyright to use it much more higher.
For example, using a full photography of a landscape of the mountain taken by a photographer then the fee paid for the photograph would be higher than the usual fee paid for a small portion.
The rights that the user need is when asking the original user permission to use their copyright item or trademark. This rights includes for own use such as presentation, to reproduce or for reselling. For example, UTAR is being given a permission to reproduce their logo from Nike's global tick. Then, UTAR is able to reproduce their logo without being sued by other counter parties.
The content owner have the authority to assign rights to the new user as the content owner is the sole creator who gives birth to the idea first. This is to avoid being sued by the third party using it without the consent of the first owner or creator.
When negotiating for rights, one also has to take into consideration that there may be additional rights he or she has to obtain before he can use the content. Meaning that there may be other owners of the same content that have rights over it and that should it be utilized by anyone, they also have to be consulted with. Examples would be like using a film or a song. For a movie there are more than one person working on it; there are directors, producers, screenwriters, etc. As such one would have to negotiate not just with the director, but with the producer and screenwriter as well. Same too goes for a song; a singer may be the one to approach but one also has to consider the production house in which the artist or singer was working for as they may also hold rights to the song.
While negotiating, bringing up the issue as to whether the copyright owner will receive payment is also vital. A holder of a copyright may be willing to allow a person to use his/her video,sound,picture, or music but he/she may want something in return. They may want payment by royalty or one time pay but either way things like these must be negotitated and decided before utiliztion.
Lastly, is the matter of which format a person is wanting to receive the content in. Whether a person wants a soft copy or a hard copy is decided and negotiated here.
A person may have peferences as to how he wants his contents to be. He may want a movie that is the original copy of the copyright holder, or picutres in a CD-rom or through websites.
week 9 assessment
When negotiating for rights to using multimedia content, there are many issues that have to be considered. Discuss these issues.
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
week 8 -adriel,amanda,nicole
For every project that is to be done, planning is a definite pre-requisite. In fact, the planning process is considered the most vital process to make a project successful. This applies to the IT and multimedia industry as well.
There are five processes in the making multimedia. The first is process or step is Idea Analysis. In this process, it is important to weigh the ideas thought of and consider its feasibility, cost of production and delivery. This is because if the idea is not feasible, you may be in the middle of your project and finally realize that it is impossible for the project to be completed. This results in loss of time and energy.
A way to weigh your ideas is to jot it down- it is very useful to have notes around so that when a new idea hits you, it can be jot down immediately. Making notes is also useful because you will be able to write down the pros and cons of your idea. This makes the first process much easier.
Asking yourself questions will also make the idea clearer. Examples of questions will be “How can you organize your project?”, “What multimedia elements (text, sounds and visuals) will best deliver your message?”, etc.
The second process is the pre-development process that is a pre-requisite before developing multimedia. In this process, it is important to define the project goals. Defining the goals is important because goals will keep you focused on the purpose of the project and it saves time. It is also important to define the skill set needs required like the type of software available for use. Then, it is the creation of content online that furthers strengthens the goals set. It gives a clearer picture of the project. Next thing is to position sales and marketing so to prepare the public to accept and receive your multimedia project. It is also good to create prototype on a paper.
The next development is the prototype development. In this process, screen mock-ups are build so that a rough idea is given and more ideas for improvement can be generated. Then, there is the designing of content maps and human interface. After that, the story and message develop. Lastly, it is important to test the prototype. Should it be faulty, it is important to review and analyze the whole planning process to rectify the problem.
During the prototype development designing is the main agenda. Here, developers would build screen mock-ups where is it a model to be seen as a reference. Next, they design content maps which works like a site map to guide them through. Then, they design human interface such as buttons for a better navigation to communicate the subject to their target audience. Later, they develop the story or the messages they would like to portray. Lastly, they test out the prototype.
The development moves on towards the alpha development when the developer finds no defect on the prototype development. There would be a focus group to evaluate and report and if there is any revision made, they would go back to the previous development.
During alpha development, there would be detailed storyboards and flowcharts to be charted out as to see where the whole project is is going and giving a clearer picture. Next, developer would finalize story scripts. Then produce graphic art, sound and video related to the topic of the development. The developers too solve out technical problems faced and test working the prototype. If there is no other problems involved they would bail out and reach out to the next development step.
One clear example is www.friendster.com main page; it has changed from the alpha development to the beta development with a change of features on the main page.
During the beta development, the project will be distributed to a limited number of testers to further check and perhaps add input on what else should be done. At this time, bugs can also be reported and then accordingly dealt with by the creators, should there be any.
Without any guides for their products that they are selling, it would be useless to users. So it is in this stage of development that user’s guides or manuals be produced to guide and give information to users as to how to operate or use the project. Packaging is also important in this stage as it is sometimes, if not most of the times the part that convinces and persuades users to use or buy the project.
Special or gold candidates are also found at this stage. These candidates are actually various version of the product. Examples are like versions 1.0 to 1.3 to 2.0 to 2.1, and so on. From these versions, developers can gauge how well the project has been done and which one should go out to be sold and used. Special candidates are therefore essential to the development and the success of the whole project. Finally in the beta development, advertising through press releases, announcements to various press associations, and PR lists are done. Exposure of the project is a must and these PR activities are the best ways to get that type of exposure to the public.
Delivery is the final stage of the whole development and the first one would be the preparing of a technical support team who will be ever ready to answer any questions or inquiries from customers and also to aid them with the product/project. A sales team is also set up here. These are the ones who will do the disseminating of the product to put it into the hands of people. They also are the ones who will garner profits and revenue from selling the product.
The gold master, which is the final version of the project, is now mass produced to be sold. The gold master comes under this development and will be what the product really looks like. A launch seminar is also given at this stage. This is the time where the lime light now shines on the product and is finally introduced to the world. With that, the product is now ready to be shipped to different countries all around the world to be used and enjoyed.
week 8 -sim pin,alvin,canaan
There are many steps in the process of making multimedia. This process is one of the project planning. Project planning is important because there are some tasks like building blocks of project management and pre-requisites must be completed before other begins. The steps in the process of making multimedia included Idea Analysis, Pre-development, Prototype Development, Alpha Development, Beta Development, and Delivery.
The first step in the process is Idea Analysis. Weight your idea against the feasibility and cost of production and delivery. Through the whole project, you need to organize the project to deliver your purpose and message. After that, make a draft for the project by using note paper and scratch pads to write down the idea. In this step, you need to maintain balance between purpose and feasibility by dynamically adding and subtracting multimedia elements. You must plan your time management and money for the project also.
Then you come into the step of Pre-development which you need to define the project goals and skillset needs, create content outline and prototype on paper, and also position in sales and marketing. You need to list down the multimedia elements and content material which you need to leverage your project. However, in prototype development, you need to build screen mock-ups, design content maps, design human interface, and develop story or message. When you finish these step, you need to test the prototype.
After that, you come into Alpha Development and Beta Development. These are the last steps before you deliver your project. In Alpha Development, you must detail the storyboard and flowcharts, finalize story scripts, and produce the multimedia elements. For example, video tape, music, documents, photographs, advertisements and others. Besides, hardware and software which available for the development has been chosen also. Thus, in Beta Prototype, you must distribute to limited tester list, respond to bug reports, prepare user documentation, prepare packaging, develop gold candidates, announce to press and PR lists.
After all those steps, you can deliver your project. When you deliver your project, you must prepare the technical support, install sales team, replicate gold master, hold launch seminar, and ship product.
week 8 assessment
Discuss the process of multimedia project management from Idea Analysis, Pre-development, Prototype Development, Alpha Development, Beta Development to Delivery.