Make Multimedia Happen

From storyboard to development tools to network delivery, here's what you should know about multimedia development

Salvatore Salamone, News Editor

Multimedia, long a star of the entertainment industry, is now auditioning as a supporting actor in the corporate world. Many companies see it as a way to increase revenues by delivering stronger messages about goods and services. Or they look to it to cut their training costs with interactive computer-based training programs.

The process of developing a multimedia application falls into five basic stages. The first is program design: The team discusses exactly what the application is going to do and what the user interface will look like. The second is storyboarding, in which you create a blueprint of the application. Third comes script development, in which writers create the words that a narrator will speak or that will appear on the screen. Fourth is production, when artists, directors, and actors take the storyboard and fill in its blanks, creating backgrounds and scenes. Finally comes authoring, when programmers put everything together.

Robert A. DelRossi explores the subject of multimedia authoring in "Learn the Lingo." In Salvatore Salamone's "What's the Story?," we look at the second stage, storyboarding, and some of the methods and tools you can use to ensure things run smoothly. In "Multimedia over the Network," Nathan J. Muller examines what it takes to run multimedia applications over existing networks and what networks you should be thinking about for your multimedia future.

Is It Worth It?

If you see multimedia development as a cost center, you may be right. The major issue isn't usually programmers; rather, it's the cost of l icensing different forms of media to incorporate into presentations.

Companies seeking to add music and video clips to a multimedia presentation find that print, music, and film industries have vastly different ideas about selling the rights to their property. For example, there's no going price for a 1970s Top 10 song. The most common solution is extensive negotiation.

If you don't want to spend the time or effort in such negotiations, there's a solution: licensing-rights clearinghouses. One of the first firms to offer licensing services specifically for multimedia material is Total Clearance (Mill Valley, CA), a company with expertise garnered from the entertainment industry.

With the right contacts and experience, you might even be able to leverage your well-developed multimedia group into a profit center. That's what happened to the World Tutor Group (WTG), the multimedia training division of the AMR Training Group, itself a part of AMR, which operates American Airlines and the Sabre airline-reservation system. About six years ago, WTG turned to computer-based training and has since spun its talents into a service organization used by outside clients.