Subject
The proposed book will present introductory through intermediate multimedia production techniques for students in traditional radio-television programs. It is a text designed to both build on previously learned audio and video skills and serve as a comprehensive guide for the first and probably only multi-media class available to this student. It is for the modern television production program where it is believed students need beginning and advanced education in the use of computer-based production techniques in which to serve for "new audiences"using Internet, Intranet, CD-ROM. The authors plan continuously updated supplemental material using a dedicated Internet website
Course Background: Students will take a multimedia course using this book after they have completed an introduction to video production, one that introduces the basic tools and technologies of production for audio and video. Students may also have had a script writing class; students may have had some prior orientation to the Internet and have viewed multi-media in the form of CD-ROM's and web pages. Mostly, students will have learned how to organize a production for the traditional broadcast and cable viewers, they will understand program formats, history of media, structure of the industry and a basic understanding of the need to consider the new media in relation to today's broadcast-dominated environment. The instructor using this book should understand television production, know how to use a multimedia computing system, how to navigate the Internet. The instructor will use this book to help learners transition from a pure television environment to one of the digital
technologies. Both students and instructors in traditional audio-video classes understand the equipment-intensive laboratory classroom structure and, with the proliferation of computer-based audio and video editing systems, the multi-media class will be a familiar environment.
The need for this text is now. As audiences demand quality production from their home computers and as educators develop more learning programs using computers, the need for highly trained production people will increase rapidly and radically everywhere. Already, in some training applications formerly done using traditional linear video, educators are realizing the more dynamic, cost effective and easily edited advantages of non-linear production using an Intranet distribution format. And since both traditional television and multimedia will continue to exist together, the images and sounds will be able to be used in both formats.
The purpose of the text is to teach television production for the computer screen. The proposed text is designed to be a friendly bridge between what a student already knows about television production and what he or she suspects will be the new demands by new audiences of the Internet, Intranet and the many existing and proposed new digital storage mediums. The book may also serve as a long-term reference beyond the classroom as the student progresses through internships and entry-level employment in the industry. The book, and its companion web service may have value as a so-called "trade" publication, for a general interest and professional audience.
Here are possible and expected outcomes:
A. Students formerly involved in performance and production for traditional distribution outlets will now see a new world of media production and exhibition possibilities opened up, largely an experimental one because it is relatively free of the pressures of the marketplace.
B. Students will learn the interactive possibilities and responsibilities of the Internet and the Web, and by exploring it, they may begin to discover new sources of content for their productions.
C. Students will learn that while audiences for the emerging media are currently small, they are growing unpredictably but rapidly. Students will learn a historical comparison to the emergence of radio, TV, cable and other media formats.
D. Students will learn the possibilities of information sharing using technology. While much of the content of a radio-television program is that of traditional entertainment and information, students may now share their programming content globally and receive feedback from the new audiences of the Internet. They are both learning and teaching.
E. Faculty will observe their students taking a leadership role in the as yet undiscovered uses of communication using the new media. Scholarly papers and presentations will be generated.
Production people have long believed that the basic process, whether for the Hollywood film, the corporate communication, the music video or the commercial, is really more similar than different: based on a knowledge of an audience, you need a good idea, translated into a good script, delivered by talented communicators or actors, translated into audio and video by a variety of technical artists, all organized by a producer and director into a final product. The proposed book will (a) introduce the concept of the Internet, multi-media production, hardware and software, (b) make the connection to familiar and existing television tools and methods, (c) and in general introduce the audio-video student to the on-line world. The proposed text is designed to take advantage of the student's current level of media understanding and production skills and translate it quickly into "programming" for the computer "audience." Students will also learn by doing assignments which will be put onto the World Wide Web.
Here are the reasons why this approach is sound: In the future the well-rounded media graduate must be able to create a project from idea to completion, and he or she must be fully prepared to use all the technology of program production, including the newest non-linear audio and video systems. A modern radio-television program must offer a balance of communications history, theory and criticism, writing skills, and the production of programs for traditional broadcast and cable, business communication and the Internet. Graduates of the program should be exposed to all media management and distribution systems with the emphasis on the so-called "above the line" activities of producer, writer and director, and in both traditional and experimental systems of media production and delivery. The curricular message is that student in a modern program must understand that it is the desired outcome and intended audience for a production that determines the selection of the technology needed to store, manipulate and distribute that production. In the modern program, students will be challenged to consider the theoretical and apply the practical.
The book and its companion website addresses these important issues: What may students gain from an understanding of the use of new media production and delivery systems? What are the future possibilities of an expected "marriage" between old and new media production and delivery systems? How might a book that offers this instruction both encourage and teach students how to think "digitally" about traditional media content? And most important, how will future media graduates benefit from the content in the proposed book?
The proposed combination textbook and web approach to instruction is intended to be highly interactive, highly graphical. Like a traditional textbook, the chapters will be organized with definitions and concepts to be learned, step by step use of common tools, questions and answers about treatment of subject matter, and always the connection to the familiar tenets of video production. Like a site on the World Wide Web, there will be tables, hyperlinks, graphics, text and the ability to capture information from a variety a sources. Students and others will be able to work on design problems interactively with teachers, other students and professionals. Because of the addition of a web site as part of the book, students will be able to launch their work and interact with a waiting audience of those using the book worldwide. This is going to be the nineties version of the "final video screening."
Using this book the student will be able to create a simple web page, a basic interactive program; the student will understand programs like Netscape Browser, Photoshop, Adobe Premier and any incarnations of these basic multi-media production software programs. The course outcomes will be multi-media product and the projects will be graded in the same manner as television production output of students, aesthetics, style, content, meeting objectives as in, "Does it teach, motivate, entertain?" Does the student meet the instructional deadline, does it meet the criteria of the course, the project budget and did the student correctly utilize all equipment and available resources. Does it satisfy the sponsor? All these criteria are familiar to the video production student.
The proposed text is designed a guide in a lecture/laboratory course of which the radio-TV-film student is familiar. Concepts and demonstrations in a classroom will lead to successful completion of an actual multi-media production project using computers, cameras, scanners, analogue and digital audio and video editing equipment. The multi-media production class for which this book is designed will allow the student to integrate current audio/video production knowledge into programming for the desktop. And while a complete audio/video laboratory, studio and multi-media complex is desirable, the student can effectively utilize this book with only a computer and Internet connectivity.
Unlike the traditional linear text common in non-media courses, this text will be a hybrid of book and web. Charts, tables, photos and drawings will be used whenever needed to explain, clarify and amplify a concept, and like the World Wide Web, the book and the website will have plenty of links to additional information. The authors have a unique balance of television production and art and design experience insuring that this text will be clear, concise, useful and aesthetically pleasing.
The most unique feature of the book is that it is fully integrated with the technologies it aims to teach. The book will of course be written as a stand alone text but its uniqueness is the potential for the student to use the web technology that will be a part of the book, and interact using the same medium in which the instruction takes place. Because of the design of the book and companion website, students have the option of using multi-media to learn multi-media.
Since the users of this text will likely be from a radio-TV-film program within either a mass communications/journalism or a theater/broadcast arts emphasis, the most important competition comes from those texts designated Video Production. Since the Adams/Fortune book is designed to be a bridge between traditional television production for broadcast, cable and business, and the future technology and audiences of the desktop user, the major competition looked at was that of the familiar video production text. All of these are very traditional in that none strongly suggest that audio and video production students soon will be required to apply the skills of producing, directing, scripting, recording and editing to create competitive information and entertainment content for computer audiences. And while most suggest that there is going to be a revolution in the way video and audio images are captured, stored and manipulated, none are really preparing students for a world in which a production person will be expected to produce for a company Intranet or a CD-ROM as well as a cable or broadcast product. All modern books talk about digital but donšt go beyond the actual equipment used in the television production studio.
One of the most important writers of video production texts is Ron Whittaker, with Television Production and Video Field Production. Whittaker uses a broadcast and corporate video production model and is very active with revisions and a regular supplementary newsletter. To many who teach television production, Whittaker is the best. He has written articles about the coming revolution in production and he even has his own production website www.cybercollege.com. On it, he has announced that he will soon offer a free Internet-only television production "virtual textbook." He is good but his published efforts are still aimed primarily at production for traditional media and audiences. He does not show the student how to use those production techniques for the new audiences using multimedia hardware and software.
Another well-known guru is Herbert Zettl, Television Production Handbook and Television Production Basics. Zettl is a respected production educator, he has put his techniques into an interactive CD-ROM, and he continues to revise and modify his texts. He does not raise the issues needed for the "New World Production" vision of Adams/Fortune, and his CD-ROM, while a multimedia component of instruction, is still aimed at tradition production. Other texts include Compesi and Sherrifs Small Format Video an early single camera book, but based entirely on a model of production for the television news magazine format. Single Camera Video: The Creative Challenge by Adams was an excellent exposition of the total production process, best when it details the creative and organizational processes of production, but hopelessly outdated technology-wise. Other books like Burrows, Wood and Gross, Television Production, and Wertzel, Television Production, have been around for years, get constantly revised, but nevertheless maintain an older, traditional look. The graphics and photos are new but any message about the future of video production is outdated. With the possible exception of Whittaker and Zettl, all existing television production texts are "tired," out-of-date the moment they hit the stores. Unlike the website supplement to the Adams/Fortune book, the traditional text delivery method embodied by the above mentioned authors will ever totally be current.
A concurrent, although minor area is that of multimedia production as taught within an art and design program. There are a number of texts in this area. Thomson Multimedia Resource is a good overview of multimedia production techniques and technology, but there is no connection to that which the television production student is familiar. It does not have enough graphics to adequately convey concepts. Laudon and Traver, Information Technology: Concepts and Issues, has good information on what exists in all information technologies from CD-ROM to telecommunications networks to word processing, but it is too broad to be useful in a radio-television program. Lemay's, Learn HTML in Ten Days is a popular trade publication, but it does not connect with the television student since it is aimed more toward the office business user.
300 pages; many graphics as this book is about design and the mediation of traditional entertainment and informational content which may be used either in video or multi- media form. Many current examples of existing product will be featured. Manufacturers will be contacted for collateral material in the form of photos, drawings, samples and specifications. Demonstration programs will be available and updated on the website. The proportion of text to graphics will be weighted in favor of easy to understand visual materials. The text will be used to amplify the graphic material and the concepts of multi-media production as it relates to the traditional disciplines of video production as presented in the student's degree program.
The authors plan to complete all work on the text and website by March, 1997, the date recommended by the publisher.
The supplementary website will add the advantage of instantly updated course materials and software, therefore the book will retain its competitive edge in the way that a book-only production or multimedia text would not normally be expected to do.
Course Background
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Exercises
Technologies
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Supplemental Materials
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NewWorld Production
A Radical New Book about Digital Video Production and the Internet
NewWorld Production