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FEATURE PAGE

Proscenia Interactive publishes a bi-weekly newsletter with feature articles. A variety of topics on the design and production of multimedia, as well as careers and career training in digital media have been explored.This is an archive of those feature pages. New features are added each month.

Careers In Media

Careers in Game Design. Game design requires many different types and levels of expertise. It is by nature a team based multimedia effort. We take a look at careers in gaming and some general online resources that explore career options in this growing field of entertainment.

Changing Role of the Media Specialist. Most anyone and can describe,in general terms, what it is a nurse, fireman, postal worker, or carpenter, does for a living. But if asked what a multimedia specialist does they'll probably reply with a blank stare. This article explores the evolution of media design as a profession.

Conceptual/Lead Designer. What is the role of the conceptual designer? What are the required skills to be a project leader?

Copywriter Careers. Copywriter have traditionally been associated with print media. But in an age of digital communication more copywriters are now working in film, TV, and multimedia.

Desktop Publishing As A Career. One of the rapidly growing areas of employment is that of desktop publishing. This month's feature looks at this field as a career option for students pursuing studies in media design and computer graphics applications.

Director of Photography. The DP works with the direcctor as the cinematographer and sometimes director of lighting.

Dreams and Reality. Three recent graduates discuss student career dreams and the reality of the workplace.

Infographic Specialists. Infographics is a specialized area that may appeal to those who are interested in taking complex ideas and making them easily understood through graphic design.

Sound Designers. Sound design is the process of creating the swish of a light saber, altering the rich voice of James Earl Jone's voice into that of Darth Vader's menacing sound,, and all those other wonderful sounds we have come to expect from films like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and every other sonic experience we have in the theater today that comes from the imagination of the sound designer.

Storyboard Artist. Storyboard artist communicate through the use of sequential images. Great detail is given to the visual layout of a scene, character continuity,camera angles, and special effects. Storyboards are essential tools for planning film, video, and multimedia presentations.

Outsourcing Media Production. Many companies with in-house media staff will outsource production work to individuals or smaller agencies with specialized services such as animation or 3D computer graphics. Outsourcing is the transfer or delegation of a particular project or task to anexternal service provider.

So You're A Web Designer? What skills and knowledge to web designers have that can contribute to meeting a client's need for an informational, educational, or commercial web site.

What Do Media Designers Earn? A question every designer asks is how much am I worth as a professional? This article attempts to provide some insight into income expectations for a variety of media design professions.

Demo Reel. One of the most important tasks you will undertake in your job search is the creation of a demo reel. A demo reel is your audio and visual calling card. It tells the potential client or employer about your skills in just a few short minutes of viewing time.What you present and how you present it will reflect directly on you and may potentially affect whether you get work or not.

Federation of Cartoonist Organizations. Those who enjoy the art of comic book design might consider joining this international organization of professional cartoonist formed in 1984.

Getting Involved. Joining an organization is the best way to get yourself involved with the professional media field. Through your participation in an organization you become known and the network grows by which your talents are recognized.

Internship: What is the Value? Internships are an important part of the learning process for multimedia, film, and video students. This feature looks at the advantages of taking a credit based or paid internship to gain work-place experience.

Marketing Your Web Site. Just because you've developed a fantastic web site doesn't mean that you'll have a steady stream of visitors. Getting customers to your site comes about through an on-going marketing campaign.

Networking. Networking is an effective technique for putting your ear to the rail and hearing about possible opportunities coming down the line. This discussion provides links to a variety of resources to help you plan strategies for getting in touch with job and career information.

Professional E-Mail. Here are ten things one might consider before posting an inquiry about a job, sending out a resume, asking for assistance, seeking resources for a project, or any other situation in which your professional image is formed by the way you present yourself through an e-mail letter.

Creativity. Discovering new ideas come about by being engaged in the exploration of processes, techniques, concepts, and analyzing the work of others. This discussion links the reader to several online resources to enhance one's own creativity.

Extended Learning. The professional field of multimedia requires that one constantly set aside time for learning new products and techniques.Here are some online resources to encourage your continued learning.

The (Multi) Literate Designer Todays multimedia developer is a multi-literate individual who has expertise with computers, information management, visual and media problem solving skills.

Open Your Ear Lids.The media designer has a good eye for a production's visual elements. But his/her ear often has difficulty when it comes to effective sound design. This month's feature article focuses on opening one's ear lids to discover the value of listenng to the acoustic environment and transferring the knowledge gained to the art of sound design for media.

SIGGRAPH 2005: A Post Conference Review. SIGGRAPH is an annual gathering of computer graphic and media professionals from around the world. It is one of the largest conferences on the subject of digital media and it is an event most designers should attend at least once in their lifetime. This month, Proscenia's Ken Loge disucusses the value for designers in attending a SIGGRAPH event.

Media: Copyright Issues

Copyright. The multimedia producer needs to understand the legal issues of using copyrighted material. Failure to follow the law may result in fines and other penalties.

Copyrighting Your Material. Knowing how to protect your creative work through the copyright process is important for insuring that you retain the rights to your material and that is is not used by others for financial gain.

Using Copyrighted Commercial Music in a Profession Production.When it comes to using copyrighted music in a commercial production there is a whole set of concerns that a producer needs to address.This article explores these issues.

Creative Commons. The Creative Commons organization provides a process by which individuals can share their work with others and yet retain control of how it is to be used.

Funding Media Projects. An overview of funding resources for the production of film, video, and multimedia.

Festivals:How To Enter. Once you've made a film or produced a multimedia product, how do you get it known by the public and distributors? This discussion explores various ways to exhibit your work.

Digital Cinema. The technology used into day's movie theater hasn't changed all that much since the first showing of motion pictures on a large screen at the beginning of the last century. The way movies are made and distributed is beginning to change.

8MM Cartridge Loop Films. The once popular use of short film loops used to illustrate rules, process, or techniques through moving images, again holds promise as web based instruction and training develops. The technology has changed making a once promising pedagogical use of the moving image more practical today than ever

HDTV: High Definition Television is Here.What is HDTV and what does this new digital medium mean for consumers and producers?

Machinima. Machinima is the use of film production, game design and animation techniques within a real-time, 3D virtual environment. Machinima provides an interactive virtual space where actors and events are either controlled by humans, scripts or artificial intelligence. Machinima is a relatively new art form that is gaining the attention of the media designers as a "sign of things to come".

Managing and Archiving Your Digital Media. At some point in our digital experience we fail to adequately cover our assets and we lose some or all of our precious work. In some cases we don’t care if a file is lost here or there, but the really important assets are the files we have spent considerable time working on, or the files we really care about that are essentially irreplaceable. This month's feature by Ken Loge discusses ways you can safeguard your work and streamline your workflow to minimize pitfalls

Micromovies. The micromovie provides both a challenge and opportunity in the age of theInternet and digital cinema.The challenge is to communicate through sight and sound an idea, story, or experience in a very short period of screen time.

Motion Graphics .Motion graphics is a specialized field within graphic arts that concentrates on the design of moving image sequences such as titles, charts, graphs, diagrams, and other support illustrations that require movement.

Nine Documentary Filmmakers Who Made A Difference. Documentary film is difficult to define. These nine filmmakers have experimented with the medium and have made a difference in how we understand the documentary.

Deconstructing Images. We learn to read images. A three step model suggests how the brain deconstructs visual experiences.

Photo Search Engines. How to find reference images on the Internet.

Photo Assignment. If your photographic skills need refreshing, set aside some time for a weekend shooting assignment and rediscover the art of seeing once again.

Photo Assignment Revisited. The season and lighting has changed and this provides an opportunity to revisit the playground and look again and see what new images can be discovered. This second visit proved that there is always something different to see and photograph - even in the smallest of areas such as this playground.

Searching for Pictures on the Internet. The Internet is a valuable resource for locating needed photographs, drawings, paintings, and other visual reference material.

Selecting A Digital Camera. This article explores some of the basic concepts one needs to understand when selecting a digital camera.

The View From Above. Only through satelitte photographs can we begin to fully understand the power of tusnami waves on the lives of people and the geography of the landscape.

Legal and Free Production Software. If you can't afford all that expensive production software for word processing, photo, video or audio production, what do you do? Don't dispare. There is a variety of free software available on the Internet that will get you started with surprisingly good results.

Browser Compatibility Issues. Why do some web pages display differently from one computer and browser to another. This discussion explores browser compatibility issues.

Bogus web sites. Fake web sites have become a serious problem for those who surf the Internet in search of accurate information.Here is a list of links to sites that, in some cases, are hard to distinguish between bogus or real.

Designing Web Sites for Children. Children have become a major audience for web based education and entertainment. What do designers need to know about this target audience and how they use the web?

Making Web Sites Accessible. An accessible website facilitates easy access to content by those individuals who may have primarily visual but also auditory or other physical restrictions. Developing an accessible site is not difficult if one builds the site with accessibility in mind.

Preparing Images for the Web. Three tips for making sure your images download fast on the user's end of the Internet.

Preparing Images for the Web II. Twelve tips for organizing and displaying images on the web.

7 Tips for Interface Design. Seven basic tips for more effective web site interface design are suggested in this article.

Virtual Reality and the Web. Imagine visiting a web site featuring a beautiful Hawaiian scene of surf, sand, and swaying palms without leaving home. All of this is possible using virtual reality (VR) software such as Apple's QuickTimeVR (QTVR)

Media: Writing & Visualizing

Writing For Media. The first challenge of writing for multimedia is to break away from one's traditional orientation in the use of text. Schooling has taught us that a piece 8.5 x 11-inch of paper is to be filled with the printed word. Yet, the computer screen is not another piece of blank paper.

Why Draw? Drawing is not only an effective tool for the multimedia designer it also provides one with yet another way of solving problems.

Collin Andrew. From time to time we feature interviews with young media artists. This week we visit with Collin Andrew, photojournalist. Collin combines work in the photojournalism while completing his college degree. Here is his story in his words and images.

Shane Ross. Shane Ross is a Los Angeles based film and video editor. Ken Loge recently interviewed his friend for the Proscenia Newsletter. A professional career takes many directions as experienced by Shane as he looks for employment in the media industry.

Feature Film Internship. In 2003, Nat Flynn Ryan had the opportunity to be an intern on the set of Mean Creek a new feature film released in 2004.

Westerkamp and Gus Van Sant: Adapting Music for Film. An exclusive interview with Canadian soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp this week. Two of Westerkamp's compositions were woven into the sound fabric of Gus Van Sant's movie "Elephant". Our interview explores the negotiation process by which an artist's work is obtained for use in a feature film.

Don Hunter.The University of Oregon's Museum of Natural History and University Libraries will preserve the works of 89-year-old Don Hunter, who has been recording Pacific Northwest history with a microphone and camera for 70 years.

Andries Deinum. An essay on film educator Andries Deinum, one of those rare educators who inspired students through his words, actions, love of cinema, and a life lived as example.

Creating a Basic Animation in Macromedia Director. Describes two of the most common methods used to create basic animation effects in Director and may be helpful if you are just beginning to explore some of Director's advanced animation capabilities, or if you are starting to make use of Lingo scripts in your movie.

Maya Tutorial No.1 This tutorial,according to the author, "...is to make a simple control handle for a set of Venetian blinds. The objective is to link the blinds rotation channels to a common control we don't have to select each one to open the blinds. We also want a constraint so they do not rotate all 360 degrees because blinds do not do this in the real world."

Maya Tutorial No.2 This second tutorial discusses how to set-up a rotating tank tread effect that conforms both to a path animation curve and the ground it rolls over. It is assumed that the user is familiar with basic mel scripting like loops, selection lists, and using the script editor.

Digital Storytelling. Storytellers have been those who have best provided insight into our deepest truths. Today, many storytellers work in digital media.

eBook Publishing. The electronic book (eBook) is an emerging form of communication and is generating a burgeoning ePublishing industry. Learn more about this field as it relates to multimedia production.

Finding Sounds on the Internet. Sometimes we need reference effects and music to serve as placeholders in the design of a soundtrack for a web page or multimedia product. Unless one has immediate access to a licensed audio library the testing of aural ideas is difficult.

Graphic Novel. The graphic novel uses sequential art to tell stories. These publications ranging from 50 to 300 pages have become a welcomed medium in schools and libraries.

Remembering November 22, 1963. Looking back 40 years to see how the world of media communications has changed.

Remembering Client Names. Tips and techniques for remembering those who are important to your business.

Telling the Story. It is the telling of a good story that attracts and holds an audience. It is a story that contributes to making your commercial, web site, or any other media effort a success.

Using Search Engine Information.What information can be gained by studying the searching habits of Internet users? Here is just a sample of the information one can find.

Vanishing Technology. We live in a time when it seems most everything has become digital. But it wasn't that long ago the world was basically analogue. This month's feature looks at the technology that has been left along the road to the future.

Subscriber Notes:

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The mission of this newsletter is to share news and views with the multimedia community. The use of copyrighted material must be cleared with copyright owners. The Newsletter Discussion Topic section is copyrighted by Proscenia Interactive© 2003. Proscenia Interactive is not responsible for content found at linked sites.Please let others who may be interested in multimedia and communication know about this publication.

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