PLA MULTIMEDIA PROJECT SELIA KARSTEN NOVEMBER, DECEMBER 1993 I. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Research for the "Live and Learn" project is limited at this stage. In visiting St. Clair Interactive, I investigated two programs developed by St. Clair Interactive on the Amiga system: CBC Infomation kiosk and K-Mart kiosk. Due to the limitations and expense of authoring on the Amiga it has been determined that authoring will be done on the Mac and PC using Authorware Professional. Educational materials developed on this authoring program, already licensed to Seneca, will not require additional licensing fees. The procedure generally will be to have all art work and photographs scanned to Photoshop on the Mac. These files will then be transferred to programs such as Deluxe Paint IV on the Amiga for additional artwork and text. The final files will then be transferred into Authorware Professional on the Mac and on the IBM. Back up will be onto the Syquest cartridges. The finally assembly of the CD-ROM files will require a 1.2 gigabyte hard drive for transfer to CD-ROM disk. The major part of development, that is the design of the CD-ROM program has been completed and charted. It consists of four modules each with four component parts. There are sixteen screens in each component and in each of the four navigation and appendices components for a total of 320 screens. (See attached outline) II. WORKING RELATIONSHIPS: A. TVOntario By the Christmas holidays, all four scripts had been written and had gone through several revisions. The procedure was as follows: the writer, Lynn, and I would discuss the features of the script. She would submit a draft for the producer, Fraser, and myself. We three would meet for a first revision. This version would be sent to Roberta and Carol for comments and revision. I would take notes from Roberta and Carol regarding suggested changes and give them to Lynn for a rewrite. This version would then be discussed by Fraser, Lynn and myself for a final version to be designated the rehearsal script. During the rehearsal process in January, further revisions will be made to include in the shooting script. PLA-MM Nov/Dec - page 2 Notes made at preliminary meetings with TVO in the summer were sent to me by Anne Dichtenberg in November. These notes were discussed in relationship to the script revisions. By the end of November, the possible directors for the TVO "Live and Learn" program had been narrowed to three, all of whom resubmitted proposals following discussions with Fraser. Fraser held the preliminary auditions for the five leading characters. On December 20, I took part in the final round of auditions for the leading characters along with the selected director, Les Nirenberg, his associate Dennis, Fraser, and his assistant' Gordon, (who read with the actors). On the 21st, final decisions were made regarding the leads and descriptions of all other acting roles were decided. The auditions for these parts will be January 5th. I have volunteered my apartment for the TVO rehearsals January 18 and 19. Shooting will commence on January 24th with 5 days studio, 5 or 6 for location shooting. I have located and recommended a location for the Chinese herb and acupuncture shop. The character Kim (a Korean) has been changed to Simon (Chinese) due to the unavailability of Korean actors in the Toronto area. B. At Seneca With Carol's help an office was located and approved for my use by Cy Flacks. I was moved into the space by November 18. At my suggestion, I was joined in the space by Allan Booth who has now been approved as Technical Director to the project. Lynda Jones will design the template and do the authoring. On December 7th I interviewed a School of Communications Arts student, Anna Khlaif, who has volunteered to act as Production Assistant to the project. Interviews with field placement students are being planned for early in January. Two six week placements are January 18th -February 25th and February 28th - April 8th. I have asked Field Placement Coordinator Johanne Daoust for two students each placement period. On December 22, I was informed that I would have to move again. After further discussions, I was assured that this would not be necessary and that the team would be able to continue on in this space. Following this, I distributed outlines of the CD-ROM project to underline the scope of the work and the necessity for a stable working environment. PLA-MM Nov/Dec - page 3 Meetings have been held to clearly define the areas of responsibility in the production of the CD-ROM. Allan has agreed to research additional programs needed for implementing the CD-ROM and desktop publishing of the workbook. In the workspace we now have the use of the IBM 486 and the Mac - Centris 660 AV for the project. I have brought in my Amiga 500 to parnet to the 4000 for an additional disk drive. I have also brought in my dot matrix colour printer for the Amiga. The Fujitsu printer will be used in connection with the Mac and the PC computers to print text. C. Mohawk Roberta has, in addition to suggesting script changes, been working on a revision of the Portfolio Development workbook. On December 14th, Roberta, Carol and I met at the Council of Regents to go over the completed revision of Part I of the Workbook. D. Council of Regents On November 15, Carol and I met at Humber College with other groups who are involved in Prior Learning Assessment projects for the Ministry of Education. I reported on the progress of this project to date, showing the design for the CD-ROM in chart form. I have been asked if I can give an update on the project in February or March, the date as yet to be determined. III. DELIVERY MEDIA AND METHODS At the World of Commodore exposition, December 3-5, I was asked to present this project to a symposium of educators. I made some useful contacts, in particular, programmer Dave Buck from Ottawa. Dave visited me here at Seneca and investigated a file transfer problem. He subsequently wrote a program for correcting malformed and mangled files for use with the project. This problem is a "bug" in the transfer of files from Photoshop to Amiga IFF format. On December 16th, Daryl Mahabir was paid in full for his 30 hours (to date) assisting with installation of programs on the Amiga 4000. Tom Metcalfe, SYSOP for the ABUG support group has given two sessions of tutorials to help with file management on the Amiga. PLA-MM Nov/Dec - page 4 I have completed the Introduction to Desktop MultiMedia course offered at Seneca. Through this course I have developed title screen animations for the four modules using Deluxe Paint IV. I also gained introductory knowledge for the music sampler program, Dss8+. I learned helpful information about the three platforms which are being employed in this project. I have submitted a proposal to present on Multi-Platform Multimedia at the fifth national conference on College Teaching and Learning in Jacksonville, Florida April 6-9, 1994. I have continued my involvement with three Amiga support groups: TPUG, ABUG, and Amiganaughts. I have also attended the International Multimedia Developers Association. Throughout December, work has continued in translating the design to storyboard form. This involves thumbnail sketches of each of the 320 screens, detailing the approriate text for each screen. SUMMARY: The project design is complete. The next phase is the actual development of the program. As soon as the field placement students have been selected, they will begin creating the art work for the screens. It has been decided to assign work based on each student's strengths as an artist. In order to determine this, each student applying for placement will be given an outline of the CD-ROM program. They will then select one of the components to put to storyboard. From these sketches, they will submit two finished screen designs. Lynda will assist in selection of the appropriate students. I will be involved in the TVO production during the next two months. While I am away from Seneca, Lynda and Allan have agreed to share the supervision of the students. Meetings with Roberta and Carol concerning the revision of the workbook will be scheduled pending Roberta's rewrites. Attached: Pilot Project Update Report CD ROM Outline Humber, Nov.15 notes