Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
Blogcast
MillimeterDistribution U
Jun 1, 2008 1:00 PM, By Craig Erpelding
Education institutions change courses quickly as new media outlets develop.
The New England Institute of Art is teaching the importance of time constraints when developing content for mobile and viral media.
Besides the students, corporations are also fueling the high-demand mobile-content market. The pool of creators capable of producing ample content for big companies of all types is currently perceived to be small. Thus, the big studios — along with service providers such as Sprint, Cisco, and Verizon — have turned to the schools to help fill the professional void.
“Outside vendors drove our class direction,” Franko says. “They wanted graduates from digital-media arts colleges to be able to understand the difference to producing a film versus what is needed for mobile content. Some of the larger content companies are wanting shorts to help create buzz for a film or a product or even a website.”
Additionally, Franko says that even famous directors are approaching the schools interested in producing shorts and selling those via today's varying distribution methods. He point outs, for example, that George Romero has shown interest in creating little zombie shorts that could either stand alone or support someone's next project.
Donati adds that even publishers are looking for animators and content creators to help build mobile or viral content to drive interest in books or other print products. But mobile and viral content has a different audience than film. So more than ever, schools are teaching the importance of the time constraints involved in entertaining active audiences that receive this type of content, while also teaching how best to create and fully develop stories for the medium.
The two main technical points for schools focused on teaching today‘s distribution methods are compression and aspect ratio.
On the compression front, Donati says the New England Institute of Art is focusing on QuickTime versus Windows Media versus Flash and what the differences and the benefits of each are — not to mention streaming versus downloading. He says kids must understand that they have to be a back-end content producer to a certain degree to effectively deliver their message into the world.
Aspect ratios pose the grandest task, because there is no standard anymore — with sizes varying from the big screen and IMAX to television, iPhone, and online. “You see little bits of animation when you're on the ‘T’ now, or you go to the urinal for God's sake, and you got something playing in front of you,” Donati says.
Presented at last year's Siggraph tradeshow in San Diego were new technologies that look even further into the future, such as a video screen that is the size and nearly the thickness of a 8.5"×11" piece of paper.
“What's that going to be like — having to produce content at 8.5"×11"?” Donati says. “It just won't stop, so you need to be talking about [aspect ratios] from day one.”
Focusing on the final product is the key in today's content market. Schools now focus on starting at the end more so than ever before — teaching students that creating content for multiple devices requires more than just outputting or rendering to different sizes and ratios. Rather, they focus on reframing, recutting, and retitling their content for various distribution types in order to adequately portray the most important story aspects of their zooms and texturing on small, lower-resolution screens. Other important aspects being taught regarding the production of such content include how mobile content will be selected by the viewer as well as licensing parameters.
In the end, it all comes down to technology and what format is necessary to produce the desired end result. These high-powered institutions have been focusing on HD or 3D content, but they are now making room for the re-emergence of the professional applications of SD.
“I remember where we basically taught two formats,” Franko says. “Now our students use seven different formats on a daily basis. We used to have flatbed editors and a Grass Valley. Now every student in the film program has a MacBook Pro loaded with [Apple] Final Cut Pro studio. So even the manipulating of the content is just a huge shift.”
How far has modern distribution infiltrated film schools? At the New England Institute of Art's film department, the school is incorporating projects in which the end distribution is YouTube and nothing else. And grades? It's all about the hits.
“It's funny, when I went to school I was like, ‘Oh, I want to see my work on broadcast television or see my name in the credits of a movie,’” Donati says. “But now, I think it's better for some of my students to get a million hits on YouTube. That is more satisfying than seeing their work on a feature film in some respects.”
But, according to Peterson, the change in student focus is all worth it.
“Billions will be spent developing and producing new forms of programming for the small screen,” Peterson says. “The future is very bright for those storytellers who are willing to embrace new ideas and invent new forms.”
To comment on this article, email the Digital Content Producer editorial staff at feedback@digitalcontentproducer.com.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.