creative commons (CC)

Sunset from Lancaster across Morecambe Bay. for SD1385

The local weather system around the South Lakes and Morecambe Bay means that we have many beautiful sunsets. Friends of mine were quite unimpressed at the sunsets on a holiday to the Caribbean when all the American tourists were in raptures. "We get much better ones at home."

  © Copyright Robin Madge and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy to understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license. Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright, but are based upon it. They replace individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, which are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management with a "some rights reserved" management employing standardized licenses for re-use cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The result is an agile, low overhead and cost copyright management regime, profiting both copyright owners and licensees. Wikipedia uses one of these licenses.

we made these in class today, using julians tutorials "

Photoshop Tutorial - Part 3 - 3D text, Clouds, Lightening and Filters - Part 3

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Unit 12: Understanding the Interactive Media Industry

Unit 12: Understanding the Interactive Media Industry

Assignment 12.1a:  Job Roles

Hand-in Date:  November 19 2012

Word Count: 1000+ words

Write a report on the following job roles of a typical interactive company

Use research to explain what each role entails, and how the job roles relate to each other.

Also use your own experience of producing a product to inform your answers.

Task List: explain how the company should organise team members to:

·         Games designers

·         Programmers

·         Scripters

·         Artists

·         Sound designers

·         QA / Testing

·         Producers / Project Managers

·         Marketing

Grading Criteria
Pass	Merit	Distinction
P1 describe organisational structures and job roles in the interactive media industry with some appropriate use of subject terminology	M1 explain organisational structures and job roles in the interactive media industry with reference to detailed illustrative examples and with generally correct use of subject terminology	D1 comprehensively explain organisational structures and job roles in the interactive media industry with reference to elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology correctly

Every typical interactive company have a basic set of job roles that are a necessity when being successful in the industry, the components that compose the team very important and so is the co-operation between each of the individual elements of the team. Each of the roles link in with at least one of the other part of the team, making interaction with other team members a key skill needed when going into the industry. These job roles consist of very different jobs within a company all as important as each other as without one of these products could not run.

Firstly there are game designers, who are in charge of the creating of the storyline/rules of a game during the pre-production stage. They require good writing and artistic skills with typically a good technical competence; there are different roles among game designers, such as head designers, level designers and writers all with different creative roles and responsibilities. Designers normally come across programmers, artists and the scripters on a day to day basis and work directly under the producers. After they have created the basic idea of the game they have to work with the more visual side of the creation and help them see the idea from their point of view, this means their communication skills must be above par.

Secondly there are programmers; these are the members of an interactive team that actually write the software. To be programmers you have to have a very good understand of primary computer language or code. Their job is to write the coding, maintain its upkeep by fixing any bugs or flaws and test their coding. Programmers often connect with all members of an interactive team especially the; designers, testers, sound designers and artists. We had a go at writing code for a basic game and re skinned it to create our own basic game, this was no easy task and took us several attempts to perfect our basic programming skills.

Next there are the scripters; whose job is to create the initial story board and outline of a games story line. They create the basic elements which a programmer would then build upon to create the end product. They are the ones who lay down the ground work and foundations which pave way for the designer’s ideas to be implemented. Scripters are normally found in between the designers and the programmers and in direct contact with the artists.

Following the scripters you have the artists, as you would imagine they are in control of the media within the game, they are in first hand contract with all other members of an interactive team due to their wide involvement in all aspects of any game. They are employed to create and edit graphics which become characters, background and other interactive elements. They provide the images in which designers and scripters work with, under the supervision of the project managers with input from the marketing team whose research and targets will have a huge influence on what the artists create and promote.

Next you have the sound designers, they are a very important element of the interactive team when designing anything yet they are often the first to be overlooked in terms of credit. They design and script all sound media involved in a project, editing and fitting it to a strict design brief. They are under constant scrutiny from project managers and have to fit in their work with the artists initial creations of characters and environments. If they did not do this it would be off key and would not be successful.

QA and Testers are often seen as the bottom of the pile in terms of importance by other members but they have the very important job of finding out how popular game is after being released whilst testers find faults in the game before it is released. They also offer new ideas and improvements when a fault is found allowing them to meet most members of a team, which is important as an entry level into the industry. To be successful in this part of the team testers have to have good communications skills, great attention to detail and other traits that allows them to pay attention for a long period of time.

The people in charge of these teams are known as the producers or Project managers, they have the job of organising the team and delighting what a games overall aim is to do. They take in all information from the marketing and research team and decide what they are going to create via vacancies in the industry. The pressure involved in their job ensures they work with all parts of the team to ensure success in terms of popularity, remaining in budget and overall profits from a completed project.

The marketing team are the ones who provide the spark for the game; their initial research inspires the idea for any game. They have the job of researching spaces in the industry which allows companies that produces games to exploit. Their primary role also includes taking care of public relations and PR, they are in charge of getting the game out there in the public’s eye and are generally the reason a game hits it off or flops. If a company has a poor marketing team they will not know what to create, furthermore the public will not know that they have created anything. They are often in contact with most elements of the team also, especially the product managers, games designers and the artists.

These are the elements in a team involved in producing and creating games, without each of these team members a company will not function and be successful. Complete cooperation provides functionality in this industry and is imperative in the popularity of a game in the modern industry. Although each role entails different tasks and jobs the communication between departments equally as significant making the ability to work as part of a team and communication huge skills when getting into this industry.

Firstly when developing software you need to take in to count the customers’ needs and what is good at the time, this is the initial analyzing of the market. these ideas are then approved by a bigger external company to finalize the rights to a product for example: a company like coca cola put out a request for a design team to design their newest coca cola game, the design team are chosen and given the rights to the game, they analyse the market and come up with a rough mock-up of the game, if this is approved the game goes into the production stage if it isn’t approved it will go back to the drawing board to be worked on. The client always wants perfection as it is their money going into the project and their company’s reputation on the line.

A software development company would then go onto mocking a basic piece to show to the client, this is then approved by several external factors and it is then going into the creative stage. The initial mock up is then taken to a new level and completely re-created. After weeks of creating and then perfecting it is sent to testers who spend hours and hours rifting through all elements of a game trying to find faults before it is released to the public eye. This is to ensure they have nothing to complain and reasons to pick holes in a piece of software.

The piece of software is then released to the public which is the most risky part, if it had been released too early it could be catastrophic for the creators and their stead with the client. Being very specific whilst in the process of the software development is vital for development teams as they more often than not get paid more if their piece is successful and is fully functional. 

Unit 1.1 Website Preproduction Guides.

Unit 1.1 Website Preproduction Guides.

What preproduction is needed for Website Design and are the elements important?

Pre-production in terms of website design is the detailed logging of processes carried out during the creative period of the website done by website designer. Although there is no strict way this process is done it can be carried out in several steps to ensure the greatest level of completion, and is carried out to provide plans and mock ups which can be provided on completion to various benefactors like testers and in the end the clientele. There are several key elements which are required in the preproduction file all with different planning and design purposes.

On most occasions the first thing included in the preproduction file is the original proposal which more than it is not is sent to an external client with the rough ideas and basic intentions of the website. This process is very important for establishing healthy working relationships with clientele which allows them to have a broader knowledge on what their money is paying for and allows ideas to be shared via all parties, good communication between said parties is crucial in the successful production of a website. Also to prevent confusion of any nature all communications to external contributors should be evidenced in the pre-production file, one to give credit where it is due, and also to prevent any mistakes effected by poor communication for example: mistaking what a client wants as content on their website, as this can be proven with appropriate documentation in the Preproduction.

Following the proposal is most commonly the “treatment” file, which is the write up of the initial plan after the proposal, with what is going to be designed already done this piece is more how it is going to be designed, what programmes are going to be used and how long each individual element will take to create to an acceptable level. This piece aids the designer in the creation of a timed plan and helps in the end with more accurate estimates of the amount of time it would take to complete the desired website for a client.

This is followed by the initial planning of a schedule, this is documented in the production file as a way to show external parties how much time is being put into or had been put into the work at hand. Also this is used to keep designers on track and on top of their work, with a detailed day to day schedule of what they should be doing at all times. Keeping up to date with this schedule will prevent the designer from falling behind schedule and evenly portioning his time between interactive elements correctly. This particular piece is good when the job isn’t a solo effort, keeping all members of a design team at all times is important for an employer who’s money is going into a project.

Once a designer or team of designers know how much time a project is going to take them roughly then can provide a price to their client that is why it is important for them to follow this basic outlines when creating a preproduction file. Knowing how much actual time is going into a project helps them to put a correct estimation of money on the piece. Which can then be corrected on completion of the project, this can also prevent designers rushing on their work and prevent them doing the opposite. This element of preproduction is very important when working on a longer project as they know they are getting paid correctly, also so they can look back on the finished piece and judge whether the initial pricing of the website was correct.

Again following this is the research into the market, this information is vital when producing a website; designers need to be on top of their market if they want their website to be successful in a hugely competitive industry. This research would include looking at similar websites, and maybe some primary research into the targets audience with questionnaires. This prevents you creating a website for the wrong target audience and gives the designer the chance to be inspired by similar products. Documenting this process with some picture evidence and evaluation again shows clientele the amount of time and effort a designer puts into their project.

After the research has been carried out and a schedule, target audience and basic budget is established the next file would be the evidence of the initial web ideas. This is the documenting of all the original ideas that are in the end chosen from, with annotations on why the designer did or did not chose it to be the final piece. This is important as it shows external parties a thought process is carried out and the best original idea is picked from. Furthermore having the plan of your original design allows you build upon it, and also how you strayed (if you did) from the original idea and to what benefit. This is good in the preproduction file as proof of your progression on the piece, once more this is used to re visit and build upon by the designer.

With the basic design for the website in place, it is then good to include the story bored of any media or interactive elements that are planned to be included on the website. File size and type have to be taken into consideration here as not everyone has the newest technology in terms of compatibility so they have to be presented in way that is accessible to everyone. This can be proven by Screen shots which can be added to later on. As frequently before this is used as evidence of progression as the original idea is developed and this process is recorded. The evidential information of these processes is very important when looking back on a completed website as clients can sit down and see where there product blossomed from creativity under the work of the websites creator.

With all the foundations in place, a designer would then crack onto producing his selected ideas: this can be a time consuming and tedious process if a lot of interactive elements are desired. This is great to evidence and include in the preproduction file. Step by step progression is great as evidence like on all the other separate pieces it can be viewed by external team members and they can see into your creative process and get a grip of the individual pieces of media. All of these documented processes are also used a last resort back up file, if a designer loses his work he need only follow his organised, chronological annotated documents and follow the steps they had already carried out.

This all leads to the final piece, the final website picture evidenced and proofed on different computing software to ensure compatibility. Included in the production file as the final product with all improvements made from the initial ideas and plans, this is the best way to show progression. Annotation of this final document linking it to the treatment document to show external parties what programs the designer used for each individual piece. Lastly on the final write up of the completed website a designer could add in how good his estimations of their time was, how long they actually spent on each element by accurately compiling evidence of the time they use along the way.

Then the concluding document in a preproduction file is the assessment of the website, what a designer thinks went well, what was harder than first anticipated things like that, their views on the processes carried out to complete the website. They can go onto evaluate how good their preparation was in terms of ideas and the documenting of their plans, basically sum up the interactive elements of the website and explain why each individual element was included to suit the prescribed purpose and target audience. This is to show the client and external parties that the designer has worked to their set requirements and has complied with their audience and targets in terms of suitability and style.

All of these individual processes of information are key to establishing the website for the client, the documentation of all the work carried out helps then view the website from the designers eyes, it also shows them where it can be improved and worked on in the future. If a designer hopes to thrive in the industry their pre productions skills must me above par, the process of planning they desired piece of media is key in the production of a website that is meant to thrive in the industry. But like previously stated the preproduction does not have to be carried out in these specific elements, as long as the detailed documentation of the three stages is carried out: Research then Planning and Design then Lastly the Evaluation. These are vital and are expected in part and parcel with the completed piece by clientele.