For definition purposes, multimedia is information in digital formats that deliver interactive text, graphics, animation, photos, video and audio to end users. Presented as pages on the internet or on disks for business, education, entertainment, or personal content, multimedia is now part of everyone’s lives. Through the integration of hardware, software and applications, information can become interactive, entertaining and multi-functional.
Personally, to me, multimedia is new ground and vast at that. As I stated in my initial post; I come from the analog world, a linear world. At the beginning of my long haul at Bunker Hill Community College, where it took me 10 years to get my Associates Degree in Media Technology, the production facilities were analog when I started in 1995. Only in my last couple of years there did they move into the digital world. Professionally, I am experienced in the analog, linear world of TV production. I have done public access television for 10 years and in the small communities this is a very low tech endeavor. In my job of the past 5 years, teaching television production at a high school (a position that got cut last year from the school budget) I was working in an SVHS production studio. We would edit our productions tape deck to tape deck. And I am good at all of that but it was not state-of the art. My previous experience is NOT what multimedia is.
I grew up with TV when it was still innocent and idealistic. Since I was a teenager I knew that I wanted to be involved in television production. I wanted to be a camera person. I have been a photographer since I was a kid and my passion has always been to document life. I have artistic moments but they are usually spontaneous, beautiful moments that document where I am or what I want to remember about where I have been. Very straightforward, what you see is what you get (with fine tuning of course) documentation. This is what multimedia is NOT. But, multimedia can assist me in being more artistic and creative as I document life, both in my business, Visual Proof,(social event photography and videography).
Out in the world and at home my TV Production students were more hip to multimedia technology than I was. From my middle-of-the-road perspective; multimedia, as a way of life, is pretty recent. So to me multimedia is “new” technology, not one that I cut my teeth on like some of you who are of a younger generation than me. We all enjoy the interactivity of movies on DVD with links to menus of other features such as interviews with the director or actors, deleted scenes from the movie, blooper outtakes. And how could we live without the Web! We shop, pay our bills, meet people, learn stuff, and find entertainment and news. Education has been revolutionized by multimedia; it is used to create computer-based training programs and reference material like encyclopedias.
Multimedia is creating a whole new way to live. But, really, this stuff was not main stream just a few years ago. This evolution really moves at warp speed compared to advances in “regular” media in the past 50 years!
I am intrigued by multimedia and hungry to catch up. I plan on being involved in the field of media for the rest of my working life and would like to get back to working with young people and utilizing all the coolest of digital, multimedia tools and programs and possibilities. I believe that multimedia can be used to bring young people from all over the planet to new understanding of each other and yes!... could contribute to peace in the world. Multimedia is the future for communication in all areas of life.
