Project Milestones

1. Storyboarding and conceptualisation.

The first milestone was the realisation that our initial breakdown of the text and the creation of the storyboards were inaccurate.
We had created a group diagram that did not represent the ‘event’s structure’ so we were not creating a product that had a definitive point to it.
The focus was on the characters rather than the text as a whole, this meant that the storyboard and conceptualisation started to veer away from the logic of the text being to educate the reader of the legend of the spectre.
I learnt that it is essential to refer to the text as a whole to break down the ‘event’s structure’, also to refer back to the brief (and the text) at all times to make sure our product fits the brief and has a solid purpose.

2. Production Planning and Scheduling.

As project manager it was my job to create a time plan so we could complete the project in the given time.
I created a timetable for production, testing and composing the presentation. This was emailed to all the team members. The roles did change slightly due to illness and a necessity to get thing in action, however all aspects of the design process where always covered by one member of the team.
I learnt that where possible assigning different jobs for everyone to do individually could cut production time dramatically. We did this so we finished our product on time.

3. Asset Management Strategies.

I made sure all our work and files were saved on the server and asked the team to do so, which they did.
Files were also saved on USB sticks and as project manager I simply saved all important files on my USB stick then kept them also on my laptop.
All files were saved under particular names e.g. wedding.mov and if a new version was created it was numbered so we knew which version was the latest one. E.g wedding_2.mov
This meant no files were lost.

4. Compression Techniques.

Our next milestone was the quality of the video footage. Because it was recorded with low quality to being with there was not much we could do to get better quality movie clips. All we could do was ensure that the quality didn’t get any worse. We compressed the video clips in imovie, and played around with different codec and sizes.
H.264, QuickTime mov, 640x480 gave the best results, leaving minimal macroblocks and artefacts on screen whilst having low data rates.
The sound did not compress well, we did not use adequate recording material, so we started off with low quality sound which only got worse with compression.

5. Scripting Efficiency.

Scripting was checked throughout the process of composing the product rather than just at the end.
The game was check by members of the team as well as the flash coder in order to check it worked and had the up to date videos in place.
This could be why we didn’t have any major setbacks with the flash coding.

6. Technical Prototyping and Testing.

Another milestone was when we tested our product out on users.

Paper Prototype Test:
We didn’t test it out before hand, so we were missing a set of buttons which we didn’t realise until we did the 1st test. We managed to rectify this before doing the other tests.

Online Prototype Test:
We tested the product online as it is intended to be used, it was tested out using both Mac’s and PC’s and in different types of browsers.
However we failed to create a adequate questionnaire to get in-depth feedback.
Also our product failed in its aim to educate the users about the spectre. But it did work in all browser types and both Mac and PC.

7. Debugging and modification.

The debugging process was done throughout not just at the end. All members of the team were constantly checking the final product as it was being created (as it was updated on the server regularly) and getting back to our flash coder (Dan) on any problems with links, videos etc.. when we found them.

8. Software Interrelationship.

We know we were going to compose the final product in flash cs3, so we knew we had to use video codec’s that were compatible with this version of flash.
Flash supports QuickTime and AVI so we decided to compress to one of these file formats.
Also H.264 is supported in this version of flash, and as it is the best video codec around at the moment, so we knew we would end up using it.
QuickTime supported H.264 codec and imovie could compress to QuickTime, so this was the software we used.
They are all manufactured by adobe making them more likely to be compatible.

9. Group Production Techniques.

We made sure to keep each other informed of what we were doing at all times, via emails, team meetings or our group blog.
As project manager I tried to constantly keep up to date with where everyone was at and make sure they were ok with what they were doing.
I kept them informed of any setbacks, completions or tasks that had to be done and who was or would do them; this included the member of our team who was unwell at the time.
This constant connection meant that any major setbacks could be dealt with if possible and that everyone was aware of where we were at.
This meant we work as a team even though most of the time we were doing individual work towards the final piece. It also helped to spread the workload out as we were a small group and had just as much to do.