# High-quality multimedia production **July 2025** I think that designing and producing multimedia is both **an art and a science**. It is a bit like teaching, just focused on human emotion. Too often someone will say to a multimedia producer, "*Let's just record this, then you can work your magic*". This always bothers me because I know that a successful project is made by great creativity, technical skill, and interest into human emotion. It is so much more than the raw technical skill that is assumed Producing high-quality multimedia is important for a few reasons. All of which are reasons to pursue great work. These are that multimedia design and production communicates for example: 1. A brand and its value; 2. The skill, creativity, and commitment of the team; 3. The level of institutional support for the team; 4. Respect for the consumer (or paying customer); and 5. Potential of the team and organizational impact. High-quality multimedia design and production is an intentional product that comes from commitment to constant reflection, learning, and pursuit of evolution. But in the short-run, it comes down to planning/design. As someone taught me a long time ago, the following are the **7 P's of media production**: 1. Prior 2. Proper 3. Planning 4. Prevents 5. Piss 6. Poor 7. Production > [!info]- Check-out section 3 "what I…" > For an example of what I consider high-quality multimedia, please see [[KLM, autopilot in action]] in section 3. This one has multiple elements of what I love about good educational multimedia. And honestly, I would love to be able to contribute to work that comes close to something like this one day. ## Who shaped my thinking Since I was working as an Instructional Designer at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), I have been involved in the production of high-quality educational media. Back then I worked with a team called the Creative Lab. To this day, The Creative Lab is a full in-house creative services team providing leadership in user-interface design, multimedia production, and publications. The staff are Media Officers and range in professional expertise. The are graphics designers, video producers, video editors, and behavioral scientists. The expectations for their productions are very high. They work as a team and honestly, they have a fun job. For better or worse, their standard was burned into my mind as what the process and outcomes should be. It is a hard standard to reach. Those folks completely changed how I thought about multimedia and taught about the richness in their field. What is more, working with these professionals, while managing the project timelines, taught me how to measure and effectively guide multimedia products to completion. So while I do not consider myself a creative professional, I know how to run the workflows well. And if need be, I really enjoy going beyond ideation and crafting some cool documents with Adobe InDesign. ## Multimedia producers I am not a multimedia producer, but I have worked closely with some serious professionals over the years and have directed a small multimedia team at GWU. My leadership responsibilities included overhauling a system to design online course media, leveraging multimedia producer skills for subject-matter-expert up-skilling, and transforming the team into client/faculty-facing. I have a great deal of respect for professional creatives. It is a highly skillful and cognitive profession. What is more, I have learned that professionals in this area are generally very thoughtful and reserved in their engagements. But still some standout. Those are ones that I have seen make the most impact in terms of seeing their designs come to life, influencing others (like me), setting new standards, winning awards, having career mobility, and just consistently impressing other people. They share certain qualities, such as: - They like to **engage people** by asking questions and challenging assumptions; - They are **plainly honest** about what can and should be done; and - They they reject the idea of providing a service, but instead **leading people** down a path. The bottom-line is that producing high-quality multimedia is not driven by the tools or even the workflow. It is driven by a willingness to engage with people and them having the backing to do it. They are not technical experts, they are creatives and all the imagination and skill that entails.