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Research Guides@Tufts

Multimedia Production Guide

for the Digital Design Studio at Tisch Library

Scoping your project

Consider the following questions to help your group clarify the scope and specifics of your project.

Purpose - Your motivation behind creating this project. 

  • What is the purpose of the podcast? Is it to inform? teach? motivate? persuade? entertain? advocate? share?
  • What essential message do you want to communicate?
  • How does this story benefit from sound?  Why audio storytelling and not a paper or a video?
  • What other podcasts has been made on this topic and how does yours differ? 

Audience - Who is this project for?

  • Who is your intended audience?
  • How will you reach this audience?
  • What prior knowledge (if any) might they have of the topic?
  • What do you want your audience to do after hearing your project? (e.g., check out a website? talk to their friend about a topic? contact their legislative representative? etc.)

Perspective - The point of view from which you will speak from

  • Who is telling your story and why?
  • From what perspective will your story be told? How does that impact the language used?
  • Is your perspective made explicit to your audience?  Why or why not?
  • Does your perspective reinforce or challenge harmful stereotypes in your field?

Design - How you organize and present the components of this project

  • How would you characterize the tone of your podcast? (e.g., formal/informal? upbeat?). 
  • How will the content be sequenced? (e.g., lead with problem, lead with context, chronological)
  • Who is represented in the audio and when?  Why?
  • How does your structure and organization support the purpose of your podcast?
  • If doing community work, who has ownership of the media when the project is over? Why?

Media Management Tips

Media management encompasses the organization of media assets from research and writing through sharing and archiving.  Below are some best practices for keeping track of files as you work on your project.

Box

We recommend creating a shared Box folder to store all your digital assets.  You can share this folder with the members of your group as well as any other relevant stakeholders. Box offers an local application that can be installed on your machine to make accessing your files easier when recording and editing.  

External Hard Drive

External drives can help with saving files and moving your project file around between computers.  If someone in your group has an external hard drive it can be used for backup or for transferring media between group members. 

Organization

Staying organized is essential as you collect and create various assets for your project.  Organizing and naming all your files will help make collaborating smoother.  One example for organizing media could look like:

  • Project Title (folder)
    • Documents (folder)
    •  Original media (folder)
      • Interviews (folder)
        • GuestsName_Date (folder)
      • Narration (folder)
        • Section or Topic_Date (file)
      • Sound Effects (folder)
        • SoundEffectName_HostSite (file)
      • Music (folder)
      • Spreadsheet that lists out all the audio files with file name, source of file if downloaded, date recorded, licensing, consent forms, etc
    • Exports (folder)
      • Project Title_version_date (file)
    • Project Files (folder)

Backup

Always backup your media and project files in at least two locations!  It’s important to always back-up your media and project files in case your computer crashes or hard drive malfunction. All machines in the DDS are wiped weekly.