Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide software tools (graphic, videographic and authoring programs) and cognitive design tools (interface and interaction design) intended to design, implement and manage multimedia projects, with particular relation to web platforms and mobile devices. Specific attention will be paid to visual language and its specific "grammar” and "syntactic" features. At the end of the course, students will be able to create and manage a multimedia project in line with current communication standards.

Program

In the context of the general programme of the course (*), the proposal for the current academic year concerns the creation of a personal Vlog (video blog) of a cultural and/or journalistic nature, thematically free and possibly linked to the curricular interests of the student/author.
All the theoretical and practical steps related to the creation of an active and functioning Vlog will be addressed during the meetings: from the identification of the specific theme to its narrative development, which must be consistent with the principles of contemporary communication and marketing strategies related to new media; from the design of a proper strategy for the use of social networks, to the complete technical management of forms of electronic publication based on web content management systems; from the creation of the graphic and iconographic site, to the production and post-production of the videos made.

The idea behind the proposal is that literacy related to the new tools of "reading" and "writing" related to the emergence of information communication technologies (for which the Vlog can be considered one of the most significant emerging "textual" forms), necessarily foresees the ability to manage - in the production of the "text" - the correlation that exists between the "content" and the technical characteristics of the tool used to convey it, through a multimedia language in which the image - with its specific history and its "grammatical" and "syntactic" characteristics - is certainly the most important protagonist.

Operationally:

1 - Every project choice must be rooted in a deepened cultural and communicational analysis, and must be theoretically justified both from the aesthetic point of view and from the ethical one - if not "political" - of the journalistic function itself.
2 - In the same way, each technical step must involve the operational mastery of the different software used and the specific management procedures of the CMS system chosen (thus avoiding - for the moment - the prefabricated solutions made available today by network technologies).
3 - Finally, the artistic direction of the project must guarantee its quality and aesthetic and visual correctness, taking care of every graphic, iconographic and scenographic aspect - as well as the direction - of the material produced.
4 - In this sense, the specific format of the video blog necessarily requires the "actor's" presence of the author, who for this reason must be able to develop a narrative rhetoric properly integrated with other aspects of the project.
5 - Finally, the publication of the Vlog must be done through a wise and targeted use of the most popular web sharing channels: YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or Instagram, for example, must offer an aesthetically coordinated and hypertextual image of the author and his resources.

In the classroom we will use software for image creation and management (eg Photoshop), creation and management of CMS sites (Wordpress, complete with plug-ins to expand and customize the functions), post-production video (eg Final Cut, with its plug-ins), support (eg Filezilla for the transfer of files through the FTP protocol).

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(*) General programme:

Training objectives
To know the main theoretical and practical aspects of multimedia publishing with particular reference to its visual and interactive system; to be able to design and develop - individually or in groups, using different programming tools - a coherent multimedia application both from the conceptual point of view of the organisation of interactive contents and from the video-graphic point of view of the functional system and the interface, with particular attention to the sectors of mobile use (smartphones, tablets, etc.), electronic publication (e-book) and the web.

Program
Prerequisites: basic knowledge in the use of personal computers.
Course content: Multimedia has two distinct and related dimensions, both of which will be addressed in the course of the lessons: a theoretical one, concerning the cultural specificities of the new interactive communication technologies, and a practical one, concerning the properly computerized characteristics of the hardware and software tools used in the development phase.
In the analysis of the design path that leads to the creation of a multimedia product will also be addressed some historical and aesthetic issues of visual communication: in fact, the image is the first communicative aspect of each application. In this sense, alongside the presentation of the specific techniques of digital graphics, great importance will be given to the psychology of creativity and divergent thinking, which is fundamental both in the case of strictly artistic applications and products (such as video games) connected in various ways to the entertainment market, and to recent developments in more properly cultivated production.
An overall view will therefore be proposed in which the design of the application is conceived as the point of connection between the expressive needs of the author, the functional needs of the product and the technical characteristics of the medium and programming tools used.
The techniques presented may concern 2D and 3D image, digital video, S.D.K of videogames, development tools for mobile, authoring tools related to new forms of online writing and reading (Blogs, CMS sites, FAD platforms).
Particular attention will also be paid - compatibly with the time available and the preparation of the students - to the optimized use of cloud computing as it is strongly emerging in the fields of journalism and teaching (eg. Apple's Itunes U platform dedicated to universities).

Reference texts:
A. Ciocca, S. Gorla, A. Cioffi, E. Delle Donne, Manuale di didattica museale online, 2F Multimedia, Firenze 2003 (Technology section: art, didactics and new creativity); Bibliographic suggestions and handouts will be proposed at the same time as the topics discussed during the meetings.

Teaching methods: theoretical in-depth study of the subject with frontal lessons supported by audiovisual material; computer classroom exercises on the use of video-graphic software and multimedia publishing.

Examination procedure
Oral examination, including the design and implementation of a simple interactive multimedia application (to be delivered on digital media in time for evaluation) on a topic to be agreed. The work can be carried out individually or in groups, on the basis of the agreements made with the teacher.

Examination Methods

The examination will consist of a presentation and discussion of the project accompanied by a short written report describing - according to the five-point plan - all its practical and theoretical aspects. For those who do not attend the course, there is also the possibility of reading two of the ones indicated in the bibliography (however, they are also recommended for those who do attend).