Whilst I was bitterly mumbling about working better by myself, I learned the benefits as well as the necessity of this procedure when working with New Media. Especially in a more professional vein, as opposed to a classroom learning project, the value of teamwork is refined to a pattern perhaps that makes it a standard in the industry of any commercial ventures. While the artistic nature and ego is usually what prempts the idea of allowing other fingers in the pie, once we enter the realm of serious works, it’s obvious that no one person can manage all the elements of narrative, writing, audio, graphics, acting, voice, direction, etc., etc., etc. and especially, in the area of technological production.
Just in perusing the instructions for Silent Hill 2 (yeah, I thought that might be best before I "kill" my characters) out of curiousity I checked out the credits at the end of the booklet. Video games are a good representation of new media and the credits ran to approximately 172 names. Now some were duplicated by use of voice as well as other creative areas, but I counted some outside firms as one credit whereas I’m sure that the actual use was of another team from these groups. Konami, the producer of Silent Hill 2 (found out that there’s sequels 3 and 4 available–oh my!) looks to be a huge group of creative talent, and they’ve designed games for gameboy (think I just bought one of them for the kids’ flight to Spain as a favor to my niece to keep them occupied!) as well as the arcade industry and others. (Note on the Konami website: First time I’ve ever seen "Oceania" displayed on a global map that otherwise labels only America, Europe, Asia and Japan.)
I’ve obviously become hot on new media, gaming, and all the challenges and opportunities the field offers. One thing that will stick in my head though: While it’s important at the learning stages to understand the whole picture and dabble in all, perhaps become proficient at many of the elements that make up a work, experts and specialists within each area can usually make even the simplest creative effort better, and an important work, its best.
So rush out joyously into the dreams, but don’t plan on going it alone.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology