As the 2006 competition draws to a close, I
look back on the outstanding entry field in
awe. Simply put, I am blown away at the level
of work that is out there and how designers
and developers continue to reinvent new ways
to use technology to achieve their marketing
and communication goals. As a tribute, we conducted
interviews to share more information about the
winning individual or firm responsible for creating
the best of category entries in the 2006 competition.
NOKIA
WINNERS INTERVIEW - Brandon Payton
Q. Give us a background of
your company.
Nokia is a manufacturer of mobile devices and
a leader in mobile network equipment, solutions
and services. The Company also provides equipment,
solutions and services for corporate customers.
As a global leader, Nokia employs over 60,000
people. Our team resides in Corporate Communications
and we are the Interactive Media Team. Currently
there are only two people on the interactive
media team.
Q. What is your approach to developing interactive
media solutions?
When a client comes to us and ask for a solution
to a project they need completed, we gather
as much material/content/ideas as we can. We
then look at the technical aspects, limitations,
budgets, and overall usability that would be
associated with the project and devise a solution
that best meets the needs of the clients project
in a significantly short amount of time.
Q. What was the creative inspiration for your
winning project?
Inspiration was taken from all over. I sampled
bright vivid colors from pictures of tropical
fish to select a color palette. Creative development
was mostly inspired with a mindset in minimalism.
I wanted the interactivity to stay simple, but
maintain a complexity without the end user noticing.
Q. What technologies were involved with making
the project?
There were quite a few technologies involved.
The introduction on the CD-ROM is a video that
I shot on green screen. I use a Canon XL-1 to
shoot with and a Firestore FS-4 Pro to record
the footage digitally. A wide variety of software
helped in the making. Macromedia Flash was the
main development software. Adobe After Effects
was utilized in the keying of the green screen
as well as creating a digital cloud animation
that appears at the beginning of the presentation.
The 3D desk that was created as part of the
introduction was built and rendered with Swift3D.
The voice over was produced with a Shure wireless
microphone system and recorded, enhanced, and
converted to mp3 with Sound Forge. The final
files were then compressed into an executable
file that, when executed, temporarily stores
the files on the users hard drive. Once they
close the file it deletes all of the unzipped
files off the users’ computer. The program
used to accomplish this comes pre-packaged with
Windows XP Pro and is called IExpress.exe. The
initial launch application was created with
Flash and After Effects and made into a self-executing
file using Flash Jestor Jugglor.
Q. What were the biggest challenges to making
the project and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge was having the interactive
CD-ROM play the same on many different types
of computers. It needed to run smoothly on old
computers just like it would on newer ones.
Since the majority of the audience more than
likely owns older computers this was a significant
problem. In order to make smooth animations
and transitions extensive testing was needed
in order to ensure speedy playback. Utilizing
looping animation that plays continually while
the presentation is open will eventually slow
the computer down, especially if it has a slower
CPU. Flash is very CPU intensive so this was
another challenge to overcome because I did
not want to cut out any of the eye-candy. What
I had to do was minimize the transitions and
the looping animation to as few frames a literally
possible to reduce stress on the CPU. The next
major challenge was actually reading the presentation
slides from the CD-ROM. If the user paused on
one slide for too long, when they clicked next
and their CD-ROM had stopped spinning, it would
lag out while it waited for the CD-ROM to spin
back up and read from the disk to move on to
the next slide. This would appear to the user
that the presentation was slow and lagged out.
This was not an issue when all the files were
saved to the user’s hard drive, but finding
a simple installation method for that took some
effort. Eventually I found an answer, a pre-packaged
program that comes installed with Windows XP
machines was the solution. IExpress.exe was
the magic program. It allowed all the 70 plus
files to be compressed into a self-extracting
executable which when launched, temporarily
stored the files on the users computer. This
significantly increased the speed the slides
were viewed and achieved exactly what I was
wanting even more efficiently than actually
installing the files to a folder on the users
hard drive.
Q. Did the project achieve its goals?
It exceeded its goals.
Q. Where do you / your team turn for creative
inspiration?
I turn to music. I like to close my eyes and
visualize things synchronized to music. I also
like to visit many great websites for inspiration.
Getting up and walking outside is a great inspiration
as well as the bar down the street! Sometimes
the best ideas come when you aren’t even
thinking about the problem, although subconsciously
your mind is constantly searching for that perfect
solution.
Q. What trends do you see in interactive media
production today?
I see a lot more video being integrated into
interactive media. It appears that people are
actually becoming better programmers. But the
trend of using annoying sound effects/button
sounds, in my opinion, will never die.
Q. What are some of your favorite websites?
www.conclaveobscurum.ru
www.2advanced.com
www.google.com
www.bugmenot.com
www.sxc.hu
www.cgtalk.com
www.whoswestudios.com
Q. What projects are you working on now?
As I’m writing this I am currently working
on doing some audio recording of Nokia Talks
Vision and Strategy. Our team is currently working
on a few websites, a Convergence Website and
a Nokia Tutorial Website. I am also polishing
up a video for Human Resources Strategy Sharing.
