Gulch North

Multimedia Reporter, March 1993

It was at the Cross-Platform Conference in San Jose of all places that I started thinking about it. It was the number of people from the North Bay on the panels: Keith Metzger and Steve Cherneff from Amazing Media. Garry Hare from Fathom Pictures. Ty Roberts from Light source. Tony Bové from Gualalaland... `

``who else they know because the list just keeps getting longer and I'm already way behind schedule with this issue. I've already uncovered enough stories to keep me busy the rest of the year. Some of you will just have to wait.

The point is, that with all the media hype about Multimedia Gulch in downtown South-of-Market City it seems to have thus far largely escaped notice (perhaps to our advantage) that right here in Marin is a veritable plethora of companies of all sizes quietly churning out muchomedia in an equally wide variety of flavors. Or not so quietly, perhaps, if we include games. The distinction often wears thin at this point...

Brøderbond sold it's game division, but Carmen San Diego, Grandma and Me, and Arthur 's Teacher Trouble are certainly fun as well as educational. Software Toolworks has marched headlong into edu-tainment, too (now there's a word that's even harder to digest than multimedia), with "The Animals!", the hot new CD developed by Burt Arnowitz and company of Mill Valley. Toolworks has bundled 75,000 units so far according to Arnowitiz Marketing Director Paul Salzinger. And the Mac version was just released last week.

LucasArts cut back it's production of educational titles last year, and is concentrating on industry analysis while awaiting the selection of a new President. Soon to be released is Paul Park Ranger and the Mystery of the Disappearing Duck, which was produced with the Audobaun society. Said to be spectacular, it includes both laser disks and CD-ROMs.

But those are the big guys. What's less obvious is the experience and training they've provided for individuals who are now on their own.

Kim Walls, for example, worked on Carmen San Diego for several years at Brøderbund and then spent a year at Lucas. Now she is working with Fathom Pictures in Sausalito on one project, and looking for a developer or publisher to work with on a second. She hopes to do about two titles a year. A new Carmen she helped create for Brøderbund is due out this month.

Fathom titles are "sports and entertainment consumer products". With funding from Phillips and budgets ranging up to $500,000 the company has produced some of the best selling CD-I titles in the world. Distributed by Phillips as well, they include ABC Sports Presents the Palm Springs Open which will soon be available in seven languages, an action adventure sci-fi game called Escape from CyberCity, and ABC Sports Presents Power Hitter, a baseball game where the viewer can bat against pitchers like Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley. Two more projects are nearing completion, and ten others are in development. Fathom has a staff of 12 in addition to contract free-lancers, and is now developing for a number of platforms. Most of the programming is done in C.

Another Sausalito developer working a project for a new platform is Joel Dubiner of Blue Planet Software. Formerly the manager of multimedia development for the SoftAd Group, Dubiner is using C to create a "kinetic, multiplayer, arcade style, 3D game" for 3DO. At least three other Sausalito companies are also licensed to develop titles for the new platform.

3DO's logo was designed by Brooks Cole, another Marinite who's in demand these days. In addition to his graphics design work, Brooks is and advertising consultant, and producer of interactive demos and presentations for just about every application. His clients include Brøderbund, Macromedia, WordStar/ZSoft, Newsweek, Ziff-Davis, British Telecom, U.S. Sprint, and Island Graphics.

Next door to Cole's studio in Corte Madera is Marc Berry of Phideaux Communications, another designer and graphics artist emphasizing 3D animation. Berry has collaborated with Cole on a variety of projects since he moved here from Manhattan last year. He is now looking to move his shop to Sausalito, and is thinking of incorporating a Multimedia service Bureau.

Service bureau row in Sausalito must be Gate 5 Road. At Pixel Post Bob Ripley masters CDs and outputs animation to tape using a Diaquest board. Ripley has patiently mastered all of Fathom's CD-I titles, and General Manager Chris Lathrop has only praise.

"He bends over backwards to accomodate our quirks," says Lathrop. "Let's face it, we're still inventing this business. When there is a problem Bob says "Let me work on it", and he comes up with a solution."

Ripley's suitemate Dick Foster has another DQ board next door in his SP Betacam suite, and there's a third one just down the road a couple of block at Muther's Recording.

Muther's has five Macs linked by Ethernet, a Video Explorer, and a couple of Betacam decks of his own, and an extensive sound studio. Dave Musgrave says they're doing the sound for Blue Planet's project, and recently did the audio post for Autodesk's Siggraph reel. One of the partners is a keyboardist for Huey Lewis.

Another unique program being developed in Sausalito is an interactive music CD being produced with Amiga tools by Todd Rundgren and his Nutopia group. Slated for release this summer, the disc will features some impressive animation and a data base of musical moods which consumers can access with a joy stick, according to designer Eric Myers. One section resembles a flight simulator. Pushing the joy stick in one direction will up the tempo. Pulling it back will bring up a more sedate selection. Nutopia is a beta site for Nutek, and the design work and animation is done with a program called Light Wave.

Ty Roberts of Light Source in Larkspur is experimenting with Interactive liner notes for music CDs. A demo disk he made of David Bowie material features production notes on the songs and musicians and a sampler of the music. Ty says he wants to recreate the experience of holding a record album. Initially the liner notes program would be distributed on a separate disk from the music CD.

Bob Hone's current focus is time. With a "mid six-figure grant" from the National Science Foundation he's putting together an interactive computer exhibit called The Power of Ten in Time. Users will be able to play with the rate that time goes by. Speed it up. Slow it down. (Wouldn't that be nice.) Hone is testing his second prototype with students at the Kent Middle School in April. He plans to give it to Museums around the country at cost. In addition to the Exploratorium, five other museums have already indicated they want it.

Hone is also planning a CD-ROM to accompany his new book on Quicktime, which is due out in a few weeks. A PC version will follow.

On the same street in San Anselmo live computer pioneers Annie and David Fox, who are working individually and collectively on multimedia projects as well. Annie and writing partner Laura Bauman (now in Seattle) scripted Sherlock Holmes for ICOM Simulations, and are now writing/designing CD-ROMs for childrens. Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, is one of a number of titles for Humongous Entertainment in Seattle. The company was founded by Ron Gilbert who used to be with LucasArts. Another title for a "major publisher" with an interactive story environment is coming out in the fall.

"CD-ROM's are movies for a small screen", says Annie, who is also working on a math oriented story-adventure game for Electronic Arts (and 3DO) for which her husband David is a product manager. Formerly part of the RebelArts Virtual Reality group at Lucas, David also has a book and CD-ROM on Quicktime coming out.

Another member of the Sleepy Hollow mafia is Tom Volatta, who also used to work for Lucas. Volatta Interactive Video is currently producing a CD on the Brain and Nervous system with Stanford University, which will be the first in a series on Human Biology. The design work for the first disk will be done by the end of the year. Volatta hopes to use Script X for the release version so it will run on a variety of platforms without having to rewrite the code.

Karen Littman of Morphonix, who also lives and works in San Anselmo, recently received a Phase II research grant worth $500,000 for an interactive project from the National Institute of Mental Health through the Small Business Innovation Research Program. Her program will help child protection officials interview young children who may have been sexually abused.

Littman says the kids push buttons to indicate responses about events, and help determine who, what, where, and when Interviewer and kids both access. The program involves story telling, choosing environments, picking faces to show feeling faces. and responses. The kids can also supply details with drawing tools.

Morphonix owns the rights to the project, which will take more than two years to complete and includes a research contract with the University of Michigan. The consultants on the projects are leading experts on child abuse.

The four person team designing and producing the project are using a Mac with Supercard and Director, and will do a PC conversion.

McLean Interactive, which just moved to Sausalito, recently got Phase II funding (up to $250,000 in this category) from the National Science Foundation through the same small business program for a CD-ROM on Women Scientists.

Intended to break stereotypes and encourage girls to pursue science classes and careers, it will feature ten scientists such as NASA's Jill Tarter, astronaut and cell biologist Millie Hughes-Fulford, and Dr. Penny Patterson of the Gorilla Foundation. It is aimed at grades 4-8, and marketed to consumers as well as schools.

Lois McLean is an instructional designer, and her partner Rick Tessman is a video producer and programmer. Three others are also working on the project. Currently authoring with Supercard and Director they are looking at developing a proprietary program that would combine the functionality of a database with animation and graphics.

Amazing Media in San Anselmo has been cranking our multimedia marketing and sales materials for a variety of clients that includes EPSON, Businessland, and Rockwell International since 1988, and recently debuted it's second consumer CD title, "Clinton: Portrait of Victory", put together with Sausalito based Epicenter Books. The company has eight employees and is currently hiring, and looking at new projects.

The SoftAd Group in Mill Valley, which started in 1985, now has 70 employees according to Maryanne Paveglio, Vice President of Marketing, and emphasizes sales and marketing programs for clients that include American Express, Cadillac, Chevron, Coca Cola, Pepsi. All their projects make use of custom programming.

Paveglio says the company does a lot of kiosks with touch screens for trade shows, but has recently moved into more unique applications. She cited the example of a project for Nordstom Valves which uses software to help their client's customers' engineers quickly determine what kind of valve they need, find it in an immense catalog, and print out an order. The software will help them define needs by calculating flow-rates. Paveglio says the program includes some voice activated components.

Nolan Multimedia of Novato specializes in producing multimedia projects for industrial clients. Over the last four years Roy and Julie Nolan have produced several large stand-alone projects for the Electric Power and Research Institute, including an interactive video training program and a 23 laserdisk video program demonstrating the workings of an experimental power plant. They've also done an interactive brochure for EPRI being distributed on Windows, and are just finishing another large interactive trainer for Alabama Power. The current staff is four people including the principals.

In downtown San Rafael Luong Tam at Luong Tam Design has played a role in the design and programming of marketing materials and kiosks for Sprint, Charles Salter and Associates, IICS, and the Museum of Modern Art. Tam also collaborated with Way Out West of Novato on an interactive brochure for Litton Solid State.

Also in San Rafael, Storm Front (formerly Beyond Software) now has 25 employees according to Don Daglow, working on games and educational products on cartridges, computer disks, CD-ROMs, and also on-line services. About to come out on the PC platform for Electronic Arts is a new educational program called Eagle Eye Mysteries, which Daglow says will teach reading and critical thinking skills to youngsters 4-14 years old.

Finally, David Biedny and James Ehrlich of San Rafael's ICFX are hard at work on a "virtual photography studio". With the help of a team that includes Ty Roberts, Clark Higgins, and Burt Monroy, and a "strategic alliance" with Penthouse magazine, they are creating a CD-ROM that includes the first interactivity within Quicktime, according to Ehrlich.

Users can run movies of three Penthouse "pets", pose them in hundreds of ways, snap photos, and then review or print the pictures. Designed to run on any color Mac, it will be out in April. Ehrlich says it's the first of 3-5 titles a year the company plans to do with Penthouse.

 

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