Since little had been done in the early 90s, and practically nothing with any imagination, pitching creative concepts in new media to those with the where-to-do to do anything was a challenge in its self. A working model was required. MascoTech was chosen to pitch the idea to. They were receptive.

An upbeat, high energy intro settled into a blank, stone wall. A jagged crack treks across the wall. The bottom section extrudes, numbers pop in place-- the growth chart. CEO Manoogian walks into the screen extolling the great year. A segue to a dark field. A medium shot of the president appears out of the darkness. He recites the President's Message, intercut with action reflecting the dialogue, Hollywood-style. The presentation continues through all the aspects of the typical annual report in like fashion with large, dynamic, graphic backgrounds showcasing one or two smaller Quicktime movies. The financials were covered in scrolling windows, downloadable to print.

The mockup was clean and though not complete, enough was presented to clearly illustrate the concept. It was well received by our contact at Mascotech... unfortunately, he wasn't the person anymore who could make it happen. But, a great working spec piece was had. It did indeed lead to CyberAlley's first big new media project--Holley's Digital Media Resources CD. The marketing manager from Holley visiting a designer down the hall, happened upon the development of it and little known at the time was genuinely interested. Being a visionary in his own right, a mockup for DMR was underway for Holley's marketing manager in a couple weeks.

Though CyberAlley never produced a multimedia annual report for Mascotech, CyberAlley did come back full circle to MascoTech. Holley's marketing manager led CyberAlley to an association with the Automotive Public Relations Council in which the correct MascoTech contact was met. A revival pitch for the 1997 Annual Report did land CyberAlley the opportunity to design and produce MascoTech's Operations & Capabilities CD-ROM.

See Screen Shots from the CD-ROM pitch, or contact John Gnotek at CyberAlley for an actual, multimedia sample CD-ROM comp.


Operations & Capabilities CD-ROM

As stated above, the trek back to Mascotech came in a roundabout fashion in 1998. What this project entailed was to take an existing capabilities VHS video and commit it to CD-ROM.

Digitized from the original BETA tape, CyberAlley then broke the video into its logical segments. A brief intro video extolling MascoTech in general starts the presentation. An industrial looking interface replaces the intro presentation with buttons for each segment, so that if a viewer only cares about specific segments of MascoTech's conglomerate capabilities, it's readily accessible in any chosen order. Non-interaction and the video simply proceeds segment by segment.

A stationary control console occupies the left quarter of the interface in which a cool metallic-like screen extruded from. The segment topic would be stamped on the screen and a small video frame would emboss on it in which a 240 x 180 pixel Quicktime movie would play. After that segment was complete, the metallic-like screen would recede and the next would slide out.

A "WEBSITE" button at the bottom of the control console would launch the viewer's default Web browser or a Netscape browser on the CD-ROM. Given the computer was wired to the Internet, the browser would connect to MascoTech's website.

Though this Macromedia Director project was specified as a Windows Version, a Macintosh projector was also included on the CD-ROM. The jacket was a self-mailer. Unit production costs was approximately $2.00 each after design costs. MascoTech went through a couple reorders of 1,000 units.

Even though CyberAlley wasn't MascoTech's website developer, their website was soon redesigned to reflect the look and feel of the control console of this project.

See Screen Shots from the CD-ROM, or contact John Gnotek at CyberAlley for an actual sample CD-ROM.