Yesterday (Friday) marked the end of the first week of developing Big Jump Production’s new file management system.  This kind of system is better known to the web development community as a content management system, or a CMS, for short.

I am still working with the production staff to nail down the particulars of the present, all-manual system.  Once complete, the CMS will enable staff to launch a web browser on any computer connected to the internet (or the studio’s internal network), log in and immediately begin viewing messages, work assignements, notes on revisions, work that is approved and ready for invoicing, and the progress of the production as a whole. It’s a tall order and I have only 9 more weeks until the first of many modules is due to launch for users.

I am using the open source CMS, Drupal.  It’s an awesome web platform.  For community web sites, forums and blogs, it’s practically ready to go, right out of the box.  For what I am asking it to do though, there is much more customization needed.  Imagine a page dedicated to each and every character, prop, background, storyboard, or scene.  Of course, automation is necessary as there are hundreds and hundreds of pages. I still have to work out whether I can find a module to enter the plethora of information needed, or learn how to write it myself in PHP.  I am holding out for the former and not the latter. Not that I am not up for the challenge, but I don’t want to cut it too close to the deadline with custom code.  I trust I can rely on the Drupal community of developers and users to help me through it.

As an extra bonus, I will be rolling out a new blog for Big Jump, using WordPress (which I am currently using for this very blog).  I am very familiar with installing and administering it, but the first hurdle is to get it running properly on an IIS web server.  Depending on what version of the server they are using, there might be the need to install a few extras, something I have never done before.  I guess this is where I get to work with the IT department to make this all happen.

Lastly, I will be pushing forward on an old passion of mine, writing extensions for Flash.  This is something a started back when I was with PIP Animation.  Finally, I will be dusting off some old extension projects and exploring some ideas for more.  Whenever I am given the green light to share some of them, I’ll post them here.  So add this site’s rss feed to your feed aggregator and watch for a future post on these Flash extension.