Making Broadcast Maps on Deadline Requires Training & Organization

by James Craeless • February 2007

Maps for television news tend to be last-minute affairs. Something happens during the news day, resulting in the station’s graphic artist being ordered to ‘turn out a map for the 6 o’clock newscast; with animated graphics if possible!’

The problem is that most art departments graphics artists, P.A.s, producer and Chyron operators are busy doing other things, like over-the-shoulder graphics, full screens, animating, designing, and compositing. Add the fact that creating maps from scratch is just too time-consuming for most stations, and one can see why experienced graphic artist/mapmaker Bob Mickens gets lots of calls for help. As co-founder of the award-winning graphics and broadcast design firm Artifactuality (www.artifactuality.com) and their emerging broadcast map solutions division MapMastery (www.mapmastery.com), Mickens designs, services and supports broadcast maps, titles, and other graphics (still and animated) for the major U.S. networks plus big market stations such as WCBS and WPIX.

Now Mickens doesn’t provide a ‘maps on demand’ service, because “most broadcasters like to keep their art production in-house,” he says. “So where I help is by training station artists to use their own resources effectively. As well, I spend a lot of time organizing their file systems to make them accessible to all of the staff – not just specialists. This really helps the workflow.” Typically, he organizes their in-house map files geographically, “because that’s what makes the most sense intuitively. But you’d be surprised at how many artists organize their files by show, or artist name.”

Theoretically, it is possible for graphics artists to make their maps from scratch. “In fact, that’s how we used to do it years ago,” says Mickens. However, with the advent of broadcast map-generation software such as Curious World Maps (www.curious-software.com), it’s no longer necessary for artists to do this, nor to become experts in geography. In addition, the ability of Curious World Maps to integrate with computer graphics systems such as VizRT (which actually purchased Curious in 2005), makes custom 2D and 3D mapmaking fast and easy. This includes adding animations to indicate locations in real time, moving the map to farther or nearer scales, or both.

Still, all of these tools are of little use to a harried news director if the staff artists don’t know how to use them, nor have resources directly at their fingertips. That’s where Bob Mickens comes in. Not only does he show these artists “how to work with whatever technology they got”, but he also prepares map templates of popular locations to be kept on file.

“For instance, WCBS New York is mainly concerned with the five boroughs, northern New Jersey, and some of Connecticut,” he says. “Because of this, I created a series of template maps for each of these regions. In this way, WCBS’ artists can save time by adding relevant graphics to existing maps. It saves their people time, and allows the art department to provide faster, closer-to-deadline service to News.” (Read the WCBS Upgrade to HD Maps Case Study.)

Asked how an average TV station can improve its mapmaking abilities, Mickens offers this advice. “First, you need to go over your resources, to accurately gauge what you can and can’t do in-house. Second, you need to ensure that your art staff understands mapping, and that one person in particular becomes an expert. Third, a logically organized filing system will make it easier to re-use maps for different shows, and different news stories. This will save you time and money.”

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About MapMastery & Artifactuality

MapMastery is a division of Artifactuality. Artifactuality is an award-winning graphic and broadcast design team based in New York City. Founded by Christine Moh and Bob Mickens, Artifactuality takes a multidisciplinary approach to creating effective and motivating onscreen campaigns, film titles, broadcast mapping and more. For more information on Artifactuality, please visit: www.artifactuality.com .

For more information on MapMastery, please visit www.mapmastery.com.