Terra Multimedia is not just a production company. We are a design and development group. We bring to our clients our production skills but, more importantly, we also bring our ability to deliver complex ideas to the desired target audience.  This is what sets us apart from our competition.

Our development philosophy was honed while at the Children's Television Workshop (now known as Sesame Workshop.) CTW was perhaps the first production team to bring together three seemingly disparate entities: academia; developmental psychologists; and production. We have borrowed from this recipe in developing or own approach.

• As writers, directors and producers we can't claim to know everything about every topic. For this we need the content people -- experts in the specific area of knowledge. That's where our development process begins, with the individuals who know the subject matter. Unfortunately, being and expert doesn't often translate into the ability to communicate with different audiences.

• It is at this point that the research people enter the mix. There are two kinds of "research" -- the people who actually have to search for  content-related information, and the people who are trained in measuring and understanding the capabilities of the target audience. These are the people in close touch with the audience -- what they understand, the language they speak, their tastes.

• While these two groups have been busy at work, the third ingredient of the recipe has also been at work -- the "creative" types -- production. These are the writers, directors, cinematographers, editors, producers, etc. who have to pull all the elements together into an appealing, entertaining and effective production.

At Terra we enjoy a confluence of these three groups. The content department can either be in-house or supplied by the client. The research group is usually in-house as is the production staff. This is our approach to development. It took us a while to realize we were doing things differently from our competition. We just know no other way to produce effective educational fare whether it's a video series, a laser disc, a CD-ROM, or a DVD production.