Combination of at least two media formats — video, audio, text, graphics, animation in one project. Dated term in production; modern use: cross-platform storytelling.
The term shimmers between a theoretical category and a practical anachronism. What was once considered innovative—video and audio together, plus text and graphics—is now the baseline. On set, you notice this immediately: you're no longer just shooting for the cinema. Simultaneously, there are social media clips, behind-the-scenes content, and interactive elements for streaming platforms. This is multimedia production in the modern sense, even if hardly anyone uses the word anymore.
Historically, multimedia was a marker of ambition—think of 1980s music videos with graphic overlays or early CD-ROM projects that combined text, video, and animation. Mastering this meant you were considered technically proficient. Today, it's standard craft. Every digital film is de facto multimedia: you work with color correction (visual layer), sound design (acoustic layer), titles, and graphics (information layer). The boundaries have become permeable.
The practical benefit now lies elsewhere: cross-platform thinking is what multimedia truly means. You plan a campaign not for one medium, but for several simultaneously—cinema, television, YouTube, TikTok, VR installation. The content must adapt, the narrative style varies. A 2-minute film version becomes a 30-second social clip, an interactive website, a podcast series. This requires modular thinking in screenwriting and editing—something that used to be called "multimedia" but is now "smart production."
In project management, you distinguish between mono-format (everything for cinema) and a multimedia approach (multiple output formats from the outset). The latter is more complex but more economical when budgets are limited. You shoot more densely, reuse digital assets multiple times, and produce variations instead of entirely new content. This saves time in post-production and multiplies reach. Those who don't calculate this quickly lose relevance—audiences are everywhere, not just in cinemas.