ASAP Media Services

ASAP Media Services is a student-operated New Media research and development organization at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine. Its funding comes from implementing projects for both on and off campus clients. Students are responsible for all aspects of the development process: writing proposals, design, implementation, testing, and deployment. The key to ASAP’s process is providing the environment and incentive for students to grow. –ASAP’s description taken from the UMaine new media department website.

ASAP was my first real professional experience with New Media, a company with a long list of entrepreneurial alumni including the designer of the Apple TV and the founder of the wearable-tech fashion firm, CuteCircuit. In my time at ASAP, I worked on a wide variety of projects ranging from video work to app development to graphic design and more. I worked primarily on two projects: iSWOOP and the Maine Journal. Looking back on my time at the University of Maine, I credit ASAP as an overwhelming factor in the development of my skills and knowledge within New Media. It was through ASAP, long before many academic courses, that I would learn how to use in a professional capacity programs like the Adobe Creative Suite (Premiere, Audition, After Effects, Photoshop, etc.), Autodesk Maya, Unity, WordPress development, and more. I also had the fortune of receiving hands-on experience with an equally wide variety of devices, from DSLR cameras, tripods and gimbals, microphones, audio mixers, lighting equipment, virtual reality equipment, and 3D printers. In fact, I took on a managerial position over ASAP’s multitude of equipment.

Among the New Media department at the University of Maine and even throughout the campus as a whole, ASAP had a reputation for its challenging environment and unique atmosphere, to put it lightly. As an independent company run by undergraduates, the demands of clients of clients around the state and the country were always high compared to the fledgling skill sets of its staff. The real unique thing about ASAP, however, was the understanding between the employees and their clients that we were still students; we were working to learn, to develop ourselves, in addition to content for them. Many employees (or prospective employees) of ASAP don’t last long or don’t make the cut for this reason. The demands of real-world projects were too high and too fast compared to the safer and slower learning environment of a classroom. To those of us who rose to meet these challenges, success became an inevitability. It could take failure after failure to get there, but each failure became a new rung on the ladder we were building towards success. ASAP encouraged this method of development – both personal and professional – above all else. Simply put, it made a job out of learning from your mistakes.

The video below may do a better job of describing this group and my time there. This was my final video produced at ASAP Media Services at the University of Maine and, truthfully, the first one produced for it. It was specifically created for the promotion of the company and its business model of undergraduate management and work at an academic conference in South Carolina, but it continues to serve as the only concise visual summary of ASAP’s work and, more importantly, its work ethic.

Footage by Christopher Matthews and Peter Brown

Edited by Austin Haughton

Music by Chris Zabriskie