Multimedia Creators Network

https://segaretro.org/images/d/d5/MultimediaCreatorsNetwork_logo.png

Multimedia Creators Network
Founded: 1992
Defunct: 1995
Headquarters: Meguro, Tokyo, Japan

Multimedia Creators Network (MmCN) was a Japanese software development group commissioned by Pioneer to produce LaserDisc-based content for their LaserActive platform. Working closely with video production companies Studio Garage and Media Garden, the group would go on to produce three titles for the platform, with a fourth planned but eventually cancelled.

History

The artists who worked on 1995's Goku.

Founded in 1992, the group consisted of digital and analog artists, programmers, musicians, and media creators assembled by Japanese ambient musician Jotaro Nonaka (aka Eiki Nonaka). As renting space for the group's development studio would have been significantly expensive in Tokyo, Nonaka instead converted his own house into the development studio, with his living room becoming a professional recording studio. The physical studio was named Media Garden Studio (in reference to the large Japanese garden that surrounded the property), and a company was founded to manage the studio's affairs, Media Garden (which still remains in business.)

As video producer Hiroyuki Nakano wished to have three-dimensional sound accompany the three-dimensional visuals in 3D Museum, Jotaro Nonaka became one of the first professional clients of Roland Corporation's RSS spatial audio technology.

Members

• Jotaro "A-Key" Nonaka (aka Eiki Nonaka) - musician
• Hiroyuki Nakano - filmmaker and director
• Hakubun Ito (aka Hirofumi Ito) - computer graphics artist
• Mao Kawaguchi - computer graphics artist
• Haruomi Hosono - musician
• Junichi Arai
• Makito Sudo

Quotes

“	So while we started to develop our plans for various titles, and started to produce some video clips and music tracks to see how they would to fit to LD-ROM, we had to develop the authoring software with our programmers, who were hired from outside of Pioneer, and basically, we would try out the system, make a master disk to test and play them on the machine using actual controllers, mesure [sic] the seek time for each actions made, and tweak the program to make it work, and repeat the process until we had something workable.	„
— Multimedia Creators Network founder Jotaro Nonaka

Softography

Mega LD

• 3D Museum (1994)
• Melon Brains: Exploring The Mind Of The Dolphin (1994)
• Goku (1995)
• UFO & ET (unreleased)

Interviews

• Interview: Jotaro Nonaka (2014-05-16) by Laseractive Preservation Project

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Multimedia Creators Network