Three weeks ago, give or take, we were presented an opportunity to display some pretty killer artifacts from a major movie studio/property. Major. I'll spill as soon as the release is out.
So of course, we said, you betcha! We can do this! And then the caveat...marketing wants it for spring break. Which is in 3 more weeks. Seriously, spring break starts 2 weeks from Friday. We are installing a 400 square foot exhibit, complete with graphics, mounts, text panels and custom case work - in 3 weeks. Did I mention its not a traveller, but we are creating it from scratch?
So, in the course of about a month (from final decision to opening) we will have gone from rough sketch to finished show. Insane.
Part of me loves this stuff. Guerilla style exhibit design/production: borrowing cases from other museums (who know the pain of these "opportunities"), enlisting local fraternities for heavy lifting, writing labels in days rather than months. Its great, because I think you get a fresh and creative exhibit - one that hasnt had the life edited out of it. I've seen developers spend weeks on a 50 word panel, tweaking it just so...then start over after they see the layout. With this, there is no time. Every member of the team has to make command decisions and just do it. Its like Project Runway meets museums. We make it work.
But, here is the downside. I know the team. I know every member and their work and ethic. I know that this exhibit will rock. It isnt overly interactive, but seriously people, 3 weeks! It's going to be beautiful and cool and families will ooh and ahh. And we will be able to say, yep, we did that in 3 weeks.
And then next year, we will have the same problem, and we will have PROVEN that we can do it in 3 weeks, so we will have no recourse to say "its impossible." Damned if you do, damned if you don't, eh?
So, anywho, just wanted to share what's up at TCM. I'll be posting more soon - upcoming topics: social media pitfalls and plusses, life with Barbie, local layoffs and meeting with area CEOs for class. All interesting things.
2 comments:
Exciting! As I always used to say to the team at The Tech when we had just weeks to build interactive exhibits: we're still going to make bad choices, but we're going to make them much faster than we would with more time.
I'm all about the blast-off exhibit building experience. Picking up guys from home depot to help. Subsisting on sour patch kids and vitamin water. So bad it's good for you.
I hope the exhibit will still be up when we're in town for Museums and the Web!
You betcha! For all we are putting it up in weeks, its up for almost a year (which is a little scary).
And my junk food of choice for exhibit installs: pop tarts and coffee. Even worse, but awesome!
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