Exhibit Development: Activating All Spaces IV

Production Stage
2006 - 2007
Now it's key to mention here that technology is often faulty and the experiences I've described above are successful because they run well, are simple to troubleshoot, and relatively inexpensive to fix. It was the success of the interactives above that inspired a much more ambitious technical project, moving Zeum away from off-the-shelf hardware and software tools.

The Production Stage was developed in the Main Gallery to inspire visitors who were already familiar with clay animation, music videos, Special FX and costume making to bring all those skills together to make a movie. This could be as simple as performing a pre-existing script or going all out and writing something from scratch. It brands the Main Gallery as where you go to make a movie, the melting pot of all the skills that visitors develop in the various studios. It would also provide a great introduction to new visitors just walking in.

Solutions to Highlight:
Increased the capacity of the Main Gallery. More people would engage longer in the Main Gallery before moving to other areas.
Being able to save work and return to build a "body of work" has driven repeat visitors and deepened visitor's knowledge and confidence in creating their own content.
The flexibility of the technology puts all the creative control into the hands of the visitor. They become the expert, the Director.
It can engage a family of 4 or one child.
If staffing is unavailable in the Main Gallery, visitors can still engage in a creative activity. Although the experience is compromised the Production Stage does not have to close.

Prototype Features:
Visitor DVD Burn Station - Can a visitor burn their own dvd? YES but the technology is complicated and buggy. This is a stop-gap until online distribution is more feasible.
Field Trip controls - Can a Zeum Educator have greater controls over scripts, recordings and flow? YES but the technology is complicated and buggy.

Technological Pitfalls:
The Production Studio is a step away from the off-the-shelf solutions that a normal IT or tech savvy person can maintain. Using those tools in the Main Gallery as early prototypes helped define concept, test visitor interest, and design overall functionality of a custom system. As a custom hardware/software package, it delivers all the special features that were not available in the off-the- shelf solutions. However, as a custom hardware/software package it locks the museum into a maintenance relationship with very specific vendors and software specialists. That can be limiting and risky if the technology is too cutting edge.

Lessons Learned: It is critical to evaluate how do-able your concept is from a technical point of view. Getting multiple opinions from several programmers and developers will insure that the proposed project is not so far at the cutting edge of technology that you'll develop something that never works well consistently. If it can't be built and maintained by more than 3 vendors, consider it a high risk.