Phase 4: Production

During this phase the majority of the work needed to physically realize an exhibition is done. As with the other phases, its name can be misleading:  the Production division has been working steadily alongside the team from the beginning, creating those elements of the show that will not change as a result of finalizing object lists and interpretive materials, and laying the plans necessary for installing the exhibition once the preceding one has been deinstalled from the gallery or hall. That said, this is Production’s most labor-intensive phase.

More importantly this is often the most stressful and challenging time in the entire process, for four reasons.

 1.  It’s impossible to previsualize how everything is going to work together before anything is actually built. As the exhibition begins to come together as a three- and four-dimensional experience, problems inevitably arise.

 2. Many of the problems that preoccupy staff in the Planning and Traveling, Project Management, Development, and Design Divisions are fungible:  they can be solved in many different ways, and we can devote more or less time to them, depending on how we’ve prioritized our work. The work of the Production Division is usually not as fungible. The amount of time that it takes to put up a stud wall is determined by skill, safety, and physics.

 3. Mistakes made by production are usually more visible, and less easily reversible, than mistakes made by the other Divisions

 4.  Because it’s the last of the four phases, any delays that occur in the other phases will reduce the amount of time available for production.

 In short the work of the Production Division is subject to more unanticipated problems, its mistakes are more visible and take more time to fix, they have less flexibility in deciding how much time to spend on a task, and their work schedule is usually more compromised—and always more concrete and final—than that of other Divisions.

 As a result, work done in the Production phases requires expertise in timing, particularly:  knowing what kinds of work can be done ahead of time. If exhibition preparators, mount makers, replication specialists, interactives producers, media technicians, crew leaders, and production supervisors only began their work once every aspect of the show were signed, sealed, and delivered, it would be impossible for them to complete all of their work in time for opening.

 Their work is a calculated effort in which they try to complete as much work as possible, as early in the process as possible, without risking waste of labor and materials.

For example: the number and type of acrylic panels a Production Supervisor needs to order depends on the number of exhibit cases that will need to be built. The number of cases needing to be built depends on the available case inventory, and on the number and type of objects to be displayed. But the actual list of exactly what will go into those cases may not be complete finalized until a few weeks before opening because getting those objects in hand is dependent on countless factors—many of which the Exhibitions Department has no control over.

 And that’s just a materials issue. Labor is always our greatest expense and our greatest variable. Let’s suppose we’ve organized our labor so that we can produce as many of the 12 walls/partitions/scrims/dividers needed for an exhibition before work in the hall begins. Production begins building these partitions based on the most recent version of the floor plan and completes 8 of the 12 needed. Having made good progress, we assign labor to the completion of new display cases based on the current object list. Then—at the Design Review milestone meeting—an adjustment is made to the width of a gallery opening, requiring we produce two additional partitions. We pull labor from case construction and devote it to building more partitions. However, changing the width of the gallery opening also requires taking the objects that would have gone into one large display case and dividing them into two smaller cases. We had made a calculated gamble on the large display case—based in part on labor availability driven by work on another project—and completed it first. Now we have wasted time and money on a case we can’t use. And now we need to build two more small cases. Which we can’t do because we have had to shift labor over to the production of the two additional partitions. Had these decisions been made ahead of time, we would not have wasted resources on building the large case, leaving enough time and money to build the two small cases and the additional two partitions. But we didn’t know this. Because the size of the gallery opening was dependent on the position of a replicated fossil skeleton of a marine reptile suspened from the ceiling. And the Designer’s positioning of the fossil was dependent on its measurements. And those measurements depended on the accuracy of a staff member at a museum in France, meaning the marine reptile skeleton ended up being just a few too inches too long to be put in its previous location (because it would have been just a few inches too close to the cases it was between), meaning that it had to be moved here. This example is fictional, but not fanciful.

Development’s involvement with a project during the Production phase can vary widely. For incoming temporary exhibitions with no object list additions or changes to their interpretive materials, the Developer’s work may be done. For most other exhibitions this will be the period during which Development works most closely with Graphic Design on the processes of layout review, experience check, and proofreading. However, for any exhibition that has a significant number of media and/or interactive pieces—usually the case in permanent installations, ticketed temporary exhibitions, and traveling exhibitions—the production phase is when Development turns its attention to these non-object-driven elements and works closely with their producers, drafting media scripts and interactive content, selecting voice talents and assisting with voice-over recording, wireframing, visitor-testing of prototypes, and so on.

Planning and Traveling has a lower level of involvement at this time. However, if we’re producing an exhibition that will travel, Traveling Exhibitions staff members will be involved in issues that might affect the cost and labor required to insure, pack, ship, and install it. During this phase staff in the Planning and Traveling Divisions….

Project Management is as busy as ever. While the heavy lifting of budgeting, scheduling, coordinating, and communicating with outside partners is mostly done, the amount of in-house communication that needs to be done between the Exhibitions Department and other parts of the Museum increases. 

Design is rarely a matter of producing drawings and plans and moving on to the next thing. Because of the unique nature of the exhibition medium—particularly the way that all of its elements have the potential to affect other elements—Designers usually work closely with Graphic Design and Production staff nearly until opening...

Media and Interactives are ordering and receiving the electronic equipment and associated mounts for their elements. THey are unboxed checked and put together as complete elements. They then work closely with production to integrate the electronics into display stands and the gallery.  Once access to the hall is available they run speaker wire and install speakers, projectors, and supporting equipment. They are also responsible for hanging lights as specified by a lighting designer. As we get closer to the opening they are compressing video files and testing them in their final location to confirm everything is functioning properly. There is considerable troubleshooting as each install has something unique.

Production is working to cut assemble and produce the components designed and approved at the Review. This period could be one week to one year and can involve all production shops: Interactives, Replication, Mount, Graphics, and Production. Progress is guided by the Production Manager/Supervisor and pushed forward by shop Supervisors. If any issues arise during the production phase that will change the budget or the component it must be brought to the Production Manager and discussed with the designer and up to the Directors to resolve.