July 2006 saw television gardener Alan Titchmarsh host the Gala Opening of their latest prestige project, 'The Experience TV' gallery at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT) in Bradford. This £3 million project was funded by a mixture of public and private sector finance and was heavily supported by the BBC. The museum's brief was to design and build a series of custom interactive exhibits that would guide visitors around the past, present and future of television.
blackbox-av began work in February, with their research and development team designing innovative solutions that met the museum's challenging technical requirements. In terms of hardware they supplied 48 standard LCD screens, 30 blackbox-av Director digital video players, eight touch screen kiosks, 40m of LED rope (with over 450 individually programmed LEDs) and nearly 700 controlling microprocessors. The programmed LEDs formed part of a display showing the many varied ways that TV is delivered into homes today - blackbox-av even programmed in a satellite delay for the system!
At the same time the creative team worked round-the-clock to produce four interactive multimedia presentations designed to engage, inform and entertain visitors of all ages. The first interactive supports a display called 'The Gallery of Televisions' with over 50 television sets from the 1930s to modern times, with dazzling video montages of images and music from each decade. Two other displays enable budding video and sound editors to try their hand at completing a programme or soundtrack. Their work is compiled and then played back so they can see the results of their editing. The final interactive uses an entertaining quiz to see if visitors can create a successful programming schedule to attract a bigger audience.
Throughout the project timeline the company liased and co-ordinated their activities with Redman Design Associates and Wood Mitchell Building Group, under the guiding hand of the museum's expert staff. Since the Gala Opening of the TV Experience visitors have been amazed at the presentations. Matt McIver, visitor operations manager at NMPFT, said: "I can't stress how well the gallery is being received and exceeding the expectations of the majority of our visitors."
Account manager Lee Allen led the team, advised by Bill Galloway who masterminded the development focus and Craig Spencely, who directed the creative multimedia team.
(Lee Baldock)
