Intial briefing by chris - Monday 7th

Chris parker from heritage multimedia came in to talk to us about the brief today from the notes I took, here's a run down of what’s required concerning functionality and Target audience.

Function
The Centre piece must basically sell the Cutty Sark experience, its a Teaser to get passers by to part with their money on the Exhibit. Its basically an advert and must be visually 'got' in about 30 seconds.
It must be in tune with and not clutter the space (the reception area) its housed in, complementing the wave crest like glass canopy and blue haze, it must also have a certain presence when seen from the Cutty Sark exhibition itself.
As the Piece is not meant to clutter the space, the interactive element cannot be anymore than about a minute long.
The brief has asked it to be engaging and magical, not giving anything away, prompting the user to find their own interpretation of the ship and space, further luring them into discovering the facts behind the ship within the experience itself.
Due to it being in a public space, and that the public can be a destruct bunch of hooligans at time (read possible cause of Cutty Sark fire, 2007) the piece must be sturdy and robust, and with a shelf life of about 10 years.

Target audience
The Cutty Sark exhibition is aimed at Visitors of all ages, from passers by, tourists to schools and colleges and ship enthusiasts. As the Cutty Sark has visited various ports around the world, people from those countries are expected to visit the Cutty Sark although their is no need to consider multiple languages, if i were to consider them they would be:

French
Spanish
German
Italian
Japanese
English

I must also consider accessibility to all visitors, wheelchair access being the most obvious, but how do I deliver information to deaf and blind people? Audio vibration and touch perhaps? Whatever i decide to do It should be DDA and RNIB compliment.
I'll need to research into some more specific demographics I think, I've found an article concerning the restoration of the Cutty Sark in the telegraph magazine, so their demographic will be a good place to start.

My thoughts
First and foremost I want my piece to Immersive the viewer in the Cutty Sark experience immediately. Aesthetically I'll try to complement the planned space with curvaceous fluid shapes probably suspended as not to clutter the reception area. I’ve been told that there’s no reason that the design cannot escape the space itself, although I hear the architect is very precious about his glass :p. I want it to be seen at night, advertising to passers by or even those as far as canary wharf the Cutty Sark experience out of hours so that they may come back at some other date.
Even though Heritage would like us to use as much technology as possible, we've been advised to not use technology for technologies sake as it’ll be outdated quickly and the needs of the customer and client come first and foremost.
Due to the massive amounts of light that'll be permeating the glass dome (an opportunity for renewable energy sources maybe) I think using screens would be a bad idea, I need to look into alternating delivery systems, perhaps lots of audio to generate atmosphere and mirror the plans for the Cutty Sark experience.

Most of all my piece, being a teaser trailer for the main show, must really set the tone, giving only snippets of information of what lies in the main attraction.

tj -x-