Where to start. The beginning always seems to be good point. So here goes.
It was in January 1999 that my friend and fellow exhibitor on 3SF 3D Roy Hughes asked me if I would be interested in getting together with him to organise an exhibition of models based around our own collections of completed kits.
Roy went on to explain that the local museum in Rotherham, South Yorkshire had an initiative whereby local people with small or large collections of items could exhibit them for free for seven weeks at a time.
I must confess that at first the idea did not appeal to me very much mainly because my models are always on permanent display at my own home, and the thought of breakage’s caused by having to transport them any distance at all was one that filled me with dread. But I decided to check the facilities the museum had to offer and them come back and think about it some more.
I was mildly surprised at the amount of space available for use by the general public at the museum. Over two long rooms there were. Six large pedestal cabinets. One very large wall unit/cabinet and lots and lots of wall space for pictures and posters.
As I came back from the museum the idea started to come to me that if this exhibition could be planned correctly, then there was the chance that we could do something really good with the space that was available.
I worked on a few ideas and then got together once again with Roy and explained my ideas to him. Instead of just applying to use one or two of the available cabinets. Why not apply to use both the available rooms with everything they had to offer. I felt that our combined collections should easily be able to fill both rooms and by extending into other areas such as Science Fact models and Box Art, we could put on something really special that would be of benefit to everyone concerned.
Roy had always given me the impression that he would like to work in the areas of model and prop building as a full time profession, so this would give him the chance to show people what he could do.
For myself. I have worked in marketing with a particular emphasis on the publicity side of things for the last few years but always on a part-time basis and always in a support capacity, never with the responsibility for planning an entire event. My idea was to ask the museum if they would have any objection to me marketing the exhibition for them instead of them using their normal procedure. This I felt would give me the chance to use the training and qualifications I had gained over the past few years to obtain some practical experience.
The first thing to do was write a letter of application to the museum requesting the use of the entire public area as the two rooms are commonly known, and to send a few photographs of some of our completed kits. I also requested a date for the exhibition that would fall during the July to September 2000, schools summer holidays, as I felt that this would give local young people with the time of their hands that the holidays usually affords the chance to visit the exhibition.
I wrote the letter. Requested the dates and also requested that I be allowed to do the event marketing. A few weeks later we got a reply stating that all our requests had been granted.
I know from experience that planning something like this is not something you can just sit about and wait to see what happens. Within hours of the request letter been sent I had already started working on a marketing strategy involving posters, press releases, distribution routes and layouts for the models etc, etc, etc.
It was at this point that I started to think of a focus for the exhibition. Science fiction is great for those who have interest in it, but like train spotting its something that those who do not have an interest in it always scoff at. So the idea was to make it more appealing but still keep it on the focus of model building.
The idea came to me that if we could introduce a Science Fact element into the exhibition then this would allow a natural progression into Science Fiction and Science Fantasy being as the three will always be interlinked, Today’s Science Fiction and Fantasy will tomorrow become Science Fact. This would also give me a focus for the poster. 3SF for the Science Fact, Science Fiction and Science Fantasy aspect and 3D for the three dimensional aspect of the models - 3SF 3D.
So we have a focus for the exhibition. The next problem was could the Science Fact section be completed is such a way as to tell a story of the development of un-manned and manned space flight in such a way as to A) make sense and B) allow a progression back to Science Fiction and Science Fantasy.
I looked at the kits I had available, both made and unmade and came up short. I then looked at the kits that were available both from my local model shops and from the internet firm that now supplies me with most of my kits these days (hell why not - its between 25 to 50% cheaper). Taking all these factors into account I felt that really good story could be told in kit form starting from the early days of World War II and leading up to the year 2000.
The next thing was how to introduce people to the exhibition.
Again the question was where had space related Science Fact had its origins. The answer was in the early writings of Science Fiction and Science Fantasy authors. Who were the most famous of these authors? All sorts of names sprang to mind but the four who were the most prominent to me were Arthur C Clark, Jules Verne, H G Well and Isaac Asimov.
So now I had a progression from the written words of Science Fiction and Science Fantasy through to the existence of Science Fact. I had a list of the kits I would need to build a Science Fact section for the exhibition. This came to thirty-five, and whilst looking at the kits that were available I had also come up with a way to merge the Science Fact section back into Science Fiction and Science Fantasy and to tie this back in with the work of the early authors.
The last three sub-sections of the Science Fact section would be Space Stations (MIR), Stealth (F-117 and B-2) and Robotics (Honda P-2 Humanoid Robot).
Thirty-five kits in eighteen months. Could it be done? Not much choice really. If the exhibition was going to have a proper Science Fact section, which told the story, how I felt it should be told.
My normal kit building routine of starting one kit, finishing it and then starting another went out of the window. It was a question of starting one kit. Doing as much with it as possible and then moving on to the same thing with the next, next, next etc, etc, etc. There have been times over the last eighteen months when my home has taken on the appearance of the vehicle assembly building at NASA. One kit here in a box, another kit there in a box and so on and so forth.
Not only did the Science Fact section have to be built, but I also had to find time to re-build kits that I wanted to put in the exhibition but had suffered with the passage of time. Add to this my on-going building programme for Science Fiction and Science Fantasy kits as well and things have been pretty busy over the last eighteen months. Ah, the joys of model building.
Meanwhile the publicity side of things was staring to gear up. The compilation artwork for the poster was completed. The tailored press releases were composed and the format for the Box Art display was discussed and agreed.
One fortunate thing that came out of me doing the concept marketing for the exhibition was the fact that the money normally spent on this by the museum could be diverted to other areas. So far it’s paid for one special display unit to be built for our mecha kits, one thick perspex shelf for the interior of one of the display cabinets and two specially designed corner cabinets.
I have to say at this point that the museum staff we have worked with have been fantastic. They came up with ideas that we just would not have thought about. One was to enlarge the series of storyboards I had created to cover the Science Fact section up to A3 size. So that people with sight difficulties could see them better.
Well that’s enough to bore you all with for now.
In my next article on 3SF 3D I’ll go on to cover our Star Wars and Star Trek sections.
Bye for now.
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