CMS Project Management

Bridging Creativity and Technology: Effective CMS Project Management for Permanent Video Installations

I have a screen and a box that plays content. I’m good to go, right?

Absolutely, just answer a couple more questions: what would you like to see on screen and when? Answering these questions might seem deceptively straightforward until you recognize that deciding “what to do and when” is a creative process involving team approval and technical coordination across multiple groups of people from different organizations. Complicating matters, “what” is going on a screen often overshadows “when” it shows up on screen, resulting in a rushed pile of choices that will have large impacts on viewer experience. This rabbit hole gets deep very quickly. Most projects benefit from oversight and guidance to bridge all decision making across a wide group of decision makers.  

We are easily lulled into a false confidence about video installations. After all, our lives are dominated by screens, mostly interactive screens. Every smartphone, desktop computer and smart TV generates imagery on demand based on controls through a keyboard, touch or remote control. We make choices hundreds of times of day on these devices that result in the dynamic arrangement of pixels on a screen that delivers the information you requested. 

Almost half of the US population has grown up with all manner of screens that function quite reliably to their commands. The standard of user expectation on image quality is tuned by big blockbuster movie VFX and reinforced by video chat app filters that turn any face into a cat in real time. This isn’t magic anymore, it’s a normal, daily experience. Video installations serve an audience with very high expectations of how screens behave. 

However, this daily screen behavior is the result of teams of designers and developers, combined with years of testing and maturing. We don’t consider that our personal device screens only act in response to one input from one user at a time. What happens during an interactive installation when the input for screen content is based on hundreds of people’s behavior? Video for public space is a completely different paradigm in a deceptively familiar form. We see a big TV and think, why can’t it do all the things? 

In truth, video installations are as complicated as we make them, but this requires the basic task of clarifying what we are making. Too often critical content design decisions are left too late in the production process because we assume “anything is possible” means “I can decide later.” Content design choices impact the time needed to create the content and the hardware to support that content. The screen and the playback of content are an integral part of the conversation. We need to make sure these conversations and their outcomes are understood by all involved. 

A permanent screen installation is the end result of a long, one of a kind, creative collaboration that requires careful planning and clear communication. And all we need to do is solve for space & time. Literally. One of the most important aspects of video installation is knowing what these screens mean to the space they are in, and how they function over time.

One method to prepare for space & time, is to provide a CMS or Content Management System. A CMS is a catch-all term that will vary by working environment. For a complex video installation, a CMS tends to be a set of AV hardware that stores content files, organizes them into a playback structure and feeds the signals to screen while monitoring system conditions. Think of it as a professional-grade, one of a kind remote control for the giant, oddly shaped set of TVs distributed around a space.

Defining what your CMS contains is only part of the challenge. Once you have a CMS, the next step is to plan how you intend to use it. Files must be delivered. Playback must be structured. Creative goals must be met by this stack of technology. The Content Management System must be managed. Who on your team is coordinating these tools? Who on your team is mediating content design and content engineering? This fancy remote control is going to need thought and planning beyond having the right gear to fill a screen full of moving pixels.

That’s where a CMS Project Manager comes in. This role creates a bridge between creative and technology to navigate clear decision making about screen space and content time. 

The experts at ITA have a tremendous amount of experience solving these communication and coordination challenges. We’ve learned our craft under high pressure multi-screen events and taken the best of that knowledge to apply to permanent video installations. Our priority is the people using your space, your audience and your team who must maintain and develop the next iteration of your system.

We thoughtfully engage with creative goals and technical realities, while highlighting solutions that serve the project vision. We seek to provide understanding for all team members, no matter their video technology proficiency. Our process will lay the groundwork for not only installation, but all future content updates.

What are the components of a well architected CMS?

At ITA, our first answer is and always will be people.

We want to understand the people involved on the project and what the daily experience of the project caretakers will look like on a daily basis. We want to support the creative goals with reliable hardware, thoughtful insights and healthy boundaries to put designers on a good roadmap. We intend to mediate between technology, creativity, budget and show structure to outline a CMS to serve each installation as each one is unique. Whether it is custom software and one of a kind LED assemblies, or an LCD screen running a single video clip, there is no one-size fits all solution.

Our priority is to start with clear communication, and share the delightful challenges of video installation. We build trust and we invent magic; we break things along the way and we recover to new insights.

With this understanding, we look to create a CMS to serve these primary roles in a video installation:

  • Play Content
  • Monitor The System
  • Manage User Interaction

Specific tasks for a CMS will typically fall in or across those main responsibilities:

  • Load new or updated content
  • Organize content files for playback
  • Manage a playback schedule
  • Construct a playlist of files based on logic instructions
  • Generate real-time content
  • Alert to system faults
  • Report the system condition
  • Automate response to system faults
  • Solve for intended interruptions to file playback
  • Solve for unintended interruptions to file playback
  • Manage user access
  • Allow user defined control of individual CMS components
  • Distribute video signals to the outputs
  • …and so on

The CMS is the technological backbone of a creative vision. And for all those vision makers employed in the design of the screen content, there are as many technologists there to build out the playback system, and still more to maintain it. ITA intends to build out a CMS that lets everyone do their best work in the support and continued success of that vision.

ITA’s CMS Project Management Services

Every project is will require it own approach, guided by these principle offerings:

  • Project Review 
  • Screen Usage Study
  • User Interface development and customized CMS management flow
  • Previsualization Tools
  • Content Production Workflow (templates, production files)
  • Content Delivery and Distribution Management
  • Content Scheduling and coordination/programming
  • User Interface development and system management for owners 
  • Application development