In addition to being our go-to guy for all things technological, Hutomo Wicaksono is the F|S videographer, creating features on exhibitions and special events. Here’s how he put together the time-lapse of the installation of Ai Weiwei’s work Fragments in the Sackler pavilion.

We mounted the camera high on the wall, very close to the ceiling, with the camera running for approximately eight hours each day. Every two minutes it took a picture, giving us about 250 photos each day. That part of the process took four days to complete, so by the end of day four, I had collected about 1,000 images.

Then it was on to two days of editing. I combined all of the photos together as a continuous action video using Adobe After Effects. Because we wanted to see fast-action movement, I set up the timing of each photo to be 0.05 second, so we could see about twenty photos per second. Once that finished, we searched for background music, created a video bumper, and shot some closing stills. I put everything back together in After Effects, added some mojo, and voilà, six days later, it was finished!

A rendering of Ai Weiwei’s installation “Fragments” in the pavilion of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s monumental work Fragments opens at the Sackler this Saturday, May 12. Exhibition designer Jeremiah Gallay gives us a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what it takes to prepare for a new installation.

We exhibition designers generally love to draw, and we try to draw things as accurately as we can. Our job is to create scale drawings and models, perspective renderings, and mock-ups to study display options and to provide instructions for the production and installation processes. The rendering shown here, for Ai Weiwei’s Fragments in the Sackler pavilion, was one of about a dozen options drawn up in multiple views, using computer software that allows us to create complex digital models and place them within architectural environments.

In addition to design visualizations, we create detailed production drawings for wall demolition and construction, cabinetry, electrical work, painting, mount-making, environmental graphics, and other custom fabrications. It’s always fun to see the drawings come to life—to walk into a real space after designing it on paper.