Module development: Strategies to move album/ item view to admin interface.

I am hoping for some general guidance or help from someone who has a good understanding of the Gallery3 architecture.

I am in the process of developing a module that extends Gallery3 to become a backend for managing the photos for an art gallery website (for example it adds in new models for exhibitions and artists).

I would like to move the general gallery views for albums and items so they are only viewable by an admin user, and use the admin gallery theme. Unfortuately I am struggling.

If I copy the code from Albums_Controller to a new controller "Admin_Albums_Controller" that inherits from Admin_Controller, it does not work. I suspect this is because the standard controller inherits from the REST_controller. I have tried adding the REST code to the controller, but so far have not got anything working.

I'm sure that their must be a fairly simple way to adapt the code, but frankly I feel out of my depth as I have only dabbled with php in the past.

My questions:

1. Do you think I am generally using the right approach?
2. If I am, how should I mix / overide the Admin / Rest code?

Thanks in anticipation of help...

Nye