film

the dark side strikes back

So, as we have blogged about before, our friends in the marketing world often create experiences that inspire us here at the studio. At times these great ideas are even for museums. So this week we thought we would share three projects we found inspirational.

The first is an experience that can bring strangers together for conversation. Meet the Coffee Connector from the Economic Development Board of Singapore.

 

 

 

As you can see in the video, this requires two people to make cups of coffee. The interaction that leads to actually getting a cup of coffee puts users in a position to provide both a name and a subject to talk about. While it certainly affirms our studio’s belief that coffee is the center of the universe in the morning (martinis do that in evening – look for the Martini Connector next), this is a great model to potentially explore for a museum setting. It seems intriguing to create an activity where the payoff is not about the subject per se but instead is about people talking about the subject.

The second is the fun and evocative campaign for the Paris Zoological Park by Ubi Bene,

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of three-dimensional “artifacts” or leave-behinds is very interesting… and certainly this is an idea that could be reused for different subjects. Also, it allows for some great photo opportunities that extend the zoo’s impact.

Finally, here’s something about a subject we here in study have worked on quite a bit. Take a look at how food and cooking can be transformed in a film. Film by Blink Productions and Wieden + Kennedy London

 

 

 

This just goes to show that many subjects could be made more interesting and more engaging when humor and theatrics are applied in ways that don’t detract or distract from the subject. Certainly a treatment like this might be a great way to introduce people to a subject before diving into more substantial content. This film did a wonderful job setting a mood.

 

What creative marketing and communications examples have you seen lately? How might those ideas help us create more memorable and engaging experiences for visitors?

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special time

It’s that special time of the year, with holidays, family, and reflections back over the past year and looking forward to the next. As a celebration, we invite you to enjoy these three videos, each of which in its own way examines a special time, from beautiful to funny. Happy Holidays to all.

Beautiful – Into the Atmosphere by Michael Shainblu.  This is a tribute to California that took a whole year to make.

 

 

 

Evocative – Midday Traffic Time Collapsed by Cy Kuckenbaker.  A photographer whose work we’ve discussed before shows us the changing “color palette” of traffic over four minutes in San Diego.

 

 

Humor – A commercial for Haynes food products by Cinesite  Sometimes you can have really bad timing.

 

 

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Immersive Simplicity

In the design of exhibitions, there is often a desire to create immersive environments or experiences that allow visitors to lose themselves in the experience rather than be reminded that they are in a museum or exhibition.

An example of a simple approach through projection – but surely not an easy one to create – is Onion Skin by Olivier Ratsi, who is on the AntiVJ visual label.

 

 

 

This experience is an elegant and totally mesmerizing exploration of point-of-view, perspective and vanishing point. It relies on principle known as “anamorphosis” (your vocabulary word of the day). Onion Skin, as is, certainly has relevance to art and visual science content and would be at home at many museums/exhibitions.

As an approach for an immersive experience,it also points out how a simple setup, with creative programming, can become a powerful experience that transports visitors out of an exhibition.

It got us thinking about if and how this approach could be used for various subjects and how that might be achieved. What comes to mind for you?

A final wild thought would be translating this technique and blowing it up for use in a large-screen format. That would be a fun experiment, don’t you think? Share your ideas here.

 

 

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Dream Big Starts Filming

 

Dream Big will be a groundbreaking film experience. For the first time, IMAX and other large-screen formats will be used to examine the science and technology of large-scale engineering projects.

Working with MacGillivray Freeman Films, ALCHEMY studio is involved in the film and educational materials as a content and creative consultant. The other partner on the film is the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Just as importantly, this film will celebrate as well as respect the drive to engineer solutions that solve problems or overcome challenges encountered by humans.

At the beginning of summer, the first filming occurred for Dream Big. The MacGillivray Freeman Films (MFF) production team was on hand to film the insertion of Big Bertha’s, the world’s largest tunnel boring machine cutter head, to begin digging a two-mile tunnel under downtown Seattle for a 4-lane highway.  The picture shown here was taken during that shoot and shows of the full scale of the cutter head – 57 feet in diameter and weighing 14 million pounds. Thanks to MacGillivray Freeman Films for the images.

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time views

Something we have been running across has been videos that have been exploring what can be observed  and what becomes apparent of as one looks at a scene/event/through a compressed or extended time period.  For example:

“Departures from San Diego Int Airport Dec 27, 2012” by Cy Kuckenbake

 

The title provides a self-explanatory interpretation of six hours of aircraft departures at the San Diego International Airport. It is powerful way to make a common everyday experience incredibly amazing as well as impart the scale of a technological activity that occurs every day.

Meanwhile the film “Street” showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by James Nares

This slows down time while also using time as way to transect geographically the city of New York. It allows one to examine the in “moving” detail the incredible complexity of city life.

These experience point how we as experience developers and designers should at times break out of our “in the moment” experiences.

As we look at content and stories one should think how time can be manipulated to bring a new perspective and aid the impact we wish to create.

Let us know what amazing time “pieces” you know of

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reshaping our planet

One of the projects we are working on here at the studio is a film that will explore engineering and the amazing achievements we can as a species succeed at, as well as the challenges that we face from what we do and the solutions engineering may provide. As part of our work we are always on the look for great ways to visualize what we now call the Anthropocene epoch. The geologic age of human influence. Here is a dramatic one  ’Welcome to the Anthropocene’

This is the work of Globaia, a organization that attempts to educate people on understanding the modern world and the issues our environment and planet faces. Here are some stills

An image dramatically showing how our civilization networks (transportaion, power, cities)  fade into the norther wilds of Canada.

 

 

The transportation, power and cities of Europe and Asia

 

Flight between North America and Europe

 

A map of energy: pipelines are orange, power lines are white, underwater cables are blue

 

These images present the yin and yang of our civilization.

 

The way we are becoming a networked planet and species and at the same time how we  are impacting every single square mile of the planet. Too often the conversations that seem to revolve around the issues we face are one sided. Rather we look at these amazing images and see on one hand the amazing achievement of how we can connect ourselves both physically and electronically sharing information and materials, building and creating incredible works. We also see the issues and impacts that this endeavor makes on our planet and realize that the price we are paying is at times too much for our world to sustain. Only together with our ingenuity and innovation can we improve on what will always be an eternal dilemma.

Feel free to send us any links that you know of or come across that depict the two sides of the coin that these images show.

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3D Projections

Amazing 3D projection projects – Moving from informational to expression.

In the museum and experience context, the idea of projection to convey information  is a common occurrence.  Here at the studio we are looking to explore how the projection itself  - not the content of the projection – can be used to excite, awe, and engage the public in ways maybe no one thought it could. You might say these are “engagement screens.”

On side of the scale, where the projection is “complete” but the screen invites interactivity, is this novel and cool “water” projection by art studio Red Paper Heart.

Wow made us want to dive right in.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the screen’s inability to express the complete image is the beauty and allure of this experiment that Brian Mafftt did during the recent “Nemo” winter storm. Funny, in reality it also uses “water” like the above example – just in a different form.

 

In fact, you can tell it’s a DLP projector by the red, green and blue “sparkles” – a wonderful way of showing how a projection image is composed of these colors. You can see some of his still images here.

 

Now, of course, we have seen images projected on fog and images made of water, but there is something compelling about both of these and the fact that the “screen” itself can be the power of a projected experience versus the image projected. Obviously, a powerful experience would be to marry both of them. If you have other examples or ideas, please feel free to share them here.

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web of engagement

Recently, at the Giant Screen Cinema Association conference, we here at ALCHEMY studio were asked to speak on how to maximize the educational impact of giant screen films while still reserving the entertainment aspect of this impressive medium. The thinking we shared is one that we feel is applicable to exhibitions as well as films, since we work in both mediums. While there clearly are differences between large screen films and exhibitions, there are some similarities that tie them together in terms of impact and entertainment.

  1. They both try to be impact-driven as well as meet  leisure time entertainment goals.
  2. They are mass communication mediums – they are for the general public, taken in by large numbers at the same time.
  3. Increasingly, there is a desire by either the medium or the institutions exhibiting these experiences to impact not only  the mass public but some very targeted groups including policy makers, and even those who don’t usually interact with these mediums.
  4. To various degrees, the experience is determined by the designer/producer, not by the visitor/viewer.
  5. And finally, perhaps most importantly, exhibitions and giant screen films are both storytelling mediums.

  But in our world these mediums and the stories they tell no longer sit in a vacuum. With the rise of social media and the ever-growing sophistication of the devices that we use while on the move – ipods, smart phones, eyeglass interfaces, etc. – the audience expectations of  who, how , when and with whom interactions occur is changing.   This means that, to be successful in both in impact and storytelling (entertainment):

we as designers and producers must incorporate all mediums – the “web of engagement” – that now surround us.

This clearly comes through in the recent research being done by Latitude Research. We really recommend reading their short summary. Their recent work in the future of storytelling is a clear sign that as we develop our stories in either exhibitions or films, we need to use this web of engagement if we are to meet the desires and the place where our visitors and viewers are. They target four ”I’s” to think about: Immersion- instant access to deeper information, provide context, different viewpoints, heighten the sensory experience, extend the story Interactivity – change the plot, interact with virtual and real characters and ideas, interact with others taking in the story, heighten the sensory experiences Integration – integrate the real/my world into the story, seamless interaction between media, use location, time, environment Impact – empowering action from the audience, self-improvement, commercial and philanthropic All of these require using the ubiquitous web of information and the anytime, anyplace technology.  Imagine these scenarios (taken, in this instance, from upcoming giant screen films):

  • What was/is school like for a Muslim in Jerusalem?
  • Can we direct where the tornado hunters go today?
  • Can you give me live “news updates” on the wildebeest migration?
  • Can we use Kickstarter to start a sequel?
  • When is the cosplay Dragon gala ball across the country?

These are just a few examples of the kinds of things the new generations are asking for from their stories. And, again, it’s not just films on the receiving end of this need – it will include exhibitions and other storytelling mediums (transmedia) as time moves forward.

                                                                                                Flow Media

We need to break out of our model of thinking of siloed one media projects when we start on a subject from the beginning.

We should let the story tell us what media to use to create which impacts.  This is the future of film and exhibitions that really make a difference. 

Clearly, as we design experiences, all of us must think across multiple mediums and determine which impacts and what parts of the story should be told where and how. These modes should be synced from the start because our audiences will be looking for that seamless coherence and alignment.

illustration from Latitude

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