The Yorkshire Museum in England is filled with stories from York's exciting history. This fall we took one of those stories and brought it to life where the whole city could see it - across the building's massive stone facade. With carefully tailored video content and powerful projectors, every architectural detail was transformed into part of the audiovisual experience and for four nights in October the museum itself became 'The Storyteller'.
Producer / Director Jordan Foster and the team at six01 set out to create an experience that would attract audiences as both a larger-than-life spectacle and as an engaging short film. Video projection mapping as a medium has until now often occupied a role similar to that of a fireworks display - spectacular sensory experiences but without the narrative structure needed to evoke much of an emotional response. 'The Storyteller' combines narrative film-making with the immersive power of large scale projection mapping to create a completely unique experience for audiences. We believe this is a new direction in large scale audiovisual events and we're proud to be a part of its evolution.
Design and production of the project took place over seven weeks at six01's Toronto studio. From two key ingredients - the life of Viking king Eric Bloodaxe and the architecture of the Yorkshire Museum - we mapped out the blueprints for a ten minute film that would take viewers through the story while keeping them excited to see how each new moment would incorporate the building itself. Actors were captured on green-screen and added to full digital environments, all of which was designed around the architecture of the museum.
Over four nights the event drew an estimated 27,000 people to the museum gardens after dark.
Foster and six01 have been creating large scale projection based video content for clients like Blackberry, KIA, 3 Mobile, Deadmau5, and Shania Twain for the last few years. Our work in this medium has so far been almost all for European audiences but future plans include creating more of these events closer to home.
