National WWII Museum's Beyond All Boundaries 4D Experience

While in New Orleans for New Year's , we stopped in to see The National WWII Museum and the amazing Beyond all Boundaries show in the Solomon Victory Theater, which just opened in November.  The show is a "4D" mixture of video, archival images, graphics, computer animation and real, 3D objects. 

For example, the nose of a bomber (click each photo for a larger version to see the detail):

The guard tower at a concentration camp:

Anti-aircraft gun on a carrier:

And a very realistic closing sequence:

Here's a trailer:

Credits from this backgrounder:

Concept, Design, and Production: The Hettema Group

Media Design and Production: Mousetrappe

Lighting Design: Visual Terrain

Audio Visual Design and Control: Electrosonic

Show Action Equipment Design and Fabrication: LA ProPoint

Special Effects: Rando Productions

Lighting Integration: Bandit Lites

Technical Direction and Coordination: It’s Alive Co.

I found this video of the smoke machine for the show being tested:

[video link lost]

Also, Audio By the Bay says they did music and sound design.

We saw it on the afternoon of New Year's Eve.  They had a few glitches at the start, and it took them about five minutes to get the show running.  But the show ran perfectly after that, and aside from some grey light from the video projectors (which were apparently shuttered for really dark scenes), the show was very seamlessly presented.  There are several physical layers, and quite a few 3D objects in front of and behind the screens.  The sound was great, and so was the lighting, and the graphics were very well done.  The nuclear explosion strobe sequence was pretty amazing too. It's a great show and well worth a visit!

Previous
Previous

Mississippi and Alabama

Next
Next

Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and into Mississippi