Che effetto che fa!

An Augmented Reality experience to discover the magic of special effects in the film industry.An Augmented Reality experience to discover the magic of special effects in the film industry.An Augmented Reality experience to discover the magic of special effects in the film industry.
+ 3

Che effetto che fa! (What an effect!) is an interactive exhibition dedicated to the movies that have put a landmark in the history of stage tricks and special effects in the film industry.

After an analysis of the project's constraints and exhibition dynamics and setup, we decided to introduce the movie-related content using the same unexpected sensation perceived while looking at most special FX.

ui-design creative-coding
Project type
Client Project, Collaboration
My role
AR application development, UI Design, UX Research
Client
Castellinaria, Festival del Cinema Giovane, Bellinzona
URL
https://www.castellinaria.ch/

The project

In 2018, Castellinaria – Festival del cinema giovane, wanted to offer something different to the attending student and teachers: an exhibition able to show the visitors the "behind the scenes" for the movies that innovated the special effects in the film industry.

I collaborated with Marco Lurati, a talented interaction designer and maker, and we had fun and an interesting result.

After defining the exhibition setup and the content format and constraints, we decided to inspire visitors by creating a narrative experience that introduced the visitors to the main content (the behind the scenes footages) right from the movie's poster.

For this we developed a custom AR application, we separated the most relevant elements from the poster, and with them we created a 3D composition.

When the poster was pointed with the iPad camera, the viewer was introduced by the poster's animation and the UI appeared, giving him the ability to play the video content related to the movie. During tests we realised that this setup was effective and fun, and the users were free to improvise their path, without being all together.

First considerations and research

The magic of special FX is the ability to surprise, revealing to the viewer something that's unreal, unnatural, and in many cases something he can just wonder about.

After an analysis of the project's constraints and exhibition dynamics and setup, we decided to present the movie-related content using the same unexpected sensation perceived while looking at most special FX.

After the first meeting with the client, we made these considerations:

  • the exhibition's main attendees are supposed to be young students and teachers.
  • the main exhibition medias are movie posters and making-of videos.
  • the exhibition space is "modular", the movie posters are going to be arranged in a path

Development

Using Unity3D we've been creating a custom AR application, that acted as a viewer for the poster, and as a video player for the content. Each one of the exhibition's posters was "augmented" by splitting their relevant elements on 3D displaced layers, and when pointing the viewer to a poster the user was able to play the movie-related content (behind the scenes and trailers) with the help of a clean and simple UI.

To help the hosts and hostesses in the iPad's storage and charge task, Marco machined a wood stand which was clean and functional.

You can find more informations on the exhibition here (english) or here (italian)

Photos by Marco Lurati and Sabine Cattaneo.

The stand for the iPads

The iPads on their beautifully machined stand, ready for the visitors!