Liberty 360: 3D In The Round
Earlier this month, I went to see the Liberty 360 attraction at the Historic Philadelphia Center, right near the liberty bell.
I heard about the show from my friends at Smart Monkeys, who did the control systems for Niles Creative Group's content. The same team worked on the amazing Comcast center experience, which I wrote up here.
The show features a wrap-around screen, with Ben Franklin himself telling us the story of liberty. There are a few seats, but most people stand for the show, which only lasts a few minutes. I was the only person in the theatre when I saw it (along with the attendant), so I could roam around. The show is fine and the content is well done, and they use the wrap around screen sparingly, which I think is good. Obviously, I couldn't shoot any pictures inside, but you can see a cheesy, non-embeddable promo video here.
The 3D works reasonably well, although I found the projections a bit dim and fuzzy. I've seen 3D now twice on large scale LED screens, and that blows away anything I've seen from a projector, and I do find some issues inherent in 3D which I've yet to see anyone overcome (read my favorite editor/sound designer Walter Murch's recent 3D comments on Roger Ebert's blog here).
I would urge the producers of this show to improve and clarify their branding a bit. The show is apparently run by "Historic Philadelphia", but if you Google "Liberty 360", the official link is the fourth in the list. The show is also sometimes called Lights of Liberty, but that's apparently a separate night time, walk around attraction, which is under renovation this year and should be up and running again "soon".
Here's the control rack, which is right behind the retail checkout counter (sorry about the glare, I just bought a circular polarizer filter for my camera which should address some of this for the future):
You can see the Medialon Showmaster Pro's in the middle, and from Medialon's "Best Panel of the Month", here's Smart Monkeys' touch panel design:
Liberty 360 isn't very expensive, it's short, and it's worth stopping by if you're in the neighborhood, especially if coupled with the Lights of Liberty attraction.
More pictures here.
