Client
The Mill
Project
DECODED: Nothing is Real until it is Experienced
Type
Digital Installation
Credits
Sound Designer & Mixer: Harry Boyce
Composer: Min Yu
Creative Directors: Jon Clarke & Siân Rogers
Executive Producer: Mike Hill
Design Director: Will MacNeil (The Mill)
Spatial Design & Art Direction: Jack Holmes (The Mill)
The Mill invited industry leaders to their London studio for a roundtable dinner to explore the challenges faced in Experiential marketing. On their way up to dinner, the lift suddenly stopped on the third floor, with the doors opening into an unexpected landscape of spatial immersion.
Where the guests might have been expecting a floor full of desks and computers, they were instead presented with a digital creature embodying the hive mind of The Mill’s creative and technical thinking. The audience can sense its thoughts, hear it thinking, feel its emotions.
Using a multitude of speakers across the room we were able to intensify the audio/visual depth of field as well as targeting certain elements of our sound design to moments on screen. Most of the hardware for the installation was surplus equipment following The Mill’s new hybrid office model and they leveraged this opportunity to show how city office spaces can be environments for guests to play with a brand and experience a story like never before.
We came on-board to help our friends at The Mill to make sure the installation sounded as good as it looked. Our moving score of sound design and original composition was created to draw the audience in as soon as the lift doors were opened.
The overarching idea was to show how The Mill collectively attack a creative challenge, and the video sculpture illustrates the life cycle of a creative idea within this ‘hive mind'. Solitary sounds are first heard to represent an initial idea, shortly followed by a collection of these sounds as people come together to discuss and grow the idea further.
The hive mind then kicks into gear to begin to perfect this idea but dissonant tones soon follow as the challenges of honing any creative objective start to become present. The intensity of the soundscape increases as project delivery approaches, but these dissonant tones are only momentary and soon evolve in to harmonious and fulfilling notes as the project reaches its climax and something beautiful has finally been created.
"The goal of our visual sculpture was to represent a sort of digital beast, a creature that illustrates the struggles and rewards of collaborative creative work. But our moving images alone lacked the feel of a living being. Factory’s vivid and complex soundscape put the breath in the beast’s lungs and gave the whole experience an intense emotional layer. We’re thrilled with the result." Will MacNeil; Design Director (The Mill)
If you have an immersive project in development and would like to get us involved please email mike@factory.uk.com