Ephesus Experience Museum

From January to November 2023, I worked with Marshmallow Laser Feast as Lead Producer to deliver this multi-room, permanent digital museum located on the UNESCO site of Ephesus Ancient City, in the Izmir region of Turkey.

The experience, housed in a purpose-built building across three rooms, tells the story of the city from its prehistoric origins, the emergence of the Artemis cult, its glory days as a Roman gateway to Asia, before its Christian conversion and gradual decline.

Rooms 1 & 2 use wraparound projections screens over 8m tall requiring vast animated sequences to be played from multiple media players simultaneously. The creative intent detailed a ‘point-cloud’ layer to be generated over the Houdini created designs which interacted with the architecture and characters, dissolving them into particles as the viewpoint sweeps through the locations.

Key moments in Room 1 are picked out on a hologauze, as characters ‘dissolve’ in and out, suspended in space in front of the richly designed environments. In room 2, characters are magnified onto the pillar structures, their projections carefully mapped to create ‘viewing prisms’.

In Room 3, we commune with a life-sized copy of the famous Artemis Goddess, with theatrical fog, abstract patterns on LED screens and atmospheric lighting.

My role in the project was to deliver all aspects of the content production, including managing the animation production by two teams of VFX artists located in Istanbul and across Turkey. I also managed the creation of the L-ISA spatialised-audio soundtrack, including novel-recorded compositions, actor’s voiceovers and music licensing. I was the key point of contact for the client throughout the production and liaised on technical fit-out, project management phasing, technical testing, marketing & promotional content.

I managed the post-production phase, conducted in Istanbul (compositing, grading, transcoding and tiling using Fusion & After Effects) and the onsite installation process. I also helped define the pulse rate for the overall experience, including transitions per room and was involved in the sequencing of audio to the wireless headphones, including the creation of multi-language localised versions.

Photos courtesy of DEM Museums & Marshmallow Laser Feast