“Moonwalk” VR & AR Experience at the Smithsonian
Still from “Moonwalk” VR Experience at the Smithsonian’s FUTURES Exhibit at the Arts & Industries Building © 2022 BLACK DOT FILMS, LLC all right reserved
In May of 2022, our “Moonwalk” Multi-Platform Immersive Reality Experience virtually brought 10,000+ people to the moon at the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building as part of their FUTURES exhibition. Through our strategic partnership with Meta Immersive Learning, we teamed up with our long-time collaborator Black Dot Films VR to bring this concept to life in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions.
The virtual reality (VR) experience is the result of Black Dot Films VR’s dedication to over four years of archival research, technical R&D, and filmmaking. Through the use of cutting-edge technology and a technique called photogrammetry, they rebuilt the lunar surface from roughly 7,000 archival images taken during NASA’s Apollo missions to create an inspiring, emotional, and sometimes hilarious story featuring archival audio recordings from the astronauts.
Still from “Moonwalk” VR Experience at the Smithsonian’s FUTURES Exhibit at the Arts & Industries Building © 2022 BLACK DOT FILMS, LLC all right reserved
“It has literally never been possible, unless you were an astronaut, to experience the moon this way.”
Additionally, we partnered with augmented reality (AR) creators @csavenables and @simone_creativestudio to develop a series of educational, entertaining Spark AR effects on Instagram to help people learn about AIB’s unique history with space travel, as well as examine the Apollo command module in detail, and even take a “lunar selfie” in an astronaut suit.
The success of “Moonwalk” is a testament to what future learning could look like in the Metaverse, and we’re proud to be pioneers exploring the endless possibilities in this field. While a lunar journey will be hard to top, we can’t wait to see what the next immersive adventure holds as we continue to bridge the physical and digital worlds.
