Creative studio Alkemy X and Hulu have teamed up to project the star-studded cast of the streamer’s upcoming murder mystery series Only Murders in the Building onto the iconic NYC skyline to promote the new series in a thrilling projection-mapping experience.
The experience uses The Museum of Arts and Design building in NYC’s Columbus Circle as a fitting backdrop for an IRL trailer for the new series, with the characters’ murder investigating hijinks projected onto the building.
The series follows three strangers (Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez) who share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one. When a grisly death occurs inside their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building, the trio suspects murder and employs their precise knowledge of true crime to investigate the truth.
Soon, the endangered trio comes to realize a killer might be living amongst them as they race to decipher the mounting clues before it’s too late. Watch the trailer below:
Alkemy X partnered with Hulu’s creative team, led by Hulu Creative Director Andrew Borin, to bring this larger-than-life experience to the streets of Manhattan. Passersby are drawn in by a 2-minute introduction to the characters (led by series stars Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez) as they peer into their windows to see the unique happenings within each individual apartment.
Then, a gunshot is heard and the residents begin to scramble, with Martin, Short and Gomez’s characters rushing to the elevator to investigate. The clues that the trio begins to piece together to try to solve the mystery as amateur investigators are brought to life as the building’s windows are transformed into a living investigation board outlining their tracking of the case.
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Alkemy X’s design and animation team, which is led by Executive Creative Director Rupert Cresswell, worked in conjunction with Alkemy X VFX Supervisor Bilali Mack to bring the vision of the Hulu team to life, lending live excitement to the streets of New York for the star-studded new series.
Mack had this to say to Reel 360 about the project, “Only Murders in the Building’s projection mapping experience was one that required tight planning, creativity, collaboration, and execution between Production, VFX, Design and Projection Mapping. The project was a massive creative and technical undertaking that required our team and collaborators to push ourselves and our work to create an experience worthy of our efforts and fans of the show.”
Mack adds, “We made a painstaking effort to respect the source material and show. We added easter eggs into the projection maps and managed to create an experience that can be watched over and over again while revealing new details and storylines for fans of the show.”
The video below showcases the NYC activation:
Only Murders in the Building is currently streaming on Hulu.
