IMAGINE DRAGON
Belle, age 13, lives with cancer. Her condition makes it impossible to have a pet. Undeterred, she asked Make-A-Wish for help. She wanted a new pet, but not just any pet — a dragon!
To make her wish a reality, we partnered with Make-A-Wish and Arrow Electronics to create a Virtual Reality film that transformed Belle into a dragon and taught her to harness the power of her newfound dragon strength to slay any obstacles thrown in her way.
VR experiences have helped tens of thousands of children suffering from critical illnesses fight anxiety, pain, stress, and loneliness. Inspired by this project, we onboarded a team of award-winning children's storytellers, filmmakers, and visual effects artists, to help conceptualize, produced, and deliver this mystical VR film.
We are now working to transform Imagine Dragon from a single VR film, into an interactive gamified experience to reach 1000's of children around the world fighting depression, stress, anxiety, pain, and fear.
WHAT WE DID
Creative Development | Hardware Development | VR 360° Filming & Post Production | Activation Development & Implementation | Visual Effects
CREATING BELLE'S DRAGON
During the creative process, collaboration is essential. And, luckily for us, Belle knew exactly the kind of dragon she wanted!
Using her very own sketches, our visual effects team got to work, creating 3D models that brought her vision to life.
CUSTOM FABRICATION TO FLY LIKE A DRAGON
Bringing the world of the dragon to life is no easy feat. We had to innovate.
Working with our fabrication team, we engineered, built, and tested a custom camera rig to both fly below a helicopter and stabilize a 360° VR camera while flying through the mountains.
This allowed us to capture our mystical creatures' dynamic and breathtaking flight path.
VIRTUAL REALITY 360° FILMING
Over the course of two weeks, we flew, hiked, and drove throughout British Columbia, Canada, filming the world of a dragon.
From mountaintops to glaciers, to the depths of rainforests, each location had to encompass the flightpaths, hunting grounds, and resting places that build the dynamic world of a dragon.
CREATING SCRIPTING & VISUAL EFFECTS
In collaboration with our partner's Invisible Thread, 360 Labs, and Drew Umland, we used visual effects to remove the helicopter, create a cave and add Belle's custom dragon to the VR film.
It's not just the visuals that bring a story to life. Working with children's storyteller Matt Ferguson, we created a voice-over script, teaching Belle to become a dragon herself, using her newfound dragon strength to overcome any obstacle in front of her.
Our very own Matt West and Kathy McIntyre even took hold of the mic and provided the voices for our special characters.
DELIVERING A MAGICAL REVEAL DAY
Nestled away in Colorado, a small castle awaited Belle for the granting of her wish.
On reveal day, we choreographed a live-sync activation with Make-A-Wish and Arrow's teams, placing Belle and her family in VR simultaneously, to all become dragons with her!
On Reveal day, Belle was also given her very own robot dragon, created by Arrow electronics!
