PROJECT:
Basketball Beatbox is a basketball themed drum circle built for AT&T as part of their installation for the NCAA Final Four event.
POSITION:
Hired by Faculty to create the Basketball Beatbox sound installation and produce the visuals for the Game of Thrones installation. Concept developed the Basketball Beatbox. Creative directed the physical installation, the sound design/music and the user experience. Christopher Libertino composed the sound design/score. Josh Balgos creative directed the animation. I also produced the basketball beatbox installation and the animated assets for the Game of Thrones installation with Neely Lisk. Josh Balgos creative directed the Game of Thrones visual assets.
AGENCY: Wasserman, PRODUCTION COMPANY: Faculty, FABRICATION STUDIO: Atomic Props
BASKETBALL BEATBOX:
GAME OF THRONES GAME OF HORSE:
BASKETBALL BEATBOX CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT:
AT&T specifically wanted the sound installation to use basketball sounds. I liked the idea of turning the basketball sounds into music and since the event was at a college basketball tournament, I felt it would be great to have the user experience be quite physical. A drum circle could function as a physical musical instrument.
For the sounds, conceptually the lower to the ground basketballs would be four different dribbling sounds and the three basketballs heading for the hoops would be backboard, rim and swishing type sounds. There would also be the high pitched squeak of sneakers on gym floors controlled by proximity sensors in the dribbling basketballs. This seemed both organic to me for the sport as well as a good range of tones for the musicality.
Any sound installation must sound amazing. Christopher Libertino is a long time collaborator of mine on film scores. I knew he’d be the perfect composer and he definitely was. We wanted a base song that played all the time on a loop to encourage the player to engage. The song must be interesting on its own, but sound good with many more sounds layered on top of it. And when the player touched specific basketballs, there would not only be sounds triggered, but also visual animations that layered as beautifully as the sound design.
To show what we had in mind, Josh Balgos not only created the visual assets, but also this beautiful previs to bring to life a song Christopher composed with our new musical instrument.
PHYSICAL BUILD:
Atomic Props designed the physical installation including the electronics. They were a joy to collaborate with and I really love the final product.
HARDWARE AND BOOTH DESIGN:
Wasserman Media Group took care of all of the hardware, projectors, projection mapping tests and the physical build of the entire AT&T booth. They also created the rest of the Game of Thrones game with the interactive LED floors and the basketball hoop and screens.
