You and the Universe

Immersive Object Theater
The Scientific Center of Kuwait, Salmiya, Kuwait – 2024

You and the Universe is a signature immersive experience within the Kuwait, Earth, Universe gallery at the newly expanded Scientific Center of Kuwait. Visitors enter an object theater space and view this 8:30-minute experience that explores our individual connection to the Universe through the lens of a life journey.

The show is full of symbolism. Circular set pieces and drumbeats represent cycles. Heartbeats and footsteps represent the individual. A traditional Tabul Bahri drum and a sail represent the local culture. A microscope and telescope symbolize scale from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. The central circular transparent projection surface further exemplifies this concept becoming a “lens” to juxtapose imagery with the projection surface behind it. At the show’s climax, a flower rises from the center of the circular platform representing rebirth in the cycles of the Universe.

The show is narrated in Arabic by Kuwaiti celebrity Suad Abdullah and both Arabic captions and English subtitles are displayed. There are four projection surfaces and the center platform contains 44 backlit footsteps as well as the actuator for the flower.

Role:
Producer, Creative and Technical Direction, Writing, Editing, Sound Design, Original Music, Lighting, Set Design and Fabrication, Graphic Design, Media and System Design

Media Integration, Installation, Project Management: Science Museum of Minnesota

Exhibit Development and Design (Prime): Exploratorium

Heinzen Media Team:

Content Advising and Voice Direction: Rana Al-Khaled and Yarub Bourhamah
Lighting Design: Richard Rummel
3D & Graphic Design: William Maple
Scenic: Tom Warn
Programming: Jesse Cogswell
Set Fabrication: Industrial Artisans
Graphic Layout: Terry Scheller
Graphic Production: Leach and Pixelwerx

Rhythm

A heartbeat pulses in rhythm with a drum beat. We are born into the cycles of the Universe.

Home

Backlit footsteps traverse projected sand illustrating the first land on which we walk: Home.

Journey

Projections transform set objects into a ship deck and sail depicting journeys away from home.

Disruption

A storm envelops the space representing disruption.

Exploration

Set objects and the juxtaposition of projection surfaces depict our ongoing desire to explore and discover.

Death

Projections represent the eventuality of decay and death in the life cycle.

Rebirth

A mechanical flower rises from projected ashes depicting rebirth.

Connection

The heartbeat returns and the Earth fades into the distance. We exist in this place, on this Earth, in this Universe.

Turnblad Mansion Introduction

Immersive Projection
American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis – 2023

This immersive projection installation captivates visitors as they enter the American Swedish Institutes’s historic Turnblad mansion. Part welcome and part introduction, the show offers a brief glimpse into the lives of the original owners as well as the institution that now operates it. There’s even a little wayfinding thrown in for good measure. It is an emotional touchpoint that intends to spark visitors’ curiosity as they tour the rest of the impressive manor.

Because the mansion is a historic property, the media and system design had to be accomplished in a way that did not disturb the structure and also maintained as much elegance as possible in this stately room. Projectors are mounted to pipes and encased in cabinets attached to platforms that run along the walls. Each projector cabinet also contains two speakers – one pointed towards the room and one towards the wall to create an immersive soundscape.

Role:
Producer, Creative and Technical Direction, Scripting, Editing, Sound Design, Media and System Design, Installation

Interpretive Plan Project Manager and Content Liason: Bluestem Heritage Group

Preservation Architectural Consultants: HGA

Heinzen Media Team:

Writer: Julianna Olsen
Platform and Cabinet Fabrication: Art-Tech Productions
Projector Rigging Support: Gopher Stage Lighting

Projection mapped onto three walls

Projector mounts and cabinets

Made in Cincinnati

Object Theater and Exhibit Interactive
Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati – 2022

Made in Cincinnati explores the city’s inventors and laborers, the products they developed, and the markets they transformed.

At the center of the exhibit is the object theater Cincinnati Makes Things Better. This quirky, fast-paced show highlights several of the people and inventions to which the Queen City lays claim. Topics include machine tools, pork processing, Crosley radios and WLW, King Records, Black inventor Granville T. Woods, the Warner Elevator Safety Catch, and the first steam-powered fire engine.

To add to the charm, the show is narrated by a personified flying Lego pig, which is an object from the Cincinnati Museum Center’s collection. Several other objects from the museum’s collection are also featured throughout the show, including a giant cast-fab ladle from a Cincinnati foundry. As the museum’s director put it, the show is a “love letter to Cincinnati.”

Role:
Producer, Creative and Technical Direction, Editing, Sound Design, Lighting, Media and System Design

Exhibit Development, Design, and Fabrication (Prime): Science Museum of Minnesota

Heinzen Media Team:

Editor: Ned Hurley
Lighting Designer and Programmer: Jesse Cogswell

In addition to the object theater, Heinzen Media also animated, edited, and programmed an interactive for the Made in Cincinnati exhibit called Wartime Pivots. Visitors press a large button under a screen to “flip” a Rolodex-like set of cards. The animation stops on a clue and visitors guess which industry matches by pressing the button next to its graphic.

First Avenue: Stories of Minnesota’s Mainroom

First Avenue: Stories of Minnesota's Mainroom

Exhibit and Communication Media
Minnesota History Center, St. Paul – 2019

First Avenue: Stories of Minnesota’s Mainroom celebrated five decades of this iconic Minnesota music venue. From the inaugural performance with Joe Cocker when it was called The Depot, to the disco days of Sam’s and Uncle Sam’s, to the club it is now, the exhibit highlighted the musicians, staff, and fans who have called First Avenue & 7th Street Entry their rock ’n’ roll home.

Multimedia highlights included Joe Cocker’s performance in 1970, a lighted disco floor featuring music from Mind and Matter, a behind-the-scenes tour with a long-time staffer and photographer Dan Corrigan, highlights from the hip-hop collective Doomtree presented in their tour van Mountain, and, of course, an homage to Prince projected on a larger-than-life scrim. At the center of the exhibit was an eight video channel multimedia story theater featuring musicians, staff, and fans sharing stories of emotional connection to the place on a replica of the main room stage – complete with an electric projection screen stage reveal, just like the real club.

In addition to the exhibit media, stories for social media were planned in conjunction with the exhibit development to expand the storytelling and engagement beyond the walls of the museum. The social media stories feature musicians describing the venue in one word as well as telling their most fond First Ave memory. The exhibit ran from May 2019 to December 2020. Unfortunately, museum closure due to COVID-19 interrupted the run. Some of the media content was able to be repurposed on the website during this downtime while social media continued to play a role in keeping the story alive.

Role:
Creative and Technical Direction, Media and System Design
(On staff with the Minnesota Historical Society)

Uncle Sams Dance Floor

First Ave Front Row Show Entrance

First Ave Front Row Show

First Avenue Tour Videos with Dan Corrigan

Communication Media

Sequoyah’s Story

Sequoyah's Story

Exhibit
Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, Vonore, TN – 2018

The Sequoyah Birthplace Museum is dedicated to telling the story of Sequoyah, the creator of the Cherokee writing system. Despite his numerous challenges facing ridicule, doubt, and family rebellion, Sequoyah persisted and created a written language for the Cherokees. This major exhibit renovation brings Sequoyah’s story to life with impactful multimedia experiences.

The production of the multimedia experiences for Sequoyah Birthplace Museum involved extensive collaboration with the Eastern Band of Cherokee and included Cherokee actors Wes Studi, DeLanna Studi, and Mike Crowe.

Role:
Producer, Director, Editing, Sound Design, Media and System Design

Exhibit Development and Design (Prime): Henley Company
Exhibit Fabrication: Color-Ad, Inc.
Lighting Design: Richard Rummel
Lighting Programmer: Jesse Cogswell

The Mystery: Who Was Sequoyah? is a brief and powerful introduction to Sequoyah and his significance. Visitors enter a circular space seemingly surrounded by forest. As the show begins, video is projected as the narrator takes us from Sequoyah’s birth in a traditional Cherokee home to the U.S. Capitol where Sequoyah is now represented in Statuary Hall. As the video fades, several significant individuals are named and their statues are illuminated behind a scrim, eventually revealing a statue of Sequoyah.

The show features Cherokee actors DeLanna Studi and Mike Crowe as the narrator.

The Transformation: From Sounds to Symbols portrays Sequoyah’s dramatic journey to create the Cherokee Syllabary. Visitors enter another circular theater space, this time with a scrim depicting the exterior of a cabin. When the show begins, the cabin interior is revealed behind the scrim. As the story unfolds, Sequoyah, and eventually his daughter Ayoka, are represented visually as shadows on the back wall of the cabin. A large piece of “paper” comes to life on the table as Sequoyah tries several variations of symbols leading to the eventual syllabary. Other visual effects create a glowing fire in the fireplace and the passing of seasons out the window.

The show is voiced by Cherokee actors Wes Studi, DeLanna Studi, and Mike Crowe.

As users scroll left to right, this interactive shows Cherokee land cessions over time. It ends on two spots depicting Cherokee land today, illustrating the dramatic loss of land.

The Spirit of Sequoyah appears at first to be a large portrait of Sequoyah sitting in a cabin. When this piece is activated, Sequoyah (played by Wes Studi) comes to life, greets the visitor, explains the lessons he’s learned in life, and passes on words of encouragement.

Desert at Night Theater

Immersive Story Theater
San Diego Natural History Museum, San Diego – 2014

In the San Diego Natural History Museum’s Coast to Cactus in Southern California exhibit, this immersive theater experience depicts two children, Michael and Nina, camping in the desert and hearing the sounds of all the animals that come out at night. Projections are mapped onto the tent surface, sky, and rock and portray the children as silhouettes in the tent as well as many of the animals – either realistically or as they are imaged in the minds of the characters. As the story unfolds, the children discover how busy the desert really is at night and what an interesting mix of creatures come out to prey and play.

The script for Desert at Night is a blended mix of English and Spanish and the characters move fluidly between both languages. It is written in a way so that the story can be understood completely by native speakers of either language.

Role:
Producer, Creative and Technical Direction, Editing, Sound Design, Media and System Design

Exhibit Development, Design, and Fabrication (Prime): Science Museum of Minnesota

Theater Entrance

Theater Projections

Black Sunday Theater

Immersive Story Theater
History Colorado “Living West” Exhibit, Denver, Colorado – 2013

In the Living West exhibit at the History Colorado Center, visitors enter a theater space depicting a 1930s house on the Colorado plains. Excerpts from oral histories and memoirs are used to narrate a story about the Black Sunday dust storm that engulfed the region on April 14, 1935. As the show progresses, visual effects out the window reproduce the giant dust cloud approaching the house until the space is overtaken by darkness. The combination of the visual effects and surround sound gives visitors the sense of being immersed in a dust storm – so effective, some visitors thought we had pumped actual dust into the theater.

Award:
Mountain-Plains Museums Association Technology Award

Role:
Producer, Creative and Technical Direction, Editing, Sound Design, Media and System Design

Exhibit Development, Design, and Fabrication (Prime): Science Museum of Minnesota

Dust Bowl Exterior

Dust Bowl Interior

Tornado Alley

Immersive Story Theater
Museum of Discovery, Little Rock, Arkansas – 2012

This experience recounts the 1999 tornado that tore through downtown Little Rock. Survivors recollect their experiences of the storm and its aftermath in this immersive basement environment. The voices are intercut with an archival television weather broadcast recorded on the night of the tornado. Surround sound audio and visual effects out the basement window give visitors the sensation of a tornado tearing apart the structure above.

Role:
Directing, Editing, Sound Design, Media and System Design

Tornado Alley Basement Interior

This Must Be Hell

Immersive Environment
Minnesota History Center, St. Paul – 2009

Visitors enter the fuselage of a real World War II era Douglas C-47 and are seated on the same bench paratroopers would have occupied during major invasions in the war. Using oral history excerpts from members of Minnesota’s greatest generation, a story about paratroopers preparing for and executing the D-Day jump on Normandy unfolds. Visitors are confronted with accounts of life and death during wartime.

An immersive 16-channel sound system, video projection, and visual effects outside the plane windows provide visitors with a realistic representation of an invasion. This Must Be Hell is the feature multimedia experience in the Minnesota’s Greatest Generation exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.

Award:
Silver, Multimedia Installations, 2010 American Association of Museums MUSE Award

Role:
Producer, Editing, Sound Design, Visual Effects, Media and System Design, Installation
(On staff with the Minnesota Historical Society)

This Must Be Hell Overhead

This Must Be Hell Entrance

This Must Be Hell Interior Projection

This Must Be Hell Interior Window Effects

Flour Tower

Immersive Ride
Mill City Museum, Minneapolis – 2003

Audiences board a freight elevator and ride through eight floors of a recreated Minneapolis flour mill. Scenes on each floor come to life with working machinery, video projection, and immersive audio as the voices of actual millers tell their stories of working in the mills. Behind the scenes, a complex media system controls the experience, triggering 16 channels of matrixed audio, high-resolution video, theatrical lighting, industrial motors, and the elevator itself.

Award:
Jim Blackaby Ingenuity Award, 2004 American Association of Museums MUSE Award

Role:
Producer, Editing, Sound Design, Videography, Show Control Programming, Media and System Design, Installation
(On staff with the Minnesota Historical Society)

Flour Tower Manger's Office Floor

Flour Tower Women's Packing Floor

Category: Immersive Environment

You and the Universe