Quest For Life - Kennedy Space Center

Quest for Life was developed as the signature film of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida and was displayed in its own specially constructed "Universe Theater."

Life may be abundant in the universe, the only way for us to find out is to go beyond Earth and take a look.

The theatrical production takes visitors on a 3.5 billion year journey through space and time.

An extraordinarily beautiful animation of the molecule of life, DNA, is seen in shimmering detail as it unwinds and self-replicates before our very eyes.

From life's mysterious beginnings in the ancient past to the near future when spacecraft will explore for life under the shifting ice of Jupiter's moon, Europa, audiences will experience things never before seen on screen.

An entirely original production, the show combines 35mm scenes with Digital 24-frame High Definition Video sequences plus all-new computer visualizations produced in Metavision's in-house computer graphics department.

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Winner: Santa Clarita International Film Festival -
Best Educational Film of the Year Award.

Flagstaff International Film Festival - First Place Special Jury Gold Award.

WorldFest Houston - Gold Award -Flight and Space Travel.

International Film & Video Festival - Gold Camera Award.

 

 

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  Cafe' Odyssey - Mall of America (1998)

You are sitting at a table on a comfortable veranda next to the vast Serengeti Plain. The brilliant daylight catches the surface of a nearby lake as dozens of flamingo fly in, graze for a few moments and then take to the sky. A small herd of zebra amble by. The baby is especially cute. Less than a hundred feet behind them a lioness keeps a constant watch on the herd.

Elephants visit the lake on its far side as the  shadows grow long. Sunset lights the sky with vivid colors and night settles in. The veranda's lights catch the eyes of distant game. Butterflies and moths attracted to the light flit over the moonlit scene. Look, a shooting star! It's a grand illusion that dominates the Serengeti Room at Café Odyssey, a 17,000sf restaurant in the Mall of America near Minneapolis.

A battery of video projectors provide movement, color, lighting and animation to a specially painted mural which comes alive with all the elements of a Serengeti day. Wildebeest, elephant, lion, antelope, hippo, flamingo, eagle, cape buffalo, giraffe, ostrich... all make appearances as day flows to night and back to day on the huge panoramic screen.  Custom sound-scapes and music parallel the action.

Other dining areas of Café Odyssey feature a  large bas-relief sculpture that comes to life in the ruins of  Machu Picchu  and realistic views into the ocean home of the lost city of Atlantis.

 Metavision developed the unique look and feel for these immersive, yet unobtrusive, dining environments.  The show content was produced in-house in the company's computer graphics department.  The Cuningham Group provided the interior architectural design and Edwards Technologies handled the show systems. 

 

 

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Cafe' Odyssey received a THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement from the

Themed Entertainment Association

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 Jurassic Tour Simulator Attraction - Japan

Strange.

They seem to have found a time travel ship buried deep in the rocks under Energy Land in Shirahama, Japan.

Want a ride? How about a hop to 65 million years ago and back?

Jurassic Tour started as an idea one October and delivered as a complete new attraction the following July, just in time for the Japanese vacation season. 35mm ride film, motion programming, surround sound DTS track and all the physical architecture, construction,sets and systems of the project went together in just ten months.

When the new season started, park attendance shot up 30%. So did park profitability.

Metavision created the attraction from concept to screen and we were the prime contractor, smoothly coordinating an international, multi-lingual team all the way through final installation and training.  The Cuningham Group provided the interior architectural design and Edwards Technologies handled the show systems. 

How could we do all this in ten months? Of course, we had that time machine...

 

 

 

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Jurassic Tour won both the Gold Award at the Houston International Film Festival and a Silver Cindy Award.

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  SpaceQuest Casino - Las Vegas Hilton

Through a window eighty feet wide the Earth glides silently by. Traffic today is light, a few space taxis and Hilton Space Limos drift through. Fifteen hundred miles below, the sun glints off the Mediterranean Sea. The nearly full moon rises behind the Earth as the local City in Space looms into view.

 Just another day in orbit, 350 years in the future.

The SpaceQuest Casino, a 25,000SF, $50 million created for  the Las Vegas Hilton was the largest virtual reality environment ever. Designed to enhance rather than intrude on the gaming experience, the non-linear audio visual media fully integrates with the futuristic interiors conceived and produced by TSL Design Group. the Cuningham Group led the architectural design and construction management.

 In 1998, this is a new thing for Las Vegas: The casino AS the attraction. The venue opened simultaneously with the Star Trek Experience.

Metavision designed, created and produced the sights and sounds of this amazing casino and conquered new technical and aesthetic high ground in the process.  Legendary artist Syd Mead created the futuristic space vehicle designs.

The window's main loop is 20 minutes long and invisibly inserts alternate scenes which extend the experience to many hours. Metavision's breakthrough technological advances employed state-of-the-art custom High Definition video servers for the display. The view is higher resolution than anything seen on film, its full image frames are over 20% wider than the highest resolution IMAX frames!

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the Themed Entertainment Association.    

It garnered a Gold Medallion from Casino Executive Magazine for breakthrough casino design.

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National Geographic Centennial Exhibit

"Capture our soul."

The National Geographic Society was turning 100 when they gave Metavision that edict to create the climactic presentation of their centennial exhibition. They wanted an outside perspective to guide the production and this is just what Metavision achieved.

The show, Honoring The Earth -- Seeking The Stars, featured hundreds of still and motion images gathered by NGS photographers and cinematographers over the preceding century. It was poetically narrated by Leonard Nimoy.

Metavision wrote, produced, directed and invented the production techniques that make the big seamless image possible. It was the premiere production in Video Panoram, Metavision's seamless multiprojector format.

The Washington Post declared it, "as grand as anything seen on the Smithsonian's giant IMAX," and it won every award around.

 

The show ran continuously at the National Geographic headquarters for over 10 years.

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