“The Price of Freedom” – Smithsonian National Museum of American History
For the entrance of Smithsonian Institution’s landmark “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War” exhibition, BPI’s multi-level media experience includes scrim graphics and life cast figures illuminated by a timed, theatrical lighting program, three 50” monitors in a highly unusual configuration and a sweeping, immersive audioscape with an original music score and dynamic sound effects.
This visual tone-poem experience unfolds through lighting cues that fade up on the scrim graphics and then cross-fade to the life-cast figures. At the same time, dramatic footage and images emerge on the monitors behind the scrims. The non-linear emotive experience both inspires and motivates.
Additionally, BPI created a startling POV video reenactment of the Battle of Lexington. The exhibit directs the visitor to trigger “the shot heard ‘round the world.” History tells us that this was the start of the Revolutionary War, but it was also a scene of complete chaos.
The battle on Lexington Green was filmed with a cast of nearly one hundred Redcoat reenactors, and it directed all of the action at the camera, as if the visitor were a member of the Lexington militia. The action is both fast and disorganized, just as it was on the day of the actual battle.
