Biggie Inspires

Working under Co.Lab Creative, we created a look for Biggie Inspires- a campaign celebrating the 25th anniversary of Biggie Smalls' debut album 'Ready to Die'.
Optimo Cigars was the client honoring Biggie, so we created a campaign with a branded backbone, reflecting his legacy and all the culture he influenced- calling out to those who had been inspired by the hip-hop legend to create art of their own. The top submissions saw their winning murals painted on billboards in Brooklyn, and featured at the launch party.

Brooklyn became the inspiration and eventual canvas for Biggie Inspires, as we collaborated with Scenester, using photos and graffiti to honor the legend, before projecting a visual piece onto rooftops in Williamsburg. The campaign wrapped with a huge art show/party attended by Rick Ross, Lil Kim, Biggie's estate and many many more.

We loved collaborating with Co.Lab Creative, Scenester and Optimo, and look forward to working together again soon.

Projection Mapping

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After the social media campaign, the branding culminated in a five minute piece, projection mapped onto the rooftops of Williamsburg- from The William Vale Hotel. The piece showcased submitted artwork, vintage Biggie photography, particle work, Brooklyn textures and Optimo branding, set to Biggie's own Juicy. 

The mapping required building out a pixel map accurate to the three A frame rooftops, as seen from the 22nd level of The William Vale hotel, but projected from the 11th floor. This posed a tonne of technical issues, determining accuracy of angles and  accounting for obscurations from AC units, rooftop wear and tear and ambient light.

The talented folks at Scenester, took our video file and had one night to tweak it to match the rooftop dimensions, using three enormous projectors, a tonne of cabling running up the exterior of the hotel 10 floors and MadMapper. We had a great back and forth with them, honing the aesthetic (as much as we could with one night to tweak!) in order to maximize impact.

It played as a special audio visual presentation during the party, and went off without a hitch!

Raw

Here is the raw format video for the mapping. The A frame rooftops we utilized are positioned like a sideways 'L' , leaving the top left quadrant empty. 

See below for some process elements.