Client: Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA)

Overview

Passengers traveling through Nashville will be greeted by over a dozen vignettes experienced as massive digital postcards. Spanning two panoramic screens each 70ft wide at 24K combined resolution, hours of fantastical video capsules pay homage to Nashville’s legacy that enchant travelers and engage them with their surroundings. Highlights include City of Lights, a vibrant scene from the city’s cultural epicenter, Broadway Street and Nashville by Night, an aerial journey through the city’s downtown skyline. Here, the journey begins– even before stepping into the airplane.

For Nashville International Airport (BNA), we were mandated as the main entity Content Production Company (CPC) to celebrate Nashville’s legacy with next-generation multimedia entertainment content production for their Project 3 renovation. We conceptualized, designed, produced and integrated live action filmmaking, mixed media, FIDs design, interactive clocks and advanced CGI.

The multimedia showpiece is located at the new International Terminal Facility. Passengers traveling through the security area entrance are greeted by two massive displays reflecting the culture and history of the Music City.

Goals

For this project we took an approach that pays homage to local history to bring a sense of identity and placemaking, transforming the airport into the destination itself.

Our mandate is part of the BNA Vision, which is a comprehensive plan designed to accommodate the region’s booming population growth and meet the needs of the airport’s record-breaking passenger increases through the development of their landside and airside facilities.

Under the mantra good times await your return, we brought a sense of identity to the airport by offering travelers a visceral memento of Nashville and its surrounding landmarks to impart a lasting impression of the iconic city. The work will be the cornerstone of the airport’s vision to maintain BNA as a world-class facility and accommodate a record-breaking 23 million expected annual passengers.

Process

Produced almost entirely in-house by our small team of creative and technological directors, we integrated live-action filmmaking and advanced CGI to pay homage to the Music City’s legacy of nature, sports, culture and nightlife in never-before seen ways. Producing this content involved location scouting and shooting in over 20 areas and institutions within Nashville and surrounding Tennessee areas, such as Broadway Street, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the renowned Delgado Guitars.

Hyperrealistic 3D animation showcases the city’s ingenuity for whiskey distillation with a scene depicting pipes, gears and machinery pieces to illustrate the process.

City of Lights, our most technically complex segment of the collection, was made using an advanced compositing technique that blends live-action with CGI. To produce it, Gentilhomme closed the iconic nightlife strip for two days, converting it into a live-action film set with actors and a band. The street was then recreated in post-production, blending and layering these elements harmoniously to create a life-sized animated postcard of the Music City.