Visual Content / Mapping

How can one of the oldest and most successful film franchises of all time stage a media stunt that feels fresh and measures up to its own monumental stature? Well, ask the folks at Disney that and they’d probably tell you that partnering up with Superbien to project a 5 minute showcase of Star Wars’ most legendary villains on the Empire State Building might do the trick. The Empire State Building is in fact the most photographed building in the world.

In March of 2024, Disney, Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic (that’s the George Lucas-founded visual effects company with 15 Academy Awards under its belt) were all gearing up for the Year of the Villain and an Empire State Building takeover felt like a move right out of the Empire’s book – pun intended. But truly, a stunt of this size and scope seemed to Disney the very best way to not only tie together 50 years of the franchise but to connect the global Star Wars community – one carefully mapped pixel at a time. 

As it turns out, Superbien is the only creative studio to create motion content longer than 60 seconds for projection mapping on the Empire State Building – back in 2022 in a first-of-its-kind feat. So the Superteam certainly had the expertise regarding the venue cornered and Lucasfilm and ILM recognized that Superbien’s prior knowledge would be an advantage with such a short turnaround – the assets were delivered to the Superteam March 7th and the activation was live March 21st. But even though Superbien had a leg up on the site survey and the pixel map, and a firm understanding of the necessary server management and the layered format for the 46 x 30K Panasonic projectors, the content was a different story. 

In the 2 weeks between delivery of the aforementioned assets and the takeover itself, Superbien finessed and seamlessly blended 5 decades worth of footage, featuring everyone from Darth Maul and Emperor Palpatine, to a sea of Storm Troopers and Lord Vader himself. Always up for a challenge, the Superteam optimized all the footage for projection mapping on an almost 700-foot canvas, focusing primarily on opacity, matte coloring and per-frame scene adaptations. Between motion design and creative direction, Superbien was able to be responsive and reactive to ILM’s vision and feedback and deliver a wildly successful and super striking activation, green-lit by ILM’s own Visual Effects Supervisor, Khatsho Orfali. 

Since A New Hope debuted in 1977, Star Wars has generated more than $10 billion in global box office revenue – not including comics, toys, clothing, games, attractions and countless Halloween costumes. The official Star Wars Instagram account has more than 17 million followers. The series and its universe have captivated young and old for generations and thanks to the Empire State Building’s livestream and subsequent user shares all over socials, Superbien and ILM were able to not only weave together the visuals on the face of one of the most iconic structures in the world, but to bring together the global Star Wars community to take part in a colossal, once-in-a-lifetime stunt. #theforceiswithus