Creator: Adam Vahed

Organization: Apache Solutions Ltd

Description:

Project: ‘Become Iron Man’ experience.
Client: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

We were engaged by Marvel / Disney to create a cutting-edge AR / VR interactive experience to promote the release of the Iron Man 3 film, which premiered in April 2013.

The experience utilised a Microsoft Kinect, integrated with an HD camera, a 103” plasma screen and a high-powered PC. It enabled users to ‘suit-up’ as Iron Man in AR mode by calling parts of Iron Man’s armour through pre-defined gestures. Users were then able to control the Iron Man avatar in VR mode, performing actions such as shooting the repulsor weapons at targets and flying around Tony Stark’s lab.

In order to optimise the Kinect’s tracking abilities we developed our own control algorithms which enable the Iron Man avatar to match the user’s movements in a more realistic manner as well as creating bespoke code for calling the suit in AR mode.

Our objective was to create and new experience that would live up to the ‘coolness’ of the Iron Man / Marvel brand. We believe that we achieved this by maintaining a relentless attention to detail when modelling the suit and the lab environment, employing custom techniques to provide a film-like experience.

The experience was rolled out globally, running at six locations across the UK and Ireland (Newcastle, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, London and Dundrum) and at various locations in France, Greece, Turkey, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines and China. This is the first time that a major film brand has embraced AR to this degree and rolled it out on such a large scale.

The public’s reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and in some cases people have queued up for over two hours to participate in the experience, and still walked away smiling! We have also received countless requests as seen on YouTube for the experience to be released as a console game.

Based on the success of the UK events, Vue Cinemas (an exhibitor in the UK) are now rolling out the experience at three additional locations in the UK in their larger cinema foyers. The experience will now continue to run throughout May.

Disney Stores in the locations running the experiences reported a significant uplift in sales (over 100%) on the days that the experience was running and was directly attributed to it as consumers were driven to the stores after every experience to receive a specially made poster. The net effect on box office figures is obviously less tangible – nevertheless we have a good feeling that the AR experience has helped drive sales (which at the time of writing have passed $950 million globally).

But the most significant indicator of the project’s success came when we were informed that Disneyland California wanted to run the experience as an attraction in their Iron Man Tech exhibit at Innoventions. This is definitely a first for an AR experience, and is testament to the success of the campaign as a whole.

Reference Material:
Videos:

Tech blogs:
• http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/03/hands-on-with-the-iron-man-virtual-reality-setup-this-is-as-badass-as-kinect-gets
• http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/katerina-zherebtsova/become-iron-man-_b_2997122.html
• http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/one-of-our-reporters-is-iron-man/
Disneyland articles:
• http://m.uk.ign.com/articles/2013/04/13/disneyland-introduces-their-first-marvel-exhibit-with-iron-man-tech
• http://www.nerdist.com/2013/04/become-iron-man-at-disneylands-iron-man-tech-exhibit/

Twitter (#becomeironman):
• https://twitter.com/search?q=becomeironman

Box office figures:
• http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/13/showbiz/movies/great-gatsby-box-office-ew/index.html?hpt=en_c2

Where to find it:

The experience was rolled out globally, running at six locations across the UK and Ireland (Newcastle, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, London and Dundrum) and at various locations in France, Greece, Turkey, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines and China.

Platforms:

Magic Mirror, Stationary Device, Gesture Device

Additional Screenshots: