SUE: the T.rex Experience Traveling Exhibition

SUE: the T.rex Experience is a traveling exhibition created by the Field Museum. I worked in collaboration with ILC to recreate a traveling version of the SUE light show featured in the Field Museum’s permanent exhibition. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how we recreated the show using theatrical and UV lighting.

SUE SHOW ANIMATIC

Because the exhibition is traveling with a replicated skeleton we had to rewrite parts of the script. Our first step was to re-record the narration and create an animatic with timed lighting cues that would be passed down to our lighting designers, ILC.

UV PAINT HIGHLIGHTING INJURED BONES

Since we weren’t able to use projection mapping to highlight the skeleton, we instead used UV paint and Wildfire light fixtures to illuminate SUE’s injuries. We wanted to keep the visual aesthetic similar to the original show by pointing out the holes in SUE’s jaw, broken ribs, injured leg, arthritis and fused joints in the tail.

THEATRICAL LIGHTING LOOKS

I created lighting effects of a forest and an asteroid in After Effects as a reference for look and timing. Lighting designers, ILC used the digital reference to recreate the lighting looks using Wildfire light fixtures.