The McLean County Museum of History will be the backdrop of a special, one-time projection show to celebrate the centennial of Route 66 this summer.
Visit BN, Bloomington-Normal’s tourism marketing organization, planned the project in collaboration with the museum, Illinois State University and the Illinois Route 66 Centennial Commission.
“…we were sitting around saying, ‘What could we do to make a spectacle to celebrate the Route 66 centennial?’” Melissa Chrisman, the CEO of Visit BN, said. “And we came up with this idea to illuminate the museum.”
The idea, according to Chrisman, was to turn the museum's facade into a birthday cake. It was just wondering, until she connected with Illinois State University’s School of Creative Technologies.
“It was nothing but a dream, nothing but a brainstorm, nothing but an idea,” she said. “It was that conversation with [ISU] that literally made it a reality.”
Projection on the museum
The show will take place during Visit BN’s Cruisin’ Through the Century party weekend, where several municipalities are hosting decade-themed events. Bloomington has the 1960s, which informed the designs for the show.
On June 6, after the sun goes down, each side of the museum will be lit up with the approximately 10-minute show by projectors on the ground.
Simone Downie, an assistant professor in the School of Creative Technologies, was lead illustrator. Her work greatly depended on fellow assistant professor in the Wonsook Kim School of Fine Arts Annie Sungkajun, who animated her work.
Their work was given a brief highlight at Wednesday's news conference unveiling the project.
“So, the work has been fun and it’s been enjoyable,” Downie said. “When you’re having fun, nothing is a chore, but when you’re doing something on this scale, a whole lot of new considerations come into play that you don’t think about when something’s just living on your small, little desktop computer.”
Downie and Sungkajun depended on a small model, built by another faculty member, to cast their initial projections. They said they took every window, pillar and detail into consideration for the show.
“We had to think about, what does it mean to have visuals that large without getting blurry…the difference between raster images and vector images…I used Adobe Illustrator, which is something I wasn’t as familiar with, to make the visuals,” said Downie.
Sungkajun said that was where her animation expertise came into play, to make sure Downie’s illustrations not only looked good on the model but will look good on the actual museum.
“[The model], it’s a fairly decent size, but when we have to actually think about, it’s going to be on the much bigger building,” Sungkajen said. “The way that everything moves and their speed is going to be very impactful to the user experience and to the audience, and so trying to ensure timing and pacing of everything is also very important.”
Downie said she is most excited for visitors to see reactions on the day of the show.
Celebration of collaboration
Both faculty members said they were proud not just to see their work celebrated but to have it be a part of the Route 66 centennial celebration. Downie said hearing the excitement of others only raises their excitement.
Sungkajen said, “this collaboration has been incredible. It’s not just us working in terms of as faculty, but with our community, with Visit BN. It’s been a wonderful collaboration for everyone.”
Chrisman was well aware the 100th birthday of Route 66 required an equally as special project. She said ISU had full creative control over the designs and seeing the final product was a celebration of its own.
“Applause all around. We oohed, we awed, and we just thought, ‘We have done it; we have really created something truly special here,’” said Chrisman.
Chrisman shared the amount of collaboration was also one of the most rewarding parts about sharing the project with McLean County.
“It feels so good to have so many partners working on this. There was no way that Visit BN could really, truly make this happen on our own. And so having so many people come together to make this vision a reality has been truly inspiring,” she said. “…it was nice to see that so many people believed, and what a great opportunity this was for Bloomington-Normal.”
Although the project is special, Chrisman said it is one of many highlights planned for the year to celebrate the Mother Road.
“We have a very long season that has already kicked off of fun activities. This is a highlight, one of many highlights,” she said. “We also have stuff going into the fall that’s going to be every bit as spectacular.”
