Work
That's one small step for Cyberwoven, one giant leap for webkind
American Experience: Chasing the Moon
"We lived and breathed the Apollo program for weeks. I listened to every mission recording I could find. I can explain trans-lunar injection. We love getting lost in our clients' worlds."
Situation
For more than three decades, GBH's American Experience has been television's most-watched history series. On air and online, the series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that have shaped America’s past and present. Throughout the years American Experience documentaries have been honored with every major broadcast award, and acclaimed by viewers and critics alike.
American Experience produced a three-part documentary by Robert Stone called Chasing the Moon. To promote this film, they partnered with Cyberwoven to create an immersive digital storytelling experience that captured the drama of the Apollo program.
Animation of Transposition, Docking, and Extraction Procedure
User Interface Icons
The custom CMS allows for any type of media
Users choose the mission they want to explore
Solution
Apollo's Legacy
Cyberwoven created a digital interactive for Chasing the Moon that draws the visitors into the story of the three Apollo missions in the film via historical images, video, and styles reminiscent of NASA in the 60s.
The immersive experience captures the tension of the moment all these years later, placing the viewer inside the minds of the astronauts and the control tower team.
As part of this project, the Cyberwoven team developed a digital storytelling platform to allow non-technical users to produce interactives by entering storyboards and scenes consisting of background and active video, images, text, photo galleries, sounds, and music.
Subtitle files (SRT) can be uploaded for any video in the CMS
Impact
Engaging and Immersive
By building custom animated scenes that demonstrate lunar module's docking and extraction process, and handling sensitive content, like a deadly fire, the Cyberwoven team created an engaging experience for viewers, as well as an immersive interactive site powered by a custom back-end tool created in-house.
Going forward, the Digital Storytelling Platform will let producers at American Experience to more nimbly produce interactive stories and narratives, allowing them to deeply expand upon the stories their films introduce.
Award-Winning Impact
Cyberwoven received multiple awards for this interactive online experience. This project went on to win the 2020 National Silver ADDY Award, which is a recognition of one of the highest levels of creative excellence in advertising, making it one of the top websites developed in the nation that year.