- Themed Entertainment -

With nearly 15 years of experience shooting for National Geographic, Wolper Productions, and MacGillivray Freeman Films, Pixelmonger's Creative Director, Scott Billups has been a highly sought-after cinematographer for LBE and themed attractions for over twenty years.

In addition to his motion picture work, much of his early work with Universal Studios, Iwerks, and others centered primarily on filmed content that was shot solely for specific venues such as 360, panorama, early motion rides, large format, and experimental versions of IMAX.

Then the pixel showed up and Location Based Entertainment was up for the first big redefinition in 20 years. As Hollywood blockbusters began setting the bar for greater spectacle, theme parks stepped up with a growing catalog of technical innovation of their own. As one of Hollywood's first production companies to offer digital visual effects, Pixelmonger Studios was called upon to renovate and upgrade dozens of existing venues for leading parks around the world.

One of the boldest ventures to lead the trend toward digital production was Las Vegas's five city block-long Fremont Street Experience. Pixelmonger was brought in to pre-visualize architect Jon Jerde's Sky Parade design, but Jerde's "creative differences" with city planers lead to a parting of the ways.

Fortunately for us, they liked Pixelmonger's original models and the pipeline that we developed, so we were kept on to modify the structure and help create the initial graphics that would play over the venue's 460-meter length. The original canopy contained over 2 million light bulbs that were driven by a system that used 12 computers to run the graphics and nearly 20 computers to synchronize and run the controls. Although technology has reduced the number of computers needed to run the massive venue, the operational pipeline remains the same as the system we designed 22 years ago.

Having created the original digital pre-visualizations for the Jurassic Park motion picture, we were asked to reuse our existing digital assets to create a pre-viz of an upcoming Jurassic Park ride. A portion of the practical walk-through model that Landmark Entertainment built had collapsed and injured three workers. While we were building the digital version of the Jurassic Park the Ride, we recommended a few design corrections to the original plans and were told to include them in the new model. Needless to say, we didn't get much new work from Landmark Entertainment after that, but we did start getting more from Universal.

#1 is the original physical walk-through model made by Landmark for Universal Creative.

#2 is the same location in our interactive 3D model after we made numerous design modifications.

#3 is the finished ride EXACTLY as we designed it.

  • We don't just design: WE INNOVATE

    In 1996, Stan Kinsey, then CEO of Iwerks Entertainment said, "Once you put in a roller coaster, it is very expensive to change. We need event technology that you can upgrade by the changing the software." Bringing that concept into the present, we've been working on fully integrated motion systems that can not only sync with your favorite console games, but that can be driven with game controlers.

  • We don't just INNOVATE: WE BRAND

    With years of solid advertising and marketing experience, many of our clients depend on our uniquely original branding style. In much the same way we repurposed the Jurassic Park assets from one project to another for Universal Studios, we used the digital models that we created for a  Busch Gardens seasonal venue design to make a commercial that they still use today, more than five years later.

- THE Themed Entertainment TEAM -

Pixelmonger Studios is an open-source team of recognized leaders from the fields of event production, digital filmmaking, gaming, artificial intelligence, robotics, software development, and spatial media, who share an entrepreneurial mindset and the drive to pool our expertise to create a new standard in event development and franchise creation.

  • PETER MARTIN

    Academy Award-nominated Producer, Creative Futurist and widely recognized thought leader specializing in volumetric immersive media, Peter has directed numerous high-profile virtual projects, including Justin Timberlake's immersive experience for the Holodome.

  • ARI PALITZ

    As an early pioneer in VR, Ari has directed and produced for Here Be Dragons, Google, GE, Intel True VR, DiscoveryVR, as well as, serving as Director on the award-winning, The Last Goodbye, the first-ever Holocaust survivor testimony in room-scale VR for the Shoah Foundation. 

  • JOEL SOLLOWAY

    Widely regarded as the leading innovator of both live and interactive holographic technologies, Joel and his team consistently create images of extraordinary fidelity that push the limits of visual reality. Well-Versed in both fixed display and large-scale event holography, Joel's innovative approach is unmatched in its design performance.

- BRANDING -

As a highly respected game developer and visual effects creator for more than 50 motion pictures, we are often brought on to help shape branding campagns. Here's a good example of how our innovative brand extentions helped monitize a $100 million dollar motion picture.

  • Our branding for a major movie included ...

    As Principal Visual Effects Supervisor of the Walking With Dinosaurs motion picture, and CTO of the production company, it was Scott's job to not only build a technologically promotable media package that echoed the qualitative sensibilities of the BBC brand, but we also needed to develop brand extensions that would maximize the movie's success and guarantee enduring revenues.

  • ... an International Arena Spectacular,

    BBC had suggested that we simply refurbish their old, pre-existing show, but after closer inspection it was mutually agreed that we needed to scrap the original and start from scratch.

  • ... Television and Web Content,

    We used the industry-leading Pixelmonger Smart-Stage that combines game engine-based scene generators with Augmented Reality underlays to generate real-time programming for broadcast and web applications.

  • ... award-winning apps,

    The Walking With Dinosaurs Photo Adventure app was the first globally-branded AR app in the world. The press and word of mouth that it generated helped us raise over $85 million dollars to make the Walking With Dinosaurs 3D motion picture. Although Scott wrote this app back in 2011, it is still being downloaded and enjoyed today.

  • ... and a ground-breaking game.

    With several high-profile console games to our credit, Sony Playstation was the perfect fit for our immersive AR WonderBook experience. Designed for kids, it could be played in both passive Augmented Reality by just sitting in front of a television with the WonderBook, or in full VR using the Sony Playstation headset.