Craftsmanship was used to elevate an existing and ordinary planetarium into a cutting-edge entertainment facility for promising yet financially limited artists.

One of the main reasons planetariums had been overlooked was because there were few success stories. To change the game for small live events, we created a model that others could follow.

Sticking to the concept of something that a single CG artist could create, we worked with CG artists unfamiliar with this shape to develop a formula for turning a full dome into a screen that displayed their craft to best effect.

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In Japan, an iPhone is a luxury item.

With the weakening yen, the price of an iPhone has been going up each year, putting it out of reach for many young people.

Meanwhile, Google Pixel and “au” (a mobile carrier in Japan) have been offering more affordable options and a wide range of features that young people enjoy.

Their focus has been on providing young people with the latest entertainment experience at every budget point.

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Japan has over 300 planetariums. (There are over 2,600 worldwide)

But most people see planetariums only as educational facilities toward families.

With the shrinking and aging population, many facilities are facing closure.

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We partnered with rising artists in Japan who are gaining popularity for their unique and catchy compositions.

For example, the Japanese lyrics of the main song featured in the case video are simply a string of local place names and numbers arranged to sound like the names of famous palaces worldwide and have no particular meaning.

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In Japan, the government still did not allow people to take off their masks and get out of their seats to shout during the concert because of COVID-19.

“au” is a mobile carrier that aims to project itself as a youthful brand that provides futuristic music experiences.

Google Pixel excels at filming in low light and has many features that appeal to the creative young person.

Our mission was to craft the most dramatic experience possible to convey the qualities of both brands.

In January 2023, we hosted a free live performance geared towards Gen Z-ers in collaboration with Google Pixel and au, both of whom want to deliver new music experiences that younger generation would like to capture on video.

We get excited about the latest entertainment experiences.

However, it can’t be denied that many of the latest experiences call for expensive devices or tickets. (More experiences are going luxury and are geared toward the wealthy.)

Meanwhile, promising artists and their audiences remain relegated to small, simple live music venues.

In early 2023, with the announcement of a new VR device and the construction of the Las Vegas Sphere, we noted the rising cost of entertainment and the disparity this would inevitably create.

At the same time, young people crave massively thrilling and immersive experiences.

Seeing this, we set out to create an immersive and cutting-edge live music experience using a simple yet eye-catching idea that rising artists could replicate.

[ Working with a small team,

we used existing facilities to open up new possibilities for Gen-Z artists. ]

For this media project, we set our eyes on many planetarium dome screens. While we didn’t expect it to compete with the scale of the Las Vegas Sphere, we felt the domes’ up-close, 360-degree screen had the potential to provide the thrilling, immersive, and novel experience that young people are after. (We later visited the Sphere and found that a smaller facility actually provides a greater sense of immersion.)

Many planetariums face similar issues, including a dwindling number of visitors following the COVID-19 pandemic, the dilemma of how to utilize the space when programs are not running. While they can be rented for less than a standard concert venue, they have yet to be used for entertainment in a decisive way that would capture the attention and imagination of younger generations.

There was a reason planetariums hadn’t been utilized for live music events. That reason was a lack of know-how regarding video production tailored to planetariums and its perceived difficulty.

To solve this, we visited a planetarium day in and day out to study the full dome and develop the directions, tools, and know-how needed to effectively achieve effects, correct distortions, and prevent motion sickness.

We then assembled a small team of ten young CG creators–a vital point of this project. The goal was to avoid going overboard and making it appear to be a special case.

To make the demonstration as realistic and achievable as possible, we set the brief as “1 or 2 young CG artists to spend two weeks creating the most enchanting and immersive CG footage possible for a single song.”