Battle of Blackwater Bay
February 2013, HBO Game of Thrones Travelling Exhibition
What makes fantasy fantastic?
The Battle of Blackwater Bay was the first large-scale war sequence in the award-winning HBO series, Game of Thrones. The Blackwater Bay Experience gave fans the opportunity to fight in the battle on the side of the Lanisters, defending Kings Landing against the invading Baratheon navy. Participants in a theatrical castle setting drew back the strings of enormous archery bows and fired virtual flaming arrows at ships in the bay on screen. The experience traveled to cities around the world, from New York to Amsterdam, Belfast, Toronto and Sao Paolo.
How to plan for battle
GOT fans will remember the epic nature of the Blackwater Bay Battle. To introduce that feeling to the experience, we planned continuous animation to pass through three side-by-side frames. Warriors worked together while having their own personal focus within a much larger story.
How to improve your archery
The key to the Blackwater Bay experience was the feeling of firing an actual bow and arrow for every person who did it. To get this right we tested the internal mechanism over and over until it proved itself reliable and its release was perfectly calibrated with the digital shot fired.
WHAT WE’VE DONE
Fabrication
Programming
Engineering
Interaction design
UX/UI
Concept development
A/V integration
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