Eden Camp - The Blitz

Malton, North Yorkshire, England

Technically Creative were tasked with recreating a world war 2 Blitz experience at Eden Camp history museum. The experience had to capture the shocking events that happened and educate the visitors of the catastrophe that happened that day. Our team utilised their skills in; prop design, set dressing, lighting, audio, animation, projection, show control and prop casting to create a custom, one of a kind experience. An incredible combination of skills were adopted to re-create a sense of the destruction.

The Blitz was an important moment in history and we wanted visitors to experience this event that was recreated using the latest technology and design mediums. The result was a fully immersive walkthrough experience of the Blitz story that enveloped visitors in the sights, sounds and scenes of September 7th 1940.

The entrance features the “Act 01” area dressed to simulate the visual of a busy bustling street with shop fronts, restaurants and crowds moving past. This was intended to capture the feel of the day before the destruction. We used faux stone casting, joinery fit-out, programmable lighting, set dressing and digital projection to create the surrounding environment. The ceiling adopted a projected sky with animated 3D content. This content begins peacefully with rolling clouds but quickly descends into chaos with German planes flying overhead, artillery gunfire and dog fights. This helped illustrate the drastic contrast between peace and war. Visitor can then enter the “Act 02” area.

Entering under a faux stone archway visitors are then confronted with a visual of the aftermath of the bombings. This features a set dressed to recreate destroyed buildings with smoke effects hidden within the props. We created a water feature to resemble a broken bath tub falling from a building to create suspense in the visitors. This leads to a gauze reveal projection effect of a post office that gets destroyed by a falling bomb. The projection of a historically accurate post office is animated with destruction effects. At this moment a smoke machine hidden behind the projection surface blasts smoke towards the visitors. Once the smoke fades visitors are displayed with real physical props of debris and rubble where the post office once was to give the illusion of real world destruction. This illustrates our ability to combine digital media with real world props and set dressing. Visitors can then discover more effects and recreations to experience what it must of been like during the chaos and immediate aftermath of the Blitz.

Finally visitors are free to enter the “Act 03” area in which we wanted to re-create the sense of quintessentially British comradery to capture the positive spirits of the British people who did everything they could to look after those most impacted by the events of the Blitz and illustrate that it the Blitz didn’t destroy the British good will and resourcefulness.

The project is a perfect example of what we can achieve with our diverse skill set.