05/04/08 'Getting Eaten By Whales is Bad For Your Health"

hear it, smell it, feel it…

I have been trying to implement 5S (5 senses) experiential design into our elements.
This was an ambiance set-up for worship for May 4th. Breaking it down:

1. The tech team played a long mp3 of the ocean, waves crashing etc., in lieu of the pre-service music. (link here to hear it)…to build the feeling of being at the ocean.

2. CANCELLED: Smell of the ocean. We were going to order simmering oils andl use warming plates to heat it and oscillating fans to disperse.
We did a tremendous amount of research into this project. Ran across a lot of difficulties implementing the scent element. Going into a lot more detail in scent machines...

3. Fans used to create the wind effect.

4. We had talked about adding some machines that cast waves like images on the walls of the auditorium. Sort of like the ones used in children’s rooms; that cast images. It didn't pan out. Went with a simple ocean wave projection on the screen. (here)


5. Since the wave images aren't going well. We decided to try to "invoke wave images" like the red material in this Paula Abdul video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TN5umzSnFU&feature=related . First we tried taking large osilating fans and attaching blue cloth to create a flowing length of blue cloth. Need more industrial strength fans.
So we wound up standing on chairs behind the stage curtains and waving the cloths by hand. It looked way cooler than the pictures could capture.

Originally posted at CruX-the heart of the matter.