SEE THE LIGHT

WWII Museum Immersion Experience

Transforming shared history into immersive animation with generative AI

Project Overview

“SEE THE LIGHT” is a commemorative light installation and projection activity created for the WWII Tunnels in Darwin, Australia, and the Battlebox Museum in Singapore. As the final piece of the museum experience, we designed a 10-minute looping generative animation that visitors would watch just before exiting back to the modern world.

Pearl Harbor
Dec 1941
Singapore Falls
Feb 1942
Japanese Submarine
I-124 Sunk
Bombing of Darwin
Feb 1942
Unity
Remembrance

Using a singular beam of light as a narrative thread, the animation creates a shared commemorative timeline linking pivotal WWII events. The experience invites reflection, remembrance, and renewed cultural exchange, culminating in a solemn scroll of names remembering the fallen.

The Challenge

The client tasked us with making the seemingly impossible, possible. We faced a series of significant constraints:

🎬 Visualize the Unseen
Create historically accurate visuals for events like the Bombing of Darwin and the sinking of the I-124 Japanese submarine, for which very little film or photographic evidence exists.
💰 Micro-Budget
The budget was a mere fraction of what a typical cinematic project would cost—approximately 1/10th of a traditional budget.
⚡ Extreme Timeline
The entire compelling educational piece had to be delivered within a very tight 2-week timeframe.

The project was only feasible through the strategic use of new AI generative technology, proving a professional-quality narrative could be achieved against all odds.

Our Process: A Fusion of AI Power and Human Expertise

A complex workflow that blended cutting-edge AI with deep industry experience.

1
Research & Story
Extensive historical research using multiple LLMs (ChatGPT, Grok, GEMINI, and Claude) to ensure accuracy for each narrative segment.
2
AI Image Generation
Generated multiple hundreds of keyframe images using Imagen and Flux Models, with a proprietary agentic cinematic prompt writer for consistent visual style.
3
AI Animation
Keyframes transformed into hundreds of 5-6 second animated clips using various AI video generative tools.
4
Meticulous Curation
Painstaking selection and refinement to ensure historical accuracy—uniforms, weapons, and aircraft types were perfectly detailed.
5
AI Narration
Custom voice generation through ElevenLabs with detailed prompts to deliver the precise emotional tone required.
6
Final Assembly
Final composite in Adobe After Effects with typographical animations, effects, and expert editing.

The Human Touch

23 Years

While AI provided the raw power, our 20+ years of experience in traditional animation and video was the essential glue that held the project together.

All critical creative decisions: shot selection, final editing, color grading, and sound design, were guided by human expertise. Led by Emily Dawidowicz, whose background includes a BFA, Classical Art History training, post-graduate degree in Digital Media Arts, and 23 years of hands-on animation and compositing experience.

The Results

“All finished nicely to deliver all elements of the project… In short, it worked! Well done great job of finessing the final!”

— Client Response

🎯
On Time & On Budget
Delivered a fantastic result that exceeded expectations while meeting all constraints, something the client called miraculous.
❤️
Rave Reviews
The animation received outstanding feedback from exhibit attendees, who were deeply moved by the narrative experience.
💎
1/10th Traditional Cost
Successfully delivered a high-quality, historically accurate cinematic piece at a fraction of traditional production costs.

This project demonstrates how strategic AI implementation combined with decades of creative expertise can achieve the impossible. We didn’t just create a museum piece, we crafted a bridge between history and hearts, connecting visitors across cultures through shared remembrance.

Want to See the Full 10 Minute Video?

Talk with Emily to arrange a private viewing of our full results.
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