[Even if the project described in this Chicago Tribune story doesn’t live up to the claim of “the most realistic digital rendering of a human ever created” it sounds like it’ll evoke a strong sense of “being there” at a famous, important and inspiring historical event. See the original story for a second picture and a 2:21 minute video, and for more information see Time’s “The March” website and its earlier announcement, and the websites of two related projects, the “I Am A Man” VR Experience and North Carolina State University’s Virtual Martin Luther King (vMLK) Project. –Matthew]
[Image: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd during the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. DuSable Museum’s forthcoming “The March” will recreate the experience of being there in virtual reality. Credit: Hulton Archive / Getty Images]
A brand new virtual reality exhibit will take you behind the scenes of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech — and it’s launching in Chicago
By Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune
December 18, 2019
In a world premiere virtual reality exhibition, Martin Luther King Jr. is coming to the DuSable Museum.
Beginning Feb. 27, “The March” will bring museum visitors into the crowd and up close with the late civil rights leader at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as he delivers his renowned “I have a dream” speech, the first time the King estate has licensed King’s words and image for a VR experience.
“To be able to bring this experience to the DuSable Museum is just phenomenal,” said Perri Irmer, the museum’s president and CEO. “It’s going to be an experience that allows younger generations to not only understand what really happened and the emotion that was involved and the fear that was involved, but also the triumph that was involved during that time in our history.”
Surrounding the central 10 minutes of virtual reality, which will be experienced via immersive headsets, will be materials that place the King speech in its historical context, both nationally and in Chicago.
Time Studios, which is developing the exhibition, says it will present the most realistic digital rendering of a human ever created, important not only for believability but also because King is such a well-known figure.
“What we needed to understand before we could go to the King estate with a proposal was how realistic of a human could we create, and could we recreate the crowd of 250,000 people,” said Mia Tramz, Time’s editorial director of immersive experiences. “So once we had identified that we could, we went to the King estate and proposed to them this idea of recreating the dream speech in virtual reality as part of a larger experience that allowed you to firsthand participate in the march.”
Tramz said the inspiration for “The March” came from constantly seeing in her company’s offices a life-size photo from the Time-Life archives of King delivering a speech.
The VR scenes adhere to Time journalistic standards, she said, meaning anything visitors see through their headsets will have a basis in documentary imagery or interviews.
Participants will first be among the crowd on Constitution Avenue, before hearing parts of some of the day’s other speeches. But the centerpiece of the experience, Tramz said, is the King speech itself.
“In the last act, we actually take you into more of an abstract scene where you are more one-on-one with Dr. King as he delivers the ‘dream’ portion of the speech, which runs about four-and-a-half minutes long,” Tramz said. “You’re in what I think we could call sort of the VR equivalent of a close-up, where it’s just you and him and you’re getting to witness this most famous speech.”
“We are pleased to be able to work with Time on this VR experience, paving the way to present Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech in a new format. This will be the first time he has been presented through VR and we are hopeful it captivates both younger audiences, and those already very familiar with the speech,” Eric D. Tidwell, managing director and general counsel for Intellectual Properties Management Inc., licensor of the Estate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said in a statement.
Bringing in “The March” is a big bet for the DuSable, which will need extra staff to work the exhibition, and will add Monday and possibly evening hours to handle anticipated demand.
The DuSable Museum of African American History, at 740 E. 56th Place in the South Side Washington Park Neighborhood just west of Hyde Park, is the first independent black history museum in the country, slated to mark its 60th anniversary in 2021.
Irmer hopes the exhibition will draw new attention to her institution as it battles for attention and fundraising dollars in a crowded Chicago museum landscape and is seeking to expand by developing its Daniel Burnham-designed Roundhouse building. Attendance at the museum in 2018 jumped 31% over the previous year, to 146,000, and Irmer said it is on track to rise about 6% in 2019.
The exhibit will require timed entry tickets because of the logistics of moving visitors through a virtual reality experience, which only has the capacity for about 20 guests per hour. DuSable will not charge extra for “The March” beyond its $10 adult ($8 Chicago resident) and $7 student ($5 Chicago) general admission fee. Tickets go on sale Jan. 20, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“One of the reasons why we have formatted this as a museum exhibit was an attempt to democratize it to the extent that we can,” Tramz said. “So you don’t have to buy the computers, you don’t have to buy the headset, you don’t even have to buy an additional ticket.”
Development of “The March” was sponsored by American Family Insurance. Executive producer is JuVee Productions, the company of actors Viola Davis and Julius Tennon.