HBO’s “Carrie’s Immersive Dreamscape” Activation
For Carrie’s Immersive Dreamscape, I served as the Director and Creative Director for this immersive activation. While at Framestore Immersive, my team and I worked with HBO and designed a stunning fashion-focused experience to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sex and the City universe and promote the second season of And Just Like That.
The activation took guests on a mesmerizing four-minute journey through a 40-foot mirrored hallway, surrounded by 10-foot-tall screens displaying breathtaking, dreamlike montages. These curated sequences highlighted iconic fashion moments from each season, showcasing the show's profound influence on both the fashion industry and pop culture.
The experience received critical acclaim and was the recipient of 2 X Clio Awards as well as a Webby Award which I am very proud of.
Our task was to curate the most iconic fashion moments from the show, selecting scenes where both the style and storytelling were at their most impactful. Here are some standout examples of those unforgettable moments:
The creative brief was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Sex and the City, honoring its six-season legacy alongside its reboot, And Just Like That, while generating excitement for AJLT Season 2. HBO embraced the idea of centering the experience around fashion, given its integral role in the show’s cultural impact.
Our team spent about three months in creative development, initially exploring a vastly different concept—an interactive real-time VFX experience. However, two months into development, Sarah Jessica Parker signed on as Executive Producer and opted for a more design-driven, passive experience. This shift was a defining moment for me, as it allowed me to showcase my versatility as a Creative Director. I seamlessly transitioned into a Design Director role, leading the creation of the visual and auditory elements that would bring this new vision to life.
The core concept was to design an experience that immersed guests in a journey through the show’s most iconic fashion moments, seamlessly tied to the pivotal narratives and emotions they represented. Sarah Jessica Parker loved the idea of making this journey feel dreamlike, so I developed three distinct visual approaches to bring that vision to life.
The approach chosen was utilizing both 3D and 2D stylized floral elements.
I collaborated with our storyboard artist to explore the integration of flowers as both transitional and graphical elements.
HBO's brief required us to efficiently guide approximately 3,000 guests through the activation over four days. Our calculations determined that each visitor’s journey from entry to exit needed to be completed within four minutes.
Given the selected space in SoHo and its spatial constraints, we designed a 40-foot corridor. To reflect the eight combined seasons of Sex and the City and And Just Like That, we structured the corridor with four screens on each side, arranged diagonally for optimal visual engagement.
During creative development, we recognized the importance of incorporating a selfie-friendly element for fans. This required both temporal and spatial integration into the experience, leading to the introduction of mirrors strategically placed throughout the corridor, positioned between each screen pairing.
Utilizing previsualization was essential, particularly with the ability to implement ray tracing, allowing us to accurately anticipate how the space would appear with the full integration of mirrors before construction. Unreal Engine, leveraging path tracing, proved to be an invaluable tool in this process, providing a highly realistic and detailed representation of the final environment.
I had the privilege of collaborating with an exceptional team of 2D designers and animators, whose artistry brought the project to life, alongside incredibly talented 3D Houdini artists who crafted breathtaking visual elements with remarkable detail and sophistication.
We dedicated significant time to meticulously curating fashion from the show, carefully selecting floral arrangements and color palettes that harmonized with and enhanced each featured piece Here are some pairings…
We ideated this beautiful elements we dubbed “the Beacon”. It was a transitional element of flowers that would reveal on and loop in the upcoming blank LED screen to act as a summoner for the guest to move on to the next season. Below are some WIPS of this element along with a WIP design of the idle animation that consistently looped in all of the screens when not playing hero content…
Soundscapes were a crucial element of the activation. We collaborated with the incredible Antfood to craft sound effects and music beds that remained authentic to the SATC universe while introducing a dreamlike quality. Leveraging spatial audio, we enhanced the beacon animation to guide guests toward the next season’s screen while incorporating the sounds of paparazzi photography—subtly reminding guests that the mirrors were the perfect spot for Instagram-worthy selfies with friends.
As the Realtime VFX Supervisor, my role was to define the tech stack and delivery approach for the experience. We chose Disguise media servers and collaborated with our system integration partners at Thought Process. Over several weeks, we conducted extensive testing at their New Jersey warehouse, focusing on color accuracy, banding, and composition to resolve any issues before the show build-out.
Setup took two days leading up to opening night. My role was to oversee the entire execution, including the art department, screen content, tech integration, and sound. During this time, we continuously tweaked and tested the guest journey until every detail was perfected and all bugs were ironed out.
It was super rewarding on opening night to see the 4 starlets, original writer, and costume designers walk through this corridor of beautiful memories that paid homage to all the show’s contributors. So nice to see Molly Rogers especially!
