Coke Music 24hr Session with Maroon 5

Hellicar & Lewis

On March 23rd, Coke Music brought Maroon 5 to a London recording studio with a challenge - write and record a brand new track, inspired by fans from around the world, in just 24 hours.

The project, conceived by Wieden + Kennedy, was brought to life by Nexus Interactive Arts directors Hellicar & Lewis. With the use of innovative technology and a live stream broadcast platform, they enabled fans to inspire the creation of the song, 139 countries participated to this unique experience in the world of live music.

Back to Work

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Credits:

  • Client: Coca-Cola Music
  • Production Company: Nexus Interactive Arts
  • Interactive Directors: Hellicar & Lewis
  • Executive Producer: Cedric Gairard
  • Lead Producer: Tim Dillon
  • Interactive Producer: Ulla Winkler
  • Production Manager: Alistair Prattern
  • Kinect developer: Marek Bereza
  • OF Developers: Todd Vanderlin, Chris Sugru,

    Josh Nimoy, Joshua Noble, James George

  • 3D Technical Director: Mark Davies
  • Broadcast Graphics: Evan Boehm
  • Fabrication: Shape Construction
  • Audio Visual: CT London
  • Sound design: Kaiser Sound Studios
  • Presenter: Kim Taylor Bennett
  • Broadcast Director: Tom Leach
  • Broadcast Producer: Trine Pillay
  • Director of Photography: Catherine Derry
  • Vision Mixer: Nilesh Bell-Gorsia
  • Camera Systems: Shawn Bonkowski
  • Editing (Nexus): David Slade
  • Editing (On site): Cut & Run / TVC
  • Floor Managers: Anna Heighway,

    Siobhan O'Donna, Emily Asher

  • Agency: Wieden & Kennedy
  • Executive Interactive Creative Director: Iain Tait
  • Head of Creative Technology: Igor Clark
  • Executive Producer: Rob Steiner
  • Account Director: Cheryl Rogers
  • Interactive Producer: Kate Leo
  • Interactive Producer: Dom Felton
  • Live Video Stream: Streaming Tank
  • Website Production: Sapient
  • Event Agency: Lexis PR
  • Music Agency: Frukt Communications

Design & Art Direction

  • Broadcast Design: Nexus Interactive Arts designed and animated a visual identity for the event, the series of brand idents portray the participation of the audience through bubbles and behaviours. The broadcast design was used across all channels maximising Coke Music brand awareness.

  • Sculpture Design: The Lightweight custom-made 4x5 meter structure, made from 8 C&C machined pieces, was installed in the venue in under 3 hours. The "low polygon" look of the surface provided a clear visual contrast to the surrounding musical space. The surface was complete with a High-Contrast projection finish for optimum lighting.

  • Interactive Design: Hellicar & Lewis designed an interactive system inviting spontaneous and genuine conversation. All messages were contained in a visual spectacle of floating content bubbles. The system, with the use of four interactive modes, was able to retain audience interest and be flexible with the unpredictability of the live event.

Production Approach

  • Interactive System: Hellicar & Lewis combined a projected interface and a gesture based navigation system to enable the band to control the content in a playful way. The production approach gathered a world class team of Openframeworks programmers as well as the use of latest 3D camera systems (utlilising Kinect).

  • Technology: A custom built system including projection, Kinect cameras and server based components. The tailor made camera system included 6 HD cameras on remote control pan/tilt heads filtering into a multi channel HD mixing solution. Global streaming was achieved via an Akamai CDN with multiple streams, including Website, iPhone and iPad.

  • Social Media: We used Twitter to broadcast to the widest audience and as the publishing tool to supply content to the cocacola.com/music website. Twitter was used because of its real time capabilities and worldwide coverage. All content was moderated by the on site social media team prior to shared with the band.

Event Documentation

  • Nexus Interactive Arts was tasked with filming every moment - streaming live through the coke music website and editing more than 30 films posted to the official YouTube channel.

  • Over 20 b-roll packages were made available online for media during the 24 hours. The main content films were also used to produce the official music video for the track when released on iTunes within three days after the event.

  • Additionally, PR and media syndication (led by Lexis) amplified the popularity and media buzz of the event across 139 countries.