Content designed for an unprecedented architectural display.
Case Studies / 01 · Sphere Entertainment
Building a New Medium
From possibility to practice.
When I joined Sphere in August 2023, the Exosphere had been displaying permanent public content for only about a month. The team had already spent more than a year pioneering the medium, yet its creative language, workflows, and best practices were still evolving in real time.
Executive impact at a glance
Why this work mattered.
Creative leadership and production systems for a newly launched medium: signature celestial work, shared review and mapping methods, and two pending patent applications within a broader tools contribution.
Role
Lead ExoSphere Content Creator
Associated with ExosPreviewer and ExosMapper, two examples of a broader tools contribution.
Creative contributions across uncredited Sphere productions and signature public moments.
Tools and practices designed to outlast a single delivery.
My contribution
I lead Exosphere projects, develop looks, and solve production problems across creative and technical work. ExosPreviewer and ExosMapper are two examples among many tools I have built or helped deliver.
01
Finding the real problem
The medium had launched.
The practice was still being invented.
The team had already proven that compelling content could live on the world's largest LED canvas. The next challenge was making that success more repeatable: learning what translated from preview to reality, shortening feedback loops, removing recurring friction, and raising consistency as the work became more ambitious.
I brought more than two decades of experience from visual effects, animation, immersive design, and emerging technology. My role was not to claim the beginning of the story. It was to help accelerate the next chapter.
Redefining an icon
The Moon,
reimagined.
The shared practice came into focus through the work itself. The Moon shows how scientific source material, reconstruction, and creative judgment came together at architectural scale.
The Exosphere launched with a Moon. My assignment was to make it unforgettable.
From scientific observation to emotional experience
The goal was not simply a more accurate Moon. It was a Moon people believed.
I used Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery as the foundation, then shaped lighting, contrast, motion, and surface readability for the Exosphere. Scientific accuracy guided the work; creative license made it legible and believable at architectural scale.
The finished piece replaced the earlier Moon in rotation, became a new flagship experience, and grew into a partnership with NASA around the Moon and future space-related opportunities.
01
Scientific foundation
LROC imageryHigh-resolution lunar observations established the geological source and surface character.
02
Digital reconstruction
Surface + displacementThe source data became a controllable CG Moon with dimensional surface detail.
03
Creative interpretation
Lighting + scale + readabilityLighting, contrast, composition, and motion were tuned for believability at architectural scale.
04
The flagship Moon
Exosphere experienceThe finished piece turned scientific source material into a cinematic public experience.
Helping a new medium mature
The work was broader than any one tool.
I contributed insights and optimizations across the creative process: observing where momentum slowed, proposing practical changes, strengthening reviews, improving communication, and building lightweight systems only when they unlocked meaningful leverage.
Enabling the team
Tools that made creative decisions easier.
I built or helped deliver many production tools and workflows. ExosPreviewer and ExosMapper are two focused examples: earlier validation, less repetitive setup, and more room for creative judgment. Both have pending patent applications.
Preview
ExosPreviewer
Earlier validation of scale, framing, camera behavior, and multiple synchronized views.
Mapping
ExosMapper
Built to solve NHL Draft’s perspective-mapping challenge.
I built the tool that became ExosMapper to make mapping more flexible and reduce repetitive setup. It is now the subject of a pending patent application.
Conceptual capability diagrams; no proprietary interfaces shown. Select either diagram to enlarge.
Creative direction in practice
The right visual idea mattered as much as the right tool.
Shared reviews connected creative, engineering, production, and operations. Concrete visual decisions gave those conversations a useful starting point.
Google Data
I helped develop kaleidoscope concepts to make a data center visually compelling. That exploration became the basis of the creative direction; I also led delivery and master compositing.
Celestial work
Each planet began with a scientific deep dive. I carried learning from earlier pieces forward while finding a different visual solution for the next world.
Selected evidence · Creative judgment at scale
Different briefs. Specific creative decisions.
Selected examples of the work and my contribution. The Moon above shows the complete path from scientific source to public experience.
Project lead
Artemis II NASA collaboration bringing the Moon, Orion, and mission flight path to the Exosphere. I led the piece, balancing scientific source material with the clarity needed for a public architectural display.
Look development · Series leadership
Leaded Light I developed the original piece’s believable see-through look, then led further work in the series. The creative problem was making the surface feel transparent rather than simply placing an image on it.
Project lead · Celestial look development
The Sun I balanced scientific reference with creative direction, including how solar flares should look and move around a 360-degree canvas.Further selected work
Project lead
Eye Roller Led work that used the spherical architecture as a character, making the building itself part of the visual idea.Creative contribution · Tool development
NHL Draft 2024 The perspective mapping needed for this production prompted me to build the tool that became ExosMapper. A specific delivery challenge became a reusable mapping capability, now the subject of a pending patent application.For more projects and individual craft contributions, explore MyAnimator ↗ .
What I carried forward
Creative quality rises when every discipline can see the same problem and learn from the same result.
The lasting contribution is a team that can carry creative intent through preview, review, mapping, and delivery with less reinvention.