Title: Dodgers Dugout
Client: LA Dodgers Stadium
Agency: Space150

Project Overview

The LA Dodgers Stadium reached out for help in creating an immersive interactive experience as part of their new concourse renovations. The goal was to engage fans in a unique way, bringing them closer to their favorite players while enhancing their game-day experience.

Guest Experience

During breaks in the game, fans could visit the Dugout interactive photo booth and interact with some of the Dodgers' star players. Guests registered at a nearby kiosk, where they selected their favorite players. Once in the Dugout, they sat in a realistic dugout replica and saw themselves projected onto a replica of the iconic hexagonal Dodgers scoreboard. After a brief wait, their chosen players entered the scene, greeted the guests, and posed for photos on the bench alongside them. Each session was captured and instantly transformed into a digital keepsake for the guests to take home.

Application Development

I developed the dugout application primarily using Unreal Engine. The application leveraged a cinema quality camera that fed directly into the application. The camera feed was then layered into a 3D scene of the stadium and then was overlaid with chroma keyed videos of the players.

Based on initial prototypes we filmed over 20 players in various poses and entrances into the scene. The system needed to handle all the combinations of selected players and would automatically choose the correct variation of the players entrance to make a compelling experience.

System Design

The installation had to be robust and fully automated. I devised a system that would allow stadium employees to manage the entire system from their device without needing physical access. The system consisted of two identical tech stacks that were managed by a custom watchdog system that would automatically flip to the backup system in less than a second if the primary application became unresponsive.

Later, on into the project we found out that the only back of house area was under the bleachers. The bleachers were power washed after each game which meant the computer equipment needed to be weatherproof and climate controlled.