who done it

This is a Robbery

Client

Barnicle Bros

We teamed up with our partners at Barnicle Brothers to help visualize how 13 priceless paintings went missing, where they could have gone, and explore who could be responsible through maps, 3D models, and suspect boards in the hit Netflix series, This is a Robbery.

This is a Robbery

Visualizing The Heist

Series Graphics

Series Graphics

To design the series graphics package for this docuseries, we had to hit several different angles of the heist and in the process utilized a number of techniques, including some that were brand new. First, to establish an informed perspective of how the crime went down, we created suspect boards and map animations of the areas surrounding the museum to create a visual narrative to supplement the story.

Potential suspects are introduced right away in the series, starting with the security guard on duty the night of the robbery who was either oblivious or complicit in the events that led to the art theft.

Robbery blueprints

To this day, the Gardner museum leaves the frames of the stolen paintings empty as an homage to the missing art. This gave us a great opportunity to graphically composit the art back in the frames and recreate what the museum might look like with the art in place. To achieve this effectively, creative director John Leamy invented a totally new process to get the look just right:

“The technique for the painting CUs involved a number of steps. First the paintings were resized to the maximum we could achieve without loss of fidelity/resolution. Then, I did research and found some firms that do hi-res scanning and examination of old master painting surfaces and their layered and cracked topology. Using some of this data, I was able to create what are called normal maps that give a 3D surface dimension. Using the resized painting and these maps, the paintings were re-built in 3D, allowing for the placement of lighting that would reveal these surface details in a way that was convincing. Subtle play of light movement as well as camera drift was the final step. An interesting problem to solve, and I learned quite a bit about impasto (layered paint on a surface) and the decay of varnishes.”

  • John Leamy, Creative Director

To create suspect boards that evolved with the telling of the story and revelations of new information, we worked intimately with the director and producers to ensure the information we were delivering was accurate and easy to understand visually. Similarly, the map animations had to be clear enough to take a viewer who has likely never been in the museum and place them at the scene in a way they can understand the layout of the museum and the path the thieves might have taken.

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Thanks again to our partners at Barnicle Brothers, we had a blast working on the series and congratulations on its success!

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