At Flow Video, we created a piece for an exhibit that ran at the Detroit Historical Museum, in April through July of 2024, for the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan.

Hastings Street was Detroit’s first Jewish neighborhood, existing in the 1880s to 1930s. Later, by the 1950s, it became a predominately Black neighborhood, called the Black Bottom.

We were tasked with creating a touchsreen experience, re-creating old black and white photographs into 3D. Below are some comparisons between the black and white photos we used, and the 3D models created. These were not intended to be perfect 1:1 recreations, but representative of the time period. Thanks to the advice and feedback from JHSMI’s experts, these are what we came up with.

For opening night, we also adapted this project into a VR experience.

I created all the 3D modeling in Cinema4D (as well as sourcing a few stock assets), and handled the programing for both the touchscreen and VR versions in Unreal Engine 5 over the course of a couple months. We utilized a Windows computer and Oculus Quest Link to share the interactive experience.

The video above is a screen recording of the touchscreen version. The videos below include an Opening Night recap edited by Elise Ritschdorff, and a recording of the physical touchscreen.  

Creative Direction and Sound: Steve Pankotai