How do you take some of the most recognizable moments in Hollywood history and make audiences experience them in an entirely new way?
For the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ Marilyn Monroe: A Hollywood Icon exhibition, Balance Studios created an approximately 18-minute immersive media experience celebrating Marilyn Monroe’s work as a performer. Designed specifically for the Museum’s unique Rotunda, the experience brings together iconic film moments, musical performances, motion graphics and spatial sound across a dramatic 300-degree projection canvas.
"Balance Studios was an outstanding partner in the creation of the Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon rotunda montage, Marilyn Monroe: On the Big Screen, at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. From start to finish, their team was professional, responsive, and genuinely committed to the success of the project.
Throughout the production process, they took the work seriously and were consistently accommodating of our needs, priorities, and evolving requirements. Their collaborative approach made them a pleasure to work with, and we always felt confident that the project was in capable hands.
This project presented a unique creative and technical challenge, as the montage was designed for a distinctive triptych exhibition space that required content to work cohesively across a 300-degree curved screen while maintaining visual clarity, narrative flow, and audience engagement. Balance Studios embraced this complexity with skill and creativity, thoughtfully crafting an experience that fully leveraged the possibilities of the format.
The finished montage is wonderful. It fully immerses visitors in the captivating, dynamic, and unforgettable performances that made Marilyn Monroe an enduring screen icon. Balance Studios approached the material with great care and attention to detail, honoring both Marilyn's extraordinary body of work and her legacy. Their thoughtful craftsmanship shines through in every aspect of the installation, creating a powerful and engaging experience for our audiences.
We are deeply grateful for their partnership and would enthusiastically recommend Balance Studios to any organization seeking a creative team that combines technical excellence, artistic sensitivity, and exceptional client service." ~ Bert Thomas, Associate Director, Gallery Media
The approximately 18-minute presentation takes visitors through memorable moments from across Monroe’s career, incorporating musical performances and scenes from films including Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot and others.
But the real magic comes from how those moments inhabit the Rotunda.
Marilyn can command the entire panoramic canvas, while imagery, graphics and film moments move throughout the surrounding environment. Motion graphics and carefully crafted transitions connect footage from different films and eras, while spatial audio helps carry the experience beyond the screen.
The Challenge
Marilyn Monroe’s image is instantly recognizable. The challenge was creating something that went beyond simply showing familiar film clips on a very large screen.
The Academy wanted the Rotunda experience to celebrate Monroe’s most iconic performances while also giving visitors an opportunity to appreciate her range and talent as an actor and performer. The experience needed to feel both celebratory and reflective, while taking full advantage of a highly unusual media environment: a 300-degree surrounding projection screen with a 9.1-speaker array.
That meant thinking differently about editing. Every shot, transition, graphic and musical moment had to work not only in time, but across an enormous panoramic canvas.
Our Approach
Balance worked closely with the Academy’s creative and curatorial teams to turn archival film and music into a cohesive immersive experience.
Our team began with storyboarding and visual development, then moved into editing, asset creation, motion graphics, compositing, rendering and sound design. Rather than treating the Rotunda as one oversized movie screen, we approached the entire environment as part of the storytelling, considering where imagery appeared, how it moved through the space and how visitors would experience Monroe’s performances while surrounded by media.
The finished media was produced for an expansive 9120 × 1200-pixel canvas, creating opportunities to juxtapose imagery, extend moments across the room and use the scale of the environment to give familiar footage a completely different presence.
The Result
The finished film transforms the Rotunda into a cinematic canvas—surrounding visitors with Marilyn Monroe’s image, voice, music and performances at a scale that feels entirely new.
By combining archival film with immersive editing, motion design, compositing and spatial sound, Balance helped turn familiar pieces of Hollywood history into an experience created specifically for the museum environment.
It celebrates the Marilyn everyone recognizes while giving visitors the opportunity to spend time with what made her an enduring icon in the first place: her presence, her performances and her talent.