Indy Case Study
Client & Background:
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum (IMS Museum), located inside the legendary Indy Racetrack in Indiana, welcomes more than 140,000 visitors a year. The museum has over 150 vehicles and more than 55,000 different artifacts but has not been updated in decades. A more modern facelift allowed the museum to leverage technology to give race fans hands-on experiences and restore a beloved attraction worthy of the Racing Capital of the World. Geomedia was asked to join the teams at Balance Studios and BPI to help capture content for the new museum and create interactive experiences to help fans feel like they were part of an Indy Pit Crew.
The Challenge:
This project was the perfect opportunity for Geomedia to showcase their planning, execution skills, and safety experience, in addition to delivering on exceptional production expertise. The Indy 500 is seen as a sacred event. Drivers are celebrities and their teams have garages that are off-limits to most. More than 350,000 race fans come to watch cars that can reach speeds of over 230 mph as they fly around the track 500 times trying to win the coveted race.
You can only hope the weather for an event like this is perfect (spoiler, it wasn’t) as rain adds an extra layer of complexity. Forget the fact that you have a full production crew spread out around the track, cars flying past at 200 mph, and your team glued to eyepieces—unaware of everything else happening around them.
For 500 laps and three hours of filming, the Geomedia team would need to choreograph positions, down the the second, to fulfill an ambitious shotlist – with no second takes.
Objectives:
To bring the race to life, a splinter unit delved behind the scenes—interviewing drivers and their teams preparation to reveal the passion, pressure, and preparation fueling every lap
Meanwhile, there was a massive coordinated effort with multiple videographers and photographers across the track to capture the actual Indy 500 race to ensure the team had the content needed to create the interactive displays.
Work began as the race ended as Geomedia leveraged the hours of 4K and 8K footage with post production support that ultimately resolved in highlight videos, 3D animated CGI interactives, and overall storytelling around the race.
Our 3D imagery and interactive development paved the way for visitors to fully engage in all the museum has to offer – creating memories and experiences that would have them return year after year.
Solutions:
Months of planning for every scenario paid off. Geomedia earned the trust of drivers who shared their stories and gave access to their garages in an unprecedented way. More than 12 Sony Burano, FX6 and A7Siii cameras plus a drone were assigned (and safely) positioned around the track on race day. An organized team made the best of resetting after a massive thunderstorm rolled through the area delaying the race.
The shoot was a massive success and next was the months of cataloguing footage and images, rendering animation to create immersive attractions.
“Starting Line Experience”, an exhibit that has guests enter a room decorated to look like it’s right in the middle of the speedway. Guests can take a seat beside real racecars that are all lined up and watch a video simulating the commencement of the Indy 500 race.
“In the Race” features a racing simulator that lets guests experience the thrill and the high-octane action of racing in the Indy 500.
“Pit-Stop Challenge” lets guests simulate the experience of working on a Pit Crew and servicing a vehicle as fast as they can so they can get their car back on the track to continue to race.
Results:
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum opened to great fanfare in April of 2025 and has broken all first-year attendance records with fans young and old commenting about the new experiences that bring them closer to their beloved sport.
