Free Larry Hoover Concert IMAX
The Context
Putting a multi-year feud to rest, Kanye West and Drake came together for a once-in-a-generation immersive experience dedicated to raising awareness for prison and sentencing reform.
Although united in their cause, Drake and Kanye West stand in markedly different circles in the broader cultural arena. The difficulty laid in bringing together willing but disparate creative worlds, in order to create an experience that was completely novel to viewers, and worth of the larger-than-life circumstances which was documenting.
The Approach
Working directly with Ye's team, show creatives, plus Amazon and IMAX stakeholders, MATTE oversaw the creative production of the film capture—from pre-visualizing the shot list in Unreal Engine, to hiring the key personnel, and overseeing post-production. MATTE led creative production for the IMAX livestream of the Kanye West and Drake “Free Larry Hoover” concert, as well as production for the Amazon after-film.
The Outcome
Thousands of fans gathered for the show at the Coliseum in LA, which had been transformed into a futurist, celestial dreamscape - the entire collaborative concert was the first concert ever to be live-streamed in IMAX reaching a massive global audience. The concert was also broadcast on the Amazon Music app and the Amazon Music Twitch channel. At the time of its release, the concert was the most watched livestream in the history of the channel with over 334,000 concurrent viewers.
“It felt like a dream. It felt surreal. It was something i always wanted to do, being onstage with my idol as he’s running through one of the best catalogs in music, period.” —Drake
