Our Micro Cameos in Showtime's "Billions" Season 6

In May of 2021, we produced a rather large model of New York City's Central Park and the blocks immediately surrounding it for Season 6 of Showtime's "Billions".

The model appeared briefly in episodes 4 and 9 of Season 6.  Six feet wide and eighteen feet long, It included a representation of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 2005 "The Gates" installation (required by a Season 6 plot detail) and thousands of stylized trees.   

With a bit less than a month for design, production, packaging and delivery, this was another challenging project.

To speed production, the model was divided into 108 one-foot squares and printed in parallel on 30 printers. 

Producing larger models like this under time pressure always requires balancing the reductions in print time that come from breaking up a model into more parts that can be produced in parallel with the increases in manual assembly time required afterward. The sweet spot is different for every project.

A dramatic red glow over Central Park, courtesy of emergency exit lighting. All those little shadows in the park are being cast by thousands of trees and bright orange Gates.

We produced the model in six three-foot by six-foot sections, each of which was fastened into its own, custom crate.

Crate heights varied by section, with the long sides of the tallest section crates designed to be removable.

A few frames from the model's appearance in Episode 4 of Season 6...

...And from Episode 9:

In this last frame, Paul Giamatti exits, helping to convey the impressive scale of the model...