Visitor Center Film
Washington Crossing Historic Park
Washington Crossing Historic Park turned to Wide Awake Films to create a new Visitor Center film in time for the 250th anniversary of George Washington’s 1776 Crossing of the Delaware River.
This project was a perfect one for the Wide Awake Films team. It called upon all of our skills and experience to create an exciting film that was gritty, authentic, informative, and entirely uplifting. We worked closely with the Washington Crossing Historic Park team, leading living history actors, expert advisors, and the best partners in the business to create the kind of realistic, epic footage that makes films, like this one, so much more impactful for today’s viewers. Washington Crossing will present this film in its updated Visitor Center, which welcomes hundreds of thousands of people from across the nation and the world each year.
An Epic Film for an Epic Moment
George Washington’s 1776 Crossing of the Delaware River and the subsequent Battle of Trenton were fought in miserable winter conditions, during a period of great deprivation. Wide Awake Films worked with leading living history actors and experts to create scenes that bring that difficult period to the screen. Gritty, real, authentic…. and much of it shot near the place where these events happened. In addition, Wide Awake Films was able to draw from its extensive stock footage library to add additional scenes that added depth and coverage to this epic production.
Live Action Recreations
In addition to leveraging our great collection of stock footage from this historic period, Wide Awake Films also planned and filmed one of the most remarkable living history shoots in our company’s history. In true winter conditions, we captured top living history actors in action, including footage of soldiers rowing a Durham boat across an icy river. No AI, all real. Real snow, cinematic gold.
Jennifer Martin, Executive Director, Washington Crossing Historic Park
“Working with Wide Awake Films on the Battle of Sullivan’s Island project was an extraordinary collaboration. Their team brought history to life with a creative vision that honors both the gravity and the spirit of the events that unfolded there. Through thoughtful storytelling and immersive design, they helped illuminate South Carolina’s pivotal role in America’s fight for independence—making this history accessible, compelling, and deeply human.”
Animated Maps
As with so many of our historical productions, Wide Awake Films’ animation team generated ‘animated maps’ of the Trenton-Princeton Campaign of 1776. Using these maps, we worked with Washington Crossing’s experts and historical maps to produce accurate, informative, and visually impactful geographic displays that supported the narrative.
Animation and 3D Work
This project for Washington Crossing Historic Park also called on our skills as expert animators and creators of 3D visualizations of historic topics. Our team worked to generate 3D models of historic Durham boats, replicated boats upon the icy river, and created authentic scenes of ferry flats being loaded along a snowy riverbank.
A Great Project Requires a Great Team
The 250th Anniversary