FILE A51-01
WEB RECOVERED
Engaging, entertaining, interactive web experiences. From Flash design to streaming video and virtual-reality walkthroughs — tomorrow’s technology, today.
// “tomorrow’s technology” has since become “the early 2000s”
AREA 51STUDIOS
“Our new website launches SOON!” — this site, 2003–2026
It finally has.
Twenty-three years is still “soon” if you never specify the units. Welcome to the declassified archive of Chicago’s top-secret design firm.
▼ SCROLL TO DECLASSIFY ▼
Case File A51-00 — The Firm
| SUBJECT | Area 51 Studios |
|---|---|
| BASE OF OPERATIONS | Chicago, Illinois |
| ACTIVE | early 2000s — the site last changed in 2009, then held its breath |
| CURRENT STATUS | absorbed into Presto Productions |
| CLEARANCE | you have it now |
Area 51 Studios was a top-secret design firm dedicated to providing the entertainment industry with breathtaking visuals.
Its experience ran from live concerts and stage performance to live webcasting and web design; from on-set video and computer display graphics to traditional and digital visual effects; from film and video post-production to nonlinear digital editing; and from CD-ROM, DVD and video to interactive multimedia.
A firm understanding of the burgeoning digital arenas — and a solid foundation in the ways of traditional filmmaking, storytelling and presentation. Roles ranged from hands-on production to ongoing or one-time consultation.
Case Files A51-01 through A51-05 — Services
Nothing here is what it first appears.
Nine navigation buttons. Five service pages. Two of them ever contained anything. All descriptions below are preserved from the original files, typos healed.
FILE A51-02
VIDEO RECOVERED
A complete video resource from pre-production to final delivery. Shot on anything from DVCAM to high-definition. In-house duplication, ten copies to a thousand. Delivered on VHS, PAL, CD-ROM, DVD or web video. Specialty: motion graphics and visual effects.
// house style, verbatim: “MTV meets Sci-Fi Channel”
FILE A51-03
DESIGN SEALED
This page read “under construction” from 2003 until the end.
FILE A51-04
FX SEALED
No records recovered. Some effects were too special to document.
FILE A51-05
DVD SEALED
File never completed. The format retired before the page did.
Field Operations — The Work
OPERATION: BLIND DATE
Video eye candy, 30 feet tall and 60 feet wide.
Area 51 Studios designed concert visuals for the Miller Genuine Draft Blind Date Tour — surprise concerts in Las Vegas, Chicago and Dublin — billed as the first high-definition project shot and edited entirely in Chicago.
The graphics were projected on a 30-by-60-foot screen with high-definition projectors, cut in a ten-million-dollar post suite.
CONFIRMED ASSOCIATES: RollingStone.com · Miller Genuine Draft · Harrah’s
Webcast & concert visual operations — subjects observed
- Metallica
- Aerosmith
- Britney Spears
- Kid Rock
- Moby
- Incubus
- Deftones
- The Offspring
- 311
- Cypress Hill
- Papa Roach
- Everclear
- Goldfinger
- Eve 6
- Live
- Everlast
- Orgy
- Disturbed
- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
- Christina Aguilera
- Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Stone Temple Pilots
- Depeche Mode
- Pet Shop Boys
- Dave Matthews Band
- Mötley Crüe
- Counting Crows
- Limp Bizkit
- Blink-182
- Third Eye Blind
- Barenaked Ladies
- Silverchair
- Hole
- Veruca Salt
- Vertical Horizon
- Filter
- Tonic
- Lit
- The Flys
- 98 Degrees
Recovered Artifacts
Evidence locker
// the complete original site — every page, every pixel — is preserved in the studio archive.
Transmissions
The studio went dark years ago. The mailbox in the desert still works.
Messages to the old addresses are still received and still read.
Transmit a messageArea 51 Studios is part of Presto Productions.