10/22/2026
This shoot started 1.2 billion years ago.
Most of our projects start with an idea or a script, written months before anyone picks up a camera.
This one started with a rock: Azul Macaubas quartzite, quarried in Brazil.
The artist Alicja Kwade turned it into “Solid Sky,” a 24-ton striated blue sphere that now hangs in the lobby of 550 Madison Avenue on a set of enormous steel chains. It weighs about as much as a CAT 324 excavator.
Before we shot a single frame of “The Rebirth of an Icon,” our documentary short about the building’s renovation, co-founder Andrew Bordwin was already on site for something else entirely.
“It arrived in a crate. We were there when it came off the truck.”
The whole story is on our blog: https://milkboxny.com/bts/rebirth-of-an-icon-building-the-frame-then-taking-it-away