A Fully Produced Immersive History Experience for Boise Trolley Tours
Boise Trolley Tours has been sharing local stories for years, guiding riders through historic neighborhoods, iconic landmarks, and hidden corners of the Treasure Valley. When they set out to elevate their History Tour with a more immersive storytelling experience, Shewtonio Productions stepped in to build the entire experience from the ground up.
From the opening vignette to the full narrated journey across Boise, Shewtonio Productions produced every piece of content that now plays along the tour route. Cinematic visuals, curated historical photos, custom voiceovers, and character driven narration all combine to transform a traditional trolley ride into a mobile documentary experience. Our goal was to make history feel alive in motion and make every rider feel part of the story.
The Challenge
A moving trolley comes with unique hurdles.
Drivers are not just chauffeurs. They are navigating traffic, watching the road, and managing people. Asking them to juggle complex media controls was not realistic.
The tour also does not run on fixed museum timing. Boise traffic changes. Pedestrians cross. Lights turn red. The trolley may arrive at each landmark faster or slower than planned depending on the day.
That meant a simple autoplay loop would never work.
If the film got ahead of the route or fell behind, guests would lose the thread of the story.
We needed a system that:
• Was simple enough for drivers to operate while driving
• Was flexible to traffic variations
• Kept each video aligned with each landmark
• And still delivered a seamless viewing experience
The Solution
Instead of building one long continuous video, we produced the tour as a sequence of standalone segments.
Each chapter of Boise history lives in its own individual clip and they are ordered in a playlist that follows the tour route. We designed it so drivers only need to tap one key spacebar to start the next segment the moment they reach a landmark.
The result is:
• No menus
• No searching
• No fumbling
• No risk of the story drifting out of sync with the location
A single keystroke keeps the experience right on time with real street conditions, letting drivers stay focused on the road while guests stay immersed in the story.
Final Result
Today, when riders board the trolley, they are greeted by a cinematic vignette that sets the mood before the tour even gets rolling. From there, historical stories unfold piece by piece exactly where they happened in real life.
What used to feel like a narrated bus ride now feels like a guided journey through time.
Guests stay engaged. Drivers stay safe. And Boise history gets shared in a fresh, modern way.
For Shewtonio Productions, this project represents what we do best.
Not just filming and editing but engineering an experience.
Creating the story, building the tools to deliver it, and solving problems so audiences can enjoy something unforgettable.
Category:
EXPERIENTIAL
Service:
VIDEO PRODUCTION
Client:
BOISE TROLLEY TOURS
Date: