You Are HERE

Sony Pictures has launched a unique interactive experience to promote its upcoming film, Here. By entering your address into You Are Here, you can explore your neighborhood’s history over the last 500 years.

Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, is based on Richard McGuire’s acclaimed graphic novel. The film spans multiple generations, focusing on a single place across time. To deepen audiences' connection to the film’s themes of time, memory, and place, Sony's You Are Here campaign invites users to explore their personal "here" through a customized, immersive neighborhood history powered by Google Maps.

By entering the address of your current or childhood home into You Are Here, you can discover more about your area’s past. The site, using Google Maps, presents your home with photorealistic 3D renderings and street views. Accompanying these map views are links that let users explore their neighborhood's history from 500, 300, 100, and 50 years ago.

While the concept of an interactive map that reveals the history of any U.S. location is fantastic, You Are Here ultimately feels like little more than marketing fluff. The application provides just enough historical content to pique your interest but ultimately offers very limited information. At the very least, it could have included links to more in-depth resources elsewhere on the web. Hopefully the actual film offers a more rewarding experience than the map.