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Future of TV Steven Soderbergh IMAX

Cinemax's app for 'The Knick' lets you explore NYC in the early 1900s

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By Natan Edelsburg, SVP

October 28, 2015 | 3 min read

Cinemax has struck gold with, "The Knick," Steven Soderbergh's dark drama starring Clive Owen that just began its second season. The masterpiece, which airs at 10pm ET on Fridays, centers around the Knickerbocker hospital in Manhattan during the turn of the 20th century. The show has bits of Nurse Jackie, Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey and Mad Men all sewn together with Soderbergh's creative storytelling.

The Knick app

The Knick app

If you're a fan of the show, you know that one of the most engaging parts is uncovering what New York City was really like in the year 1900 just as cars and modern medicine were about to hit society. To bring this world into the palms of every fan Cinemex recently launched the "Anatomy of NYC" app (available on iOS and Android).

The app "will allow users to interact with points of interest on the map, displaying an image associated with the selected location as well as background information on its historical relevance to New York City, the changing socio-cultural climate, and The Knick," according to the announcement. Found Remote interviewed Lucinda Martinez, the SVP of Multicultural Marketing for HBO (Cinemax's parent) about the app.

Found Remote: Why did you build this app?

Lucinda Martinez: New York City in the 1900s was a time of significant change: new technologies were being explored with electricity and the subway; new cultures and customs were being learned as an influx of immigrants were arriving in the country; society's roles for women were evolving and the foundation for the civil rights movement was being laid. So much of this is explored in the series and resonates with what is going on currently in society, that a mobile app felt like the right medium to explore so much information in an accessible way.

FR: What partners did you work with?

LM: All the research was done in-house.

FR: What are the goals with it?

LM: The goal for building this app was to offer fans a different way of engaging with the central themes of the series, while providing some historical context and connecting 1900s NYC to modern day via a mobile map experience.

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Future of TV Steven Soderbergh IMAX

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