Virtual | Mixed Reality (VR) (MR)

  • Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s VR “CARNE y ARENA” Awarded Special Oscar

    “CARNE y ARENA (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible)” Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s virtual reality installation, “CARNE y ARENA (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible),” has been given a Special Award – an Oscar statuette – in recognition of a visionary and powerful experience in storytelling. “The Governors of the Academy are proud to present a special Oscar to ‘CARNE y ARENA,’ in which Alejandro Iñárritu and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have opened for us new doors of cinematic perception,” said Academy President John Bailey. “‘CARNE y ARENA,’ Iñárritu’s multimedia art and cinema experience, is a deeply emotional and physically immersive venture into the world of migrants crossing the desert of the American southwest in early dawn light. More than even a creative breakthrough in the still emerging form of virtual reality, it viscerally connects us to the hot-button political and social realities of the U.S.-Mexico border.” “CARNE y ARENA,” currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Fondazione Prada in Milan, and Tlatelolco Cultural Center in Mexico City, is a collaboration between Iñárritu, Lubezki, producer Mary Parent, Legendary Entertainment, Fondazione Prada, ILMxLAB, and Emerson Collective. Katie Calhoon executive produced. In recognition of this achievement, an Oscar will be presented to “CARNE y ARENA” at the Academy’s 9th Annual Governors Awards on Saturday, November 11, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.

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  • New York Film Festival FREE Convergence Section will Feature VR, Augmented Reality Projects

    [caption id="attachment_24118" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]Reality Jockeys Reality Jockeys[/caption] The sixth edition of the highly anticipated FREE Convergence section of the 2017 New York Film Festival delves into the world of immersive storytelling via interactive experiences, featuring virtual reality, augmented reality, live labs and demos, and more. The Convergence section will include three Virtual Reality horror experiences from Dark Corner Studios, highlighted by the World Premiere of their terrifying project Night Night; Sanctuaries of Silence, which takes viewers virtually through Olympic National Park in search of the quietest place in North America; Reality Jockeys, where audience members collaborate with the creators to form their own immersive, surreal virtual worlds; Virtual Virtual Reality, which imagines the purpose of humans in a future run by machines; and Look But With Love, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s VR documentary series exploring the lives of Pakistani citizens. Complementing these experiential works is an exciting partnership with Lucasfilm to publicly present never-before-seen technology showcasing the future of Virtual Production, which harnesses the power of VR as a tool for filmmakers to compose shots, create virtual storyboards, and more. Its uses within the film community could be boundless, and creators of the technology will be on hand to participate in a conversation about its potential applications, followed by a demonstration allowing audiences to experience the system firsthand. As part of this, Convergence will also host a special workshop with handpicked industry creators, filmmakers, and cinematographers, allowing them to test out how it could be applied to their daily work. Other highlights of Convergence include the return of Gamescape, an exploration of narrative games and the artists who make them—which this year focuses on the comeback of Full Motion Video with a selection of new, playable work from a number of creators; and De-Escalation Room, a live lab with Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab, where audiences will be allowed to take a peek into their process and actively participate in creating the group’s latest project, which tackles the negative behavior of social media. Convergence will take place Friday, September 29, 3-6pm, and Saturday and Sunday, September 30 and October 1, from 12-6pm in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. All Convergence events are free and open to the public!

    2017 New York Film Festival Convergence

    VIRTUAL REALITY PROJECTS

    Dark Corner VR: Night Night, Mule, & Catatonic The team at Dark Corner Studios have made a name for themselves on 360-degree virtual reality projects that explore the boundaries of horror cinema by placing audiences in the center of thrilling—and often terrifying—scenarios. Convergence will feature the world premiere of their latest piece Night Night as well Dark Corner’s Mule and Catatonic. Night Night Guy Shelmerdine, USA, 7m World Premiere Night Night takes you from the safety of your childhood bed to a clown filled nightmare dreamscape. A Dark Corner Studios, MPC, and Unit Sofa production. Mule Guy Shelmerdine, USA, 6m A thrilling, emotional journey through the last moments of a man’s life. Choose your ending—do you want to be buried or cremated? A Dark Corner Studios production. Catatonic Guy Shelmerdine, USA, 5m This pioneering horror experience places you in the POV of a new patient as you are welcomed into a sinister psychiatric hospital. A Dark Corner Studios & Here Be Dragons production.

    Look But With Love – Episodes 1 & 2 Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, USA, 2017 Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and presented by WITHIN, this documentary series follows extraordinary people in Pakistan actively working to change their communities through causes they care deeply about. From a doctor in the slums of Karachi who has dedicated his life to providing free emergency care to children, to a courageous community of women in Nowshera, the epicenter of the terrorist insurgency, Look But With Love explores the lives of Pakistan’s most fearless and passionate citizens one story at a time. Audiences are invited to experience the first two episodes of this exciting project, “A Story of Women” and “A Story of Dance.” The documentary is produced by SOC Films and Here Be Dragons, and will be available on the WITHIN app. Reality Jockeys Virtual Reality Experience Vizor, Finland, 2017 At parties, DJs control the mood by selecting the music, and VJs set the ambience by displaying visuals on screens. With VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift, the experience is more than that, as everything around you can be changed on the fly. Finnish visual artists Fthr and Lintu specialize in creating surreal worlds in real time while interacting with the audience. Using custom software (Vizor Patches) and a variety of materials, they guide you through a trip that starts from nothing and ends in a living, breathing virtual world. Each participant walks away with a personalized piece that is saved on the web and can be relived at home. Sanctuaries of Silence Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, USA, 2017 Virtual Reality Project One of the defining characteristics of virtual reality is its fully immersive nature: we gear up, covering our eyes and ears in order to briefly live another person’s story. In Loften and Vaughan-Lee’s piece, the story that we’re asked to experience is that of silence itself, as told through the unique perspective of acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. “Sanctuaries of Silence” invites its audience to join Hempton as he travels through Olympic National Park, one of the quietest places in North America, searching for a place not impacted by noise pollution—which is fast becoming as threatened as any endangered species. A New York Times Op-Docs production. Virtual Virtual Reality Tender Claws, USA, 2017 The brainchild of Tender Claws, the collective behind PRY (2015), Virtual Virtual Reality ponders humanity’s purpose in a future where our jobs have been co-opted by machines. Will we be little more than relics, reminders…even pets? Activitude, a Virtual Labor System, is here to help, creating an A.I. manager that’s a perfect match for your meaningfulness quotient. It’s Inception meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets The Wizard of Oz, only there is not just one wizard but a network of wizards living inside wizards, splitting themselves open like nesting dolls, pulling back infinite tiny curtains to reveal a churning multitude of unstable realities. VR and the Future of Virtual Production by Lucasfilm Demo and Talk Rachel Rose, Jose Perez and Nick Rasmussen From the depths of earth’s oceans to galaxies far, far away, VR allows us to be anyone, go anywhere, and see anything. Lucasfilm and its visual effects division, Industrial Light & Magic, have harnessed the power of this medium to create a new Virtual Production toolset, allowing filmmakers to build and scout a virtual set, manipulate props, puppeteer characters and vehicles, even compose shots to create virtual storyboards. It’s a game changing application that is easy to learn, allowing storytellers to focus on the elements that blend together to form great stories. The creators of the toolset will participate in a conversation about the development of the platform and its potential to impact the filmmaking process, followed on Saturday by a public demonstration that will allow audiences to experience the system first hand.

    EXPERIENCES AND TALKS

    Arilyn Augmented Reality Installation With Augmented Reality, which superimposes images, video, and other content onto our flesh and bone world, the line between the virtual and the real can blur to the point of being indistinguishable—with little more than a cell phone. Helsinki-based Arylin has created a number of installations and activations that leverage the power of AR to great effect: paintings that come to life and everyday objects that spawn interactive videos. A number of these pieces will be on display throughout the festival venues—simply download the Arilyn app to experience AR for yourself. Gamescape: The Revenge of Full Motion Video It’s 1983. You find yourself in an arcade in the ’burbs. Among the future classics—Galaga, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong—you find something different: Sega’s Astron Belt or Cinematronics’ Dragon’s Lair, games that eschewed pixelated sprites for video and vivid animation. Full Motion Video games were movies you could play—to a point: the technical execution left something to be desired. Games were unreliable, systems crashed, and FMV all but disappeared. But FMV is making a comeback as creators breathe new life into this 35-year-old form. The 2017 edition of Gamescape celebrates some of the best new FMV work and looks back on titles both famous and infamous from the golden age of the arcade. GameScape is co-curated by Clara Fernandez-Vara, of the NYU Game Lab. Featuring: Her Story (Sam Barlow, UK, 2015) Mind Trapped (Claire Carre, USA, 2017) Loop Record (Nicolai Troshinsky, Spain, 2017) PRY (Tender Claws, 2015) Cibele (Nina Freeman, 2016) Last Night (Dejobaan Games, 2018) De-Escalation Room: Live Lab with Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab Talk and Rapid Prototyping Session Presented by Lance Weiler Founded in 2014, Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab was created to explore ways of telling stories that incorporate technology and disciplines from across the humanities. A champion of iterative, collaborative design, the DSL will pull back the curtain on its creative process during this special session, and invite the festival audience to become participants in developing the group’s next project, the De-Escalation Room. A collaboration with SAFELab, the De-Escalation Room aims to create an immersive storytelling space that reckons with the negative behaviors of social media, forcing its players to work together to defuse an otherwise dangerous situation.

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  • WE WHO REMAIN Wins Seattle International Film Festival’s First 360/VR Award

    Seattle International Film Festival 2017 360/VR Award The Seattle International Film Festival has presented the first SIFF 360/VR Award, recognizing excellence in virtual reality filmmaking to We Who Remain by Trevor Snapp and Sam Wolson. The winner will receive $500 and the opportunity for the awarded film to be distributed globally through Pixvana’s SPIN Studio platform. This year, the jury’s decision was guided by three criteria: story, impact, and technical prowess. Jury members included Julia Fryett (Director of Marketing & Community Development, Pixvana), Kate Becker (Director, Seattle Office of Film + Music) and Sarah Wilke (Executive Director, SIFF). In a statement the jury said, “We are pleased to present the SIFF 360/VR Award, sponsored by Pixvana, to We Who Remain, a film that intimately brings the viewer inside the heart of a forgotten conflict in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. Fusing elegant storytelling with sharp technical skill, the film weaves together narratives from a student, rebel soldier, journalist, and mother who have chosen to remain and relentlessly struggle to bring peace back to their land.” We Who Remain is produced by Emblematic Group and directed by Trevor Snapp and Sam Wolson.

    360/VR Films Presented at SIFF 2017

    After Solitary by Emblematic Group / Cassandra Herrman and Lauren Mucciolo Behind the Fence by Lindsay Branham and Jonathan Olinger Eagle Bone by Tracy Rector The Giant by New Media Ltd. / Mike Anderson, Ryan Dickle, and Abigail Horton Journey VR by Eugene Capon Love! A Virtual Reality Dance Story by Jess Kantor The Ministry of Time by Future Lighthouse / Nicolás Alcalá Potato Dreams by Mechanical Dreams / Wes Hurley (Work-in-Progress) Say Our Name by State Media / Stina Hamlin Silent Resonance by Pixvana / Scott Squires Syzygy: Paul Taylor Dance Company by Andrew Asnes We Who Remain by Emblematic Group / Trevor Snapp and Sam Wolson All twelve films included in the 360/VR Storytelling Pop-Up at the 2017 Seattle International Film Festival will be available for viewing at the SIFF Lounge.

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  • Sundance Institute Selects 11 Artists with VR and Emerging Media Storytelling Projects for New Frontier Story Lab

    [caption id="attachment_13653" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]Sundance Institute Sundance Institute[/caption] Sundance Institute has selected six projects for the annual New Frontier Story Lab, which supports independent artists working at the cutting-edge convergence of film, art, media, live performance and technology. The New Frontier Story Lab is a week-long intensive that empowers creatives with individualized story sessions, conversations about key artistic, design and technology issues and case study presentations from experts in diverse related disciplines. Past participants include Roger Ross Williams, Yung Jake, Chris Milk, Hasan Minhaj, Tommy Pallotta, Navid and Vassiliki Khonsari, Karim Ben Khelifa, Tracy Fullerton and Yasmin Elayat. The Lab takes place May 17-22 at the Sundance Resort in Utah, under the guidance of Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Founding Director Michelle Satter and Kamal Sinclair, Director of New Frontier Lab Programs. Sinclair said, “Our New Frontier Story Lab brings accomplished Fellows together to experiment with their projects as they continue to break new ground and challenge the ever-evolving medium. Interactions at the Lab empower these emerging new media creators, explore different styles of storytelling and new ways of engaging audiences through experiential art.”

    Meet the creative teams and projects selected for the 2017 Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab:

    Belle of the Ball Rosie Haber and Silas Howard Belle of the Ball is an interactive VR experience, blurring the lines between documentary and fiction. Collaboratively created with queer and trans houseless youth in New York City, take the journey they face every day as they turn to the streets for resources, survival, and friendship. As day turns into night, you fall into the arms of your chosen family at an underground drag ball. 3D glitter never looked so good. Silas Howard is an award-winning director and writer for feature and documentary film, music video, web series and television. Howard’s career took off in 2001, when his first feature film, By Hook or By Crook premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, ultimately winning five Best Feature awards across the festival circuit. Recent television credits include Transparent, This Is Us, The Fosters, Faking It and Hudson Valley Ballers. This summer he’ll direct his third feature, A Kid Like Jake, starring Claire Danes, Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer. On June 21, 2017  Showtime will release his latest feature documentary on six trans and gender nonconforming activists, titled More Than T. Rosie Haber is an aesthetically minded writer and director. They took home the audience award at LA Film Festival and the New Orleans Film Festival and were nominated for a 2017 GLAAD award for their digital doc series New Deep South—the third episode of which premiered at 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Haber has also been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a fellow at both Yaddo and MacDowell artist colonies. They are a writer on the upcoming film adaptation of the classic transgender novel Stone Butch Blues. The Incident VR Series (Dinner Party, Eps 1) Charlotte Stoudt and Laura Wexler The Incident is a VR anthology series that immersively dramatizes true-life unexplained mysteries. Inspired by Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, each 10-15 minute episode provides a thrill ride into the supernatural; a gripping emotional story; and an exploration of the often unacknowledged social, psychological, or political tensions that inform the Incident’s central mystery. Episode One, “Dinner Party,” is based on the true story of Betty and Barney Hill, an interracial couple who reported America’s first nationally known UFO abduction incident in 1961. Laura Wexler is a writer and producer whose writing credits include Pandora’s Box, in development at Amazon Studios; the nonfiction book, Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America (Scribner); and journalism pieces published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Producing credits include The Stoop Storytelling Series, a live show and podcast featuring “ordinary” people telling the extraordinary true tales of their lives. Charlotte Stoudt is a writer-producer currently on Showtime’s Homeland. She has worked extensively as a dramaturg, developing new plays at venues including The Kennedy Center, Baltimore’s Center Stage, the Ojai Playwrights Festival and BAM. Holding a doctorate from Oxford University, she has written on the arts for the Village Voice, Variety, Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. T3511 Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Toshiaki Ozawa T3511 is a post-genomic true love story of a biohacker’s growing relationship to an anonymous donor. Told through an immersive living sculptural installation, T3511 draws the viewer into an emerging world of ubiquitous genomic sequencing, biobanking, and commodification of human biological materials. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a transdisciplinary artist and educator who is interested in art as research and critical practice. She has shown work internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum, Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Bienniale, the New Museum, and PS1 MOMA. Her work has been widely discussed in the media, from the New York Times and the BBC to TED and Wired. She is an Assistant Professor of Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a 2016 Creative Capital award grantee in the area of Emerging Fields. Toshiaki Ozawa’s history at Sundance includes lighting and cinematography for films Angela (1995), I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), Buffalo 66 (1998), America Psycho (2000), Closer (2001),  On_Line (2002), Personal Velocity (2002), Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (2006), Patti Smith: Dream of Life (2008). A 2004 effort with Vincent Gallo and Chloe Sevigny, The Brown Bunny, simultaneously made Cahiers du Cinema’s yearly top 10 and was named worst film in Cannes’s history by Roger Ebert. Ozawa’s 2015 collaboration with Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog, was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. Past artist and photographer collaborators include: Matthew Barney, Mike and Doug Starn, Richard Avedon, Albert Watson, Bruce Weber, Mario Testino, Leandro Katz, Isaac Julien, Mario Sorrenti, Terry Richardson, Enrique Badulescu, Anthony Cotsifas, Rankin, Santiago & Mauricio, Barnaby Roper, Toni Dove, Luke DuBois, and Marina Zurkow. Counterpoint Griffin Frazen In a time when technology is creating extraordinary extensions of human capabilities, the boundaries of private space have never been more vulnerable to penetration. Counterpoint is a narrative virtual reality film about a military drone operator who develops a perversely intimate relationship with his target. Griffin Frazen is a designer and director. He holds a master’s degree in architectural design from Princeton University. He won an Emmy in 2015 for outstanding main title design for Manhattan. Over the last three years, Frazen has worked as an independent director and designer for a range of mediums, at a variety of scales, including music videos, concerts, web and interactive projects. Currently, he is working with Here Be Dragons and SITU Research. A Ritual of Exile: Blood Speaks Poulomi Basu and Debra Anderson A Ritual of Exile: Blood Speaks is a transmedia activism and WebVR project that investigates the causes and consequences of normalized violence against women perpetrated under the guise of tradition. Focused on the ritual of Chaupadi in Nepal, viewers experience the brutal exile of women forced to live in isolation during their menstrual periods and following childbirth. Poulomi Basu is a storyteller, transmedia artist and women’s rights activist, whose work documents the role of women in isolated communities and conflict zones. Poulomi’s ongoing work, A Ritual Of Exile, won the FotoEvidence Book Award 2017, Magnum Emergency Fund 2016, and was a W.Eugene Smith Finalist 2016. Her book, Centralia, is currently shortlisted for the MACK First Book Award and will be displayed in Photo London 2017. Additionally the Magnum Foundation also awarded her the What Works 2016 Human Right Fellow grant and she was nominee for the FOAM Paul Huff award in 2017 and 2015. She won the Firecracker 2nd place in 2015 for Mothers of ISIS Fighters which is due for an exhibition on Poetics of War and Secrecy in Oxford 2017. Debra Anderson is a VR producer, director and entrepreneur who made her Cinematic VR debut in 2015 with In\Formation, a documentary in VR about VR featuring pioneers in the medium. She is currently co-creating and producing A Ritual of Exile: Blood Speaks, a WebVR storyworld that investigates normalized violence against women through the lens of Chaupadi, an illegal religious practice in Nepal. Debra is Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Datavized, a software company building a 3D publishing platform for collaborative creation and distribution of immersive content on the web. Anderson founded and organizes the Women in VR Meetup in New York, designed and instructs the first Digital Development: WebVR course at Parsons School of Design, and has produced WebVR works for The National Film Board of Canada and Mozilla Corporation. Inside a Mind at War Sutu and Charles Henden “When you sign up for the military you know that you might witness death, but you never receive any training to learn how to cope with it,” explained American-Iraq War Veteran Scott England. This immersive virtual reality project explores the banality and horrors of war and England’s battle with mental illness through hand-drawn illustrations of places based on his memories. Sutu is an Australian artist exploring the intersection of creativity, technological innovation and social justice.  Over the last decade, he pioneered new technologies for telling stories in new ways. Through his work with Big hART, Australia’s leading arts and social Justice organization, he has directed community development projects including Neomad – the Gold Ledger, an award-winning comic book that is currently optioned to become animated series. He is the founder of EyeJack, an Augmented Reality art publishing company. Sutu has been commissioned to create immersive VR experiences for Doctor Strange and Google. His work has won Webby, FWA, ATOM, Ledger and JMAF awards and he was a nominee for the 2015 Eisner and Future of Storytelling Awards. Charles Henden is a creative engineer with a passion for bringing interactive worlds to life. With a career stretching from licensed movie titles on the Nintendo Wii to real-time sports simulations on the PlayStation 4, nothing has excited Charles more than his current work with the emerging potential of VR, AR and Mixed Reality platforms. Amelia Winger-Bearskin (Creative Observer) Amelia Winger-Bearskin will attend this year’s Lab as Creative Observer; she’ll reflect on the learnings generated over the week and share those reflections through Sundance Institute’s website, newsletter and social platforms. Winger-Bearskin is an artist, creative director and organizer who develops cultural communities at the intersection of art, technology and advocacy. She founded and directed the DBRS Innovation Labs, co-founded VRSalon.org and the Stupid Hackathon, and her project credits include Imagination Codes and #Drowning.  

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  • Tribeca 2017: Hillary Clinton Makes a Surprise Appearance as a Panelist for Kathryn Bigelow’s VR Short Premiere

    Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday to participate in the world premiere of Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s virtual reality short, The Protectors: Walk in the Rangers’ Shoes. National Geographic’s The Protectors: Walk in the Ranger’s Shoes, is a documentary short shot in Virtual Reality that chronicles a day in the life of a ranger in Garamba National Park, managed by African Parks, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These rangers are often the last line of defense in a race against extinction as poachers continue to slaughter elephants for their ivory tusks. The rangers face constant danger and even death at the service of these sentient, noble creatures and can therefore truly be called the unsung heroes in this race against time. Clinton was an unannounced panelist, alongside directors Bigelow and Imraan Ismail, African Parks’ Andrea Heydlauf, and National Geographic’s Rachel Webber. In her remarks, Clinton spoke about her work to save elephants from poachers slaughtering them for their ivory tusks, saying “I’m proud we passed a near total ban of ivory and proud that the Chinese made a very important announcement last year on the ivory trade. Large mammals like elephants have a large role to play both in reality and in our imaginations. China had been the number one market, but the US is the second biggest market for illegal ivory.” Clinton also referenced march Earth Day and the marches taking place earlier in New York City, Washington DC, other US cities and around the world, saying, ‘It is Earth Day and we are marching on behalf of science, and part of science is understanding the intricate relationships we share with those on this planet.” image via Twitter

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  • THE LAST GOODBYE, First Holocaust Survivor Testimony in Room-Scale VR to World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival

    THE LAST GOODBYE Billed as the first-ever Holocaust survivor testimony in room-scale VR, THE LAST GOODBYE will world premiere on Friday, April 21 at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. In The Last Goodbye, powerful personal testimony of the Holocaust is preserved for the first time in poignant, room-scale VR, as survivor Pinchas Gutter takes audiences with him on his final visit to Majdanek, the Nazi German concentration and extermination camp where his parents and sister were murdered during World War II. “Today when I see suffering of genocide victims and refugees, I feel their pain. I want my testimony to speak to the world to help avoid that pain. If my testimony can be a warning to the world, it would make my sharing of my own pain worthwhile,” Gutter said. The photoreal experience presents an entirely new way of capturing truth for the future, encouraging viewers to explore the spaces depicted. USC Shoah Foundation will archive Gutter’s testimony in support of their mission to use testimony as a compelling voice for education and action. “Just as USC Shoah Foundation forged new frontiers by collecting the world’s largest searchable archive of video testimony from genocide survivors, so too are we proud to be a part of this pioneering project with HERE BE DRAGONS, MPC VR and OTOY Inc.,” USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director, Stephen Smith said. “Every generation needs to bear witness to these atrocities, but our tools for learning and preservation change. We felt that doing the first Holocaust survivor testimony in roomscale VR, for education and preservation purposes, would engage our audience in understanding that the Nazi concentration camp system was highly developed where the SS authorities could kill targeted groups of real or perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. The consequences of such human behavior continue, and the best way to understand it and prevent it from happening again it is to gaze an unflinching eye upon it.” In late 2016, the team traveled with Gutter to Poland to capture hours of 3D video and tens of thousands of photos on site, to create an experience that enables viewers to virtually walk with Gutter as he revisits the railway car, gas chamber, shower room and barracks of Majdanek. The groundbreaking collaboration of the industry’s top talent integrated a capture pipeline created by OTOY with HERE BE DRAGONS’ 3D video testimony, and brought to life with dozens of photogrammetry artists and engineers from MPC. Tim Dillon, Head of VR & Immersive Content at MPC said, “Our ambition has been to create entirely an entirely new grammar for what’s possible within a narrative and room scale mix, in a documentary format. We’ve faithfully recreated the rooms of the Majdanek camp so you can inhabit them with Pinchas, you can feel his story by being there with him, eye to eye.” “It was important that we go beyond spherical 360 video for this particular piece and allow viewers to explore Majdanek with real agency,” said Patrick Milling Smith, president and co-founder, HERE BE DRAGONS. “This freedom of movement contributes to an even more powerful sense of presence while heightening the emotional impact.” To transport the viewers to Majdanek, the experience will be screened within a custom installation created by acclaimed scenic and production designer, David Korins. “The ultimate goal of the experience was to build-in a contemplative pulse that people could naturally attach to their own personal landscape; to connect, not only with the atrocity of concentration camps, but grasp how inhumane man can be against man when hate is paramount and emerge as a more enlightened individual.” said Korins. THE LAST GOODBYE was co-created by award-winning filmmaker Gabo Arora and Ari Palitz, produced by Stephen Smith, Executive Director of USC Shoah Foundation, and co-produced by USC Shoah Foundation, HERE BE DRAGONS, MPC VR and OTOY. An original soundtrack was helmed by audio director Dražen Bošnjak of Q Department. Spatial sound powered by Mach1. 3D stereo stitching by 3D paint\FX.

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  • Virtual Reality (VR) Returns to Tribeca Film Festival – Presidents, Puppets, Prisons, Poachers, and More Featured in Tribeca Immersive

    [caption id="attachment_21275" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]The People’s House The People’s House[/caption] With 29 virtual reality (VR) and innovative exhibitions, the Tribeca Immersive program at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival will feature thought-provoking experiences and installations from top creators and emerging artists, including 20 world premieres. This year, Storyscapes and Virtual Arcade exhibitions will run concurrently throughout the Festival at the Tribeca Festival Hub, located at 50 Varick Street. The 16th annual Tribeca Film Festival takes place April 19 to 30, 2017. Established VR creators and studios debuting new pieces include: Marshmallow Laser Feast, Gabo Arora, Baobab Studios, Oculus Story Studios, Penrose Studios, and Within. Both Storyscapes and Virtual Arcade open to the public on Friday, April 21. The 5th Storyscapes showcase will tackle topics including an exploration of autobiography in VR, a hunger to connect with the world around us, recounting life in a concentration camp, perception and identity, and the secret lives of strangers. The Virtual Arcade, which debuted at the 2016 Festival, returns with a range of experiences from animated epics to post-apocalyptic landscapes.

    2017 Tribeca Immersive

    STORYSCAPES

    Blackout (World Premiere) Project Creators: Scatter:​ ​Alexander Porter, Yasmin Elayat, James George, Mei-Ling Wong Key Collaborators: Hannah Jayanti Blackout is an ongoing participatory, volumetric VR project gathering the reflections of real people living in today’s tense political climate through the lens of the New York subway. By creating a rotating, ‘crowd-sourced’ cast, Blackout addresses the impossible task of representing the extraordinary breadth of human experience in New York City. Each viewing of Blackout is different, surrounding you with a unique group of straphangers taking you to the places their minds go between destinations. Draw Me Close (World Premiere) Project Creator: Jordan Tannahill Canadian playwright-director Jordan Tannahill partners with the National Theatre and the National Film Board of Canada to create Draw Me Close, a vivid memoir about his relationship with his mother in the wake of her terminal cancer diagnosis. Collapsing the worlds of live performance and animation to create an unforgettable encounter between a mother and her son, Draw Me Close tells the story of their past and what is to be their future. This special presentation is a world premiere of the first chapter of Draw Me Close. The Island of the Colorblind (International Premiere) Project Creator: Sanne de Wilde Key Collaborators: IDFA DocLab, de Brakke Grond What does color mean to those who can’t see it? In the late eighteenth century a catastrophic typhoon swept over Pingelap, a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean. One of the few survivors carried a rare gene that causes achromatopsia, a condition that includes the inability to distinguish colors. Over generations, the islanders ended up perceiving their world in black and white. The Island of the Colorblind invites the audience to explore this shift in perception through de Wilde’s photography and an interactive installation The Last Goodbye (World Premiere) Project Creators: Gabo Arora, Ari Palitz Key Collaborators: Stephen Smith, Here Be Dragons, MPC, Otoy, LightShed and USC Shoah Foundation In July of 2016, Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter toured the Majdanek Concentration Camp in what he vowed would be his final visit. By marrying a stereo video capture of Pinchas within a photoreal roomscale experience, The Last Goodbye reaches profound levels of immersion in service of the first ever VR testimony that will be archived and preserved. The importance of listening to Pinchas’ story is more important now than ever and this is also a beautiful testament to love, compassion and the human spirit. NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism (New York Premiere) Project Creators: Hyphen-Labs – Ashley Baccus-Clark, Carmen Aguilar y Wedge, Ece Tankal, Nitzan Bartov Imagined futures and contemporary realities come together in NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism, a multidisciplinary exploration of women of color’s experience through the lens of technology, society and culture. The project includes speculative products, immersive experiences and neuroscientific research. In the VR experience, discover the neurocosmetology lab, a kind of beauty salon, where instead of ordinary braids, customers are fitted with transcranial electrodes that allow access to a surreal alternate world. TREEHUGGER: WAWONA (North American Premiere) Project Creator: Marshmallow Laser Feast Key Collaborators: Natan Sinigaglia, Mileece I’Anson, Cinekid Foundation, STRP, Southbank Centre and Migrations TREEHUGGER : WAWONA is an interactive installation that combines today’s cultural hunger for beautiful immersive experiences with art, science, data, environmentalism and technology. Centered on a vast sculpture of a giant redwood tree, the viewer dons a VR headset, places their head into the tree’s knot and is transported into its secret inner world. The longer someone hugs the tree, the deeper they drift into treetime: a hidden dimension that lies just beyond the limit of our senses.

    VIRTUAL ARCADE

    Alteration (World Premiere) – France Project Creator: Jérôme Blanquet Key Collaborators: James Sénade, Yann Apéry, Antoine Cayrol, Baptiste Chesnais, Pierre Zandrowicz, Jean-françois Blanquet This is a poetic trip into the future: Alexandro volunteers for an experiment carried out to study dreams. He can’t imagine that he will be subjected to the intrusion of Elsa, a form of Artificial Intelligence who aims to digitize his subconscious in order to feed off it. She’s a vampire…bit by megabit. Apex (World Premiere) – The Netherlands/USA Project Creator: Arjan van Meerten Key Collaborator: Wevr The stunning new experience from the brilliant imagination of 3D artist and musician Arjan van Meerten, APEX is the highly anticipated follow up to the creator’s acclaimed and award-winning experience, Surge. Step into a surrealistic and darkly beautiful vision of a fiery urban apocalypse; one populated by skeletal ghost animals, abstract shapes, maniacal smiling giants and, of course, you. Arden’s Wake (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Eugene Chung Key Collaborators: Jimmy Maidens The sea levels have risen, and a young woman and her father live in a lighthouse perched atop the ocean’s surface. When he goes missing, she descends deep into the post-apocalyptic waters previously forbidden to her, embarking on a thrilling journey of family history and self-discovery. From the creators of the magnificent Allumette (Tribeca 2016), Arden’s Wake continues the elegant evolution of storytelling from Penrose Studios. Auto (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: J. Steven Schardt In the near future, self-driving taxi services employ “safety drivers,” a transitional measure of comfort for passengers. On his first day, Musay, an Ethiopian immigrant with 40 years of driving experience, picks up a couple habituated to the service.   Not content — not comfortable — with merely sitting, Musay insists on driving, instigating a series of events with substantial consequences. Bebylon – Battle Royale (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Cory Strassburger, Ikrima Elhassan Key Collaborators: Alex Underhill, Giray Ozil, Jennifer Chavarria From the minds at Kite + Lightning, this comedic arena battle experience blends a satirical narrative with revolutionary head-to-head VR gaming. Set in a futuristic status conscious society, players compete as crude, narcissistic, immortal babies for fame and fortune. Wielding weaponized status symbols such as gold-plated selfie sticks and big-fisted battle buggies, you can be the “beby” of your most shameless rock star fantasy. Becoming Homeless: A Human Experience (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Stanford University Key Collaborators: Elise Ogle, Tobin Asher, Jeremy Bailenson Everyone’s story is unique, but the human experience is collective. In this interactive first-person VR experience, you will face the adversity of living without a home. From Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Becoming Homeless aims to change the way some may think and act about the epidemic of homelessness that exists globally. Broken Night (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Alon Benari, Tal Zubalsky, Alex Vlack Key Collaborators: Eko, Hidden Content, Real Motion VFX Broken Night explores a woman’s (Emily Mortimer) unreliable narrative of an intense trauma. Speaking to a detective, her confused memories unfold: returning home in the midst of a fight with her husband (Alessandro Nivola), they encounter an intruder. The viewer is placed in a position of choosing which memories to follow, sharing her confusion before coming to the startling truth. Extravaganza (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Ethan Shaftel Extravaganza mixes 3D animation and live-action footage in a bitingly funny satire. You are a puppet trapped in a stunningly offensive puppet show, performing for a clueless executive (Paul Scheer). Confronted with his glaringly obvious blind spots and prejudices, Extravaganza asks: can technology change society for the better, or does it just magnify our worst traits in new ways? Hallelujah (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Zach Richter, Bobby Halvorson, Eames Kolar Key Collaborators: Chrissy Szczupak, Orin Green, Jess Engel, ECCO VR, International Orange Chorale of SF, Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin Hallelujah is a revolutionary virtual reality music performance that reimagines Leonard Cohen’s most well-known song. It is the world’s first VR music experience to provide an uncompromised sense of presence with six degrees of freedom using Lytro Immerge technology. A Within Original. Life of Us (New York Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin, Pharrell Williams Life of Us is a shared VR journey from Within that tells the complete story of the evolution of life on earth. Created by Chris Milk & Aaron Koblin, with original music by Pharrell Williams. The Other Dakar (World Premiere) – Senegal Project Creator: Selly Raby Kane Key Collaborators: Electric South, Goethe Institut A little girl receives a message and discovers the hidden face of Dakar. An homage to Senegalese mythology and a stunningly visual debut from Dakar-based artist and designer Selly Raby Kane, this magical 360 film transports viewers to a place where past and future meet and where artists are the beating heart of the city. The People’s House (World Premiere) – Canada Project Creators: Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël (Felix & Paul Studios) The People’s House takes you on a historic visit of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House. Through the transportive power of VR, The Obamas take you on an intimate journey inside the West Wing, Executive and Private Residences, reflecting on their time there, and recounting the building’s profound history since its creation over two centuries ago. The Possible: Hoverboard (Season Finale) – USA Project Creator: David Gelb If you could have just one superpower, what would it be? For Alexandru Duru, the answer is obvious: the ability to fly. That’s why he founded Omni Hoverboards, which has transformed hoverboard technology from dream to reality. In “Hoverboard,” you’ll follow his team as they build and test a prototype—then experience the freedom of flight for yourself. The Protectors: Walk in The Ranger’s Shoes (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Kathryn Bigelow, Imraan Ismail From Academy Award-winning director Katheryn Bigelow and acclaimed VR creator Imraan Ismail, The Protectors chronicles a day in the life of the rangers in Garamba National Park. These rangers are often the last line of defense in a race against the poachers intent on slaughtering elephants for their ivory tusks. The rangers face constant danger and even death, at the service of these sentient, noble creatures. Rainbow Crow (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Eric Darnell, Maureen Fan, Larry Cutler, Claudia Southmartin, Kane Lee Key Collaborators: Michael Hutchinson, Nathaniel Dawson From the Director of Madagascar, Invasion! (Tribeca 2016), and Asteroids! comes Baobab Studio’s latest visionary VR animation. The carefree forest animals imagine spring will last forever. However, winter comes and the animals soon realize that their lives are in danger. What they need is a hero; what they need is Rainbow Crow. Step inside a moving, soon-to-be classic, musical experience for all ages. Remember: Remember (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Kevin Cornish If our minds are a map of every memory we’ve had, what do we become if those memories are stripped away? In this cinematic, room-scale VR experience set against the backdrop of an alien invasion, you are a prisoner being brainwashed by a lost love. As you cycle through your memories, the two of you begin to question what is real and what is imagined. Sergeant James (North American Premiere) – France Project Creator: Alexandre Perez Key Collaborators: Avi Amar It’s Leo’s bedtime, but he thinks there is something under his bed. Is it just the harmless imagination of a young boy, or something more sinister? Is it…you? From director Alexandre Perez, Sergeant James recaptures the innocence of youth, the wonder of the unknown, and the folly of fear, while hinting at a far creepier possibility. Step to the Line (New York Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Ricardo Laganaro Key Collaborators: Defy Ventures/ Oculus VR for Good Shot entirely on location in a California maximum security prison, Step to the Line is a documentary that aims to provoke a transformation in the spectator’s eyes about prisoners, the prison system, and even themselves. In this project, we see how release from incarceration can be just as jarring as intake and how parallel lives diverge when someone serves time. Sword of Baahubali (New York Premiere) – India Project Creator: SS Rajamouli, Arka Mediaworks Key Collaborators: Radeon Technologies Group & CNCPT LA Two friends find themselves on a battlefield, as the armies of Bhalladeva and Shivudu are set to charge into battle. As they watch the action unfold, they are unexpectedly asked to participate. Their mission – to find a legendary warrior’s sword and deliver it to him, ensuring victory.  Based on S.S. Rajamouli’s World of Baahubali, India’s biggest movie franchise. Talking With Ghosts (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Ric Carrasquillo, Roman Muradov, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Maria Yi Key Collaborators:  Wesley Allsbrook, Matthew Chadwick, Sebastien Chevrel, Tauni Oxborrow, Saschka Unseld. Talking With Ghosts is the next wave of emerging art in the field of Illustrative VR. Following the success of Dear Angelica, Oculus Story Studio decided to enhance its painting app Quill with comic-like storytelling functionality, enabling anyone to tell their own illustrative stories in VR. The resulting works are called Quill Stories and Talking With Ghosts is a compilation of the very first of their kind, entirely painted and told in VR by four remarkable artists. Made in collaboration with Oculus Story Studios. Testimony (World Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Zohar Kfir Key Collaborators: Selena Pinnell Recent events have dramatically shifted the conversation around sexual abuse in the United States. Despite persistent victim-shaming and the discounting of their experiences, abuse survivors are increasingly coming forward, empowering one another to become agents of change. Testimony is an interactive documentary presenting the narrative accounts of sexual abuse survivors, using virtual reality to engage viewers with an intimate, motion-driven interface. Tree (New York Premiere) – USA Project Creator: Milica Zec, Winslow Porter Key Collaborators: Aleksandar Protic, Jakob Kudsk Steensen See and feel what it is like to become a tree in this haptically enhanced VR experience. With your arms as the branches and your body as the trunk, you experience the growth from a seedling to its fullest form, taking on its role in the majestic rain forest and witnessing its fate firsthand. Unrest (World Premiere) – France/USA Project Creator: Arnaud Colinart, Jennifer Brea, Amaury La Burthe Key Collaborators: Diana Barrett (Fledgling Fund), Lindsey Dryden (Little By Little Films) From the award-winning team behind Notes On Blindness, Unrest allows audiences to access the world of chronic illness and disability in an exploratory, user-led experience. Based on the documentary film of the same name, the project draws upon sensory meditations on pain, fatigue, and neurosensory symptoms, and allows the public a visceral personal experience of a hard-to-understand condition.

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