This year’s Raindance Film Festival in London showcased an amazing selection of immersive stories. Here’s what got Tech Trends really excited:

Raindance is a very well-established and well-respected independent film festival, but it isn’t a particularly flashy one. Yet that lack of over-the-top glamour actually suits it very well. There’s a certain tongue-in-cheek, down-to-earth British vibe here (right down to its playfully deprecating name) that makes it feel really accessible, so that people can feel comfortable coming in and discovering content they wouldn’t have come across otherwise.

Raindance is a very well-established and well-respected independent film festival, but it isn’t a particularly flashy one
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And that’s also one of the reasons why VR pieces suit it so well. The festival does a great job of making this all about the stories, and the technology takes a back seat. Just like people in a movie theater aren’t constantly marveling at how a projector works, punters who actually paid to experience the whopping 9 hours of VR content at the festival were after new stories and new experiences. And they got those in spades.

The other reason why this year’s festival has been such a success on the VR front is down to the tireless work of its curator Mária Rakušanová, who has managed to scale this year’s VR showcase in a really impressive way. Whereas last year’s setup still felt a bit like a tag-on, the 2018 edition received well over 500 submissions from all over the world, from which they shortlisted 33. In the space of a year, Rakušanová also found that the quality bar had been considerably raised across the board, which was reflected in the fact that the Raindance Gallery of Immersive Stories and Interactive Worlds was entirely sold out over the 3 days when it was open.

Just like people in a movie theater aren’t constantly marveling at how a projector works, punters who actually paid to experience the whopping 9 hours of VR content at the festival were after new stories
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Below are some of the highlights from the Gallery, including various VR category winners for the Raindance awards (3 new categories were also introduced for the first time this year) some of which we’ve previously covered, such as the BBC project Nothing To Be Written which won Best UK experience and 7 Miracles which bagged the Spirit of Raindance: VR Film Of The Festival gong.

Three new VR award categories were introduced
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Raindance Festival this year received well over 500 submissions from all over the world, from which they shortlisted 33
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Transference, which was co-directed by Elijah Wood and produced by his company SpectreVision, was the winner of Best Interactive Narrative Experience award. It’s a psychological thriller placing you face-to-face with a fractured family as you delve into their minds. As you navigate a home filled with secrets you need to collect evidence of the family’s history in order to find out how you can help repair their lives.

Transference, co-directed by Elijah Wood and produced by his company SpectreVision, won Best Interactive Narrative Experience award
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The Apple is a Chinese, Japanese and Korean co-production which won Best Multi-Person Experience award at Raindance
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The Apple is a Chinese, Japanese and Korean co-production which won Best Multi-Person Experience award at Raindance . This is a room-scale (50m2) multi-person VR experience for up to 4 people. You don a Vive Pro headset, equipped with leap-motion sensors for hand tracking, and are also able to communicate with your partner via voice. Together you journey through various stages of life entering new fantasy worlds. Here and there you’re guided by a cute cat that appears out of nowhere and disappears when you jointly arrive to a new destination. Each life stage is represented by distinctive styles of movement that are a metaphor for the human journey from beginning to end.

“The experience has references to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Newton and Gravity (you move up and down various platforms to enter new worlds), and the lead character, The Philosopher, resembles Steve Jobs,” explains Rakušanová, who said it was one of their most popular experiences. “Audience members intuitively held hands during the entire experience, and freely walked around the space.”

My Africa allows you to become an elephant keeper and care for Dudu, an orphaned baby elephant, nursing her back to health.
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My Africa is a project by Conservation International to educate audiences about Reteti, a community run Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya, working to save elephants, reknitting an ancient coexistence between people and wildlife. The VR experience consists of two elements. The first is a 360 film, shot by British cinematographer Chris Campkin, who literally had to battle lions running off with his camera rig during the shoot, as this video shows. The room-scale interactive VR experience created Elliott Round, on the other hand, allows you to become an elephant keeper and care for Dudu, an orphaned baby elephant, nursing her back to health. Dudu was created from thousands of photographs and detailed CGI to look incredibly real. Rakušanová says the experience proved extremely popular with kids and adults alike at the festival, and rates it as the most engaging VR for Social Impact experience she’s seen in 2018.

Madrid Noir (winner of Discovery Award: Best Debut Experience that recognises first-time VR creators) A beautifully animated, fun and playful VR short in which you encounter Manolo, a detective from Madrid, who falls in love with Paquita, an almost painfully cute pug puppy that Rakušanová swears behaves more like a pug than real-life pugs (I have a feeling that she might have a thing for pugs, but then that’s hardly unusual, hence the popularity of the experience).

Madrid Noir is a beautifully animated and playful VR short where you encounter Manolo, a detective from Madrid, who falls in love with a pugpy
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Hotel Zentai This is another piece that explores what can be done with longer-form VR content. Clocking in at 40 minutes long, this 360 film is a surprising mix of comedy and sensuality. For those not familiar with it, Zentai is the practice of having sex without actually having sex – by wearing full body suits while rubbing and hugging one another. The film takes place in the eponymous hotel based in Santiago De Chile, and through music and dance tells four intertwining stories: a mother and daughter recognise each other in a ritual, a man can’t decide what to wear, a coach loses his authority, and two lovers never see each other’s faces. Ambitious and intriguing, this really shows how VR enables people to tell different stories in a different way. Well worth checking out.

VR enables people to tell different stories in a different way
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Inside Tumumaque is A room-scale animated VR documentary featuring Tumucumaque, the largest rainforest preserve in north-eastern Brazil You switch between a third-person POV and first-person through the eyes of five different animals: a poison dart frog, a black caiman, an eagle, a tarantula, and a vampire bat. When you’re embodying each animal, their perceptions are interpreted as sensory experiences using a huge range of tools such as ultraviolet colour spectra, movements in super-slow motion, visualizations of echo sounder tracking and colour night-vision as well as spatial 3D sound. There has clearly been a huge amount of work and care poured into this, and Rakušanová tells me that the team at the Interactive Media Foundation meticulously recreated over 2000 plants in CG, developing the models, textures and animations of plants in collaboration with scientists from the Berlin Museum of Natural History. The binaural sound design incorporates original sounds which were recorded on site and atmospheric acoustics developed with original animal voices to create an authentic spatial sound impression of the Amazon region.

You switch between a third-person POV and first-person through the eyes of five different animals
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Best Documentary Experience 
went to Grenfell, Our Home combines witness testimonials from the London Grenfell Tower fire (filmed in 360) with computer-generated animation to offer a view not only of how the fire affected the lives of those survivors, but also of the vibrant community that existed there before the tragedy, something that can now only be experienced through this type of virtual reconstruction. It opens up some interesting possibilities around the power of VR pieces to help address trauma and repair communities.

Awake: Episode One also won a Special Jury Mention for Best Interactive Narrative Experience, telling the story of Harry, a prisoner in his own house and lost in his mind, obsessed with discovering the truth behind a recurring dream of his departed wife.

The Evolution of Testicles won the Best Social Impact Experience category at Raindance this year
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We’ve won for a film about men checking their balls!
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But if there were a prize for best-named experience, surely it would have to go to the piece named The Evolution of Testicles which in fact won the Best Social Impact Experience category. Produced for the Male Cancer Awareness Campaign, this is part of the Oculus VR for Good Creators Lab, where filmmakers are paired with nonprofits to make great VR in the name of social good. As the name suggests, the experience aims to raise awareness about testicular cancer, but does so through the medium of laughter, brilliantly delivered by one of my favorite comedians, Chris O’Dowd, who can pretty much make any topic sound hilarious. O’Dowd commented after the win that the social impact of the medium was very important, but also marveled at the fact that, in his words, “we’ve won for a film about men checking their balls!”

It’s a brave and exciting new world for VR content. Can’t wait for next year.

This article was originally published on VRScout

The Best VR Experiences From Raindance Film Festival 2018 via @alicebonasio https://t.co/dwjztwiiw7 pic.twitter.com/NHpXGL3lg0

— VRScout (@VRScout) October 24, 2018

Want to leverage Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to take your brand to the next level? Tech Trends offers comprehensive Immersive Technologies Consultancy to help you get there.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Upgrading VR Storytelling appeared first on Tech Trends.

Is this the miracle VR has been waiting for? Tech Trends checked out the world’s first feature length immersive film at its London premiere.

7 Miracles – the first feature-length cinematic VR film premiered at the 26^th Raindance Film Festival in London, which is Europe’s leading independent Film Festival and the largest in the UK. It was created using photogrammetry and volumetric video capture, producing images in 8K with additional scenes built in 3D.

7 Miracles – the first feature-length cinematic VR film premiered at the 26th Raindance Film Festival in London
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The whole film is just over 70 minutes long, divided into 10-minute chapters, each depicting one of Jesus Christ’s famous miracles from the Gospel of John. The chapters can all be watched sequentially, or episodically in whatever order the viewer wishes to go, and that flexibility helped to bridge the gap between the current dominant form of short-form VR content and the longer pieces that they wanted to explore. They opted to making 7 Miracles a seated experience because people’s seated height is much more similar than their standing one, so by placing the action above you as it would be on a movie screen, it felt just as comfortable and familiar as going to the cinema.

The whole film is just over 70 minutes long, divided into 10-minute chapters depicting Jesus Christ’s famous miracles
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Getting rid of wires but still being able to have a very rich and colourful experience is certainly the future
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I got the chance to view 3 chapters at a special preview on one of the new VIVE Focus headsets which Joel Breton – VP of Vive Studios and Executive Producer on the film – calls the Ferrari of all-in-one VR. It was a good opportunity to try it out, since they are not due to hit the UK/US markets yet (there are hints that we might be looking at a release around this holiday season, but no official date yet). It had simple yet effective controls that allowed for quick adjustment to tighten or loosen the fit around your head and to match the distance between your eyes – which varies quite a lot from person to person – and calibration of the inside-out sensors. The other feature that I found quite nifty is that at the push of a button you can access the external camera image, saving you constantly lifting up the headset from your eyes, which tends to interrupt the content playing.

Breton told me afterwards that it was interesting for him to see a completely silent theatre full of people immersed in the same experience (you don’t need headphones with the VIVE Focus headsets but as we were relatively close to each other, we wore ear buds so as not to interfere with one another’s experience).

“All-in-one VR is probably what I’m most excited about – getting rid of wires but still being able to have a very rich and colourful experience is certainly the future,” he added.

But in order for people to want to buy those headsets, everyone recognises that there must be compelling content available that they want to experience, which is where VIVE Studios comes in. This is Breton’s project and he’s driving its mission of expanding the content ecosystem and pushing the envelope of what can be achieved through immersive storytelling.

“The main thing that makes VR storytelling so exciting, is that instead of projecting the action in a screen in front of you it puts you right in the middle of the action – You become the hero,” said Breton.

At the discussion after the screening, the cast and crew were asked why they thought now was the right time to try longer-form content for VR. These are all creative and entertainment industry veterans, and it was clear that they are enthused about the potential of VR to create new types of narratives and stories. They’ve been working on 7 miracles for about 2 years, and hearing them talk about it, it’s clear that a lot of effort and work – as well as significant investment in terms of money and technical resources – has been poured into the project.

Jesus comes across as a dude you’d definitely invite over to your party
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Breton started his career at SEGA Genesis. He developed and published over 250 videogames over the years and although he says he’s stopped counting them years ago, they do include iconic titles like Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong, Quake and Doom.

Executive Producer Enzo Sisti worked on more than 100 movies including Wonder Woman, Avengers: Age of Ultron and (appropriately) Passion of the Christ. He says he was initially very skeptical, but much like the non-believers in the film, he was converted.

“This is very exciting and I think this is the future. After 50 years in the business in I’m excited about starting a new career,” he said.

In spite of the myriad challenges, Director Rodrigo Cerqueira believes the technology – such as six degrees of freedom – and production values have moved far enough along so that we’re able to push the envelope much further than it has been pushed so far.

As filmmakers we have the responsibility to push those boundaries, and others will follow in our footsteps and push it even further
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Cerqueira recalled how his company Panogramma had produced hundreds of short pieces between 2010 and 2015, but when they were asked to do a one-hour experience for the World Cup, it opened his eyes about the possibilities of longer-form content.

“As filmmakers we have the responsibility to push those boundaries, and others will follow in our footsteps and push it even further, and that’s how we advance the medium. That learning curve is so important and it’s also important that there is a learning curve. If you look at film they also started with short format and when they first started making them longer, most people thought that was crazy,” he says.

In many ways the production went along similar lines to a regular indie film. Sisti said they had between 80 and 100 people working on the shoot, which took around 15 days. Post production took over 10 months, which is certainly a lot, but again, many CG-heavy productions would demand similar resources. Where the VR production proved to be more labour (and time) intensive, however, was in the planning phase, where Cerqueira spent over 4 months planning the workflow.

I was Jesus for ten minutes, and it was a hell of an experience!
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It is often the case in the creative industries that technical limitations lead to choices that shape the direction of the medium
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It is often the case in the creative industries that technical limitations lead to choices that shape the  direction of the medium. One example of how this happened in VR productions is the fact that using a 9-lens 360 camera rig means that all directions are filmed simultaneously, so there is no “behind the camera” where the crew can stand during shooting. They either had to be disguised as extras or find somewhere to hide (we were shown some funny shots of sound engineers lurking behind bushes next to a camel).

Dejan Bucin, who plays Jesus in the film, says that from an actor’s perspective it often felt much closer to playing theatre than doing a film, and that meant he could get really immersed into the role himself:

“I was Jesus for ten minutes, and it was a hell of an experience!” he laughs. “You can exaggerate and project. You forget about the audience, because you really get into those interactions. In a regular film you always see this amazing setup, all the crew, equipment, etc. But in VR, that all disappears.”

And kudos to them for not only tackling the challenges of producing feature-length VR, but also choosing to do so with a Biblical story, which comes with such baggage, so to speak.

For one, there’s the fact that as a Brit you definitely can’t get Monty Python’s Life of Brian references out of your head when watching any film about Jesus. Everybody knows that the only retort that logically follows anybody declaring themselves to be the Messiah is that he is in fact a very naughty boy…

As a Brit you definitely can’t get Monty Python’s Life of Brian references out of your head when watching any film about Jesus
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But that was my cross to bear rather than a reflection on the quality of the production. In fact, I was rather surprised at how much I enjoyed it, specially the chapter where Jesus turned water into wine. Jesus generally comes across as a dude you’d definitely invite over to your party. And yes, there is water-walking, so well worth a watch.

Audiences should be able to check out 7 Miracles for themselves soon, as it is planned for general release on all VR headsets later this year.

This article was originally published on VRScout

Feature-Length VR Film ‘7 Miracles’ Debuts At Raindance Film Festival via @alicebonasio https://t.co/QA8BoYTxpo pic.twitter.com/dIwwr0z9Ai

— VRScout (@VRScout) October 11, 2018

Want to leverage Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to take your brand to the next level? Tech Trends offers comprehensive Immersive Technologies Consultancy to help you get there.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

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Calling all conscious content makers who want to make the real world a better place through Virtual Reality

VRTogether is a recently launched non-profit initiative hoping to make a difference by bringing together a community of people to leverage Virtual Reality technology to effect change. Rather than financing projects, the platform encourages people to connect and engage with each other around VR projects that aim for the greater good.

VRTogether wants to bring producers of immersive content together for good causes
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Organisations and individuals looking for production studios, research partners, ideas or advice will be able to post their work and those with the expertise needed can offer help. By working together, these important projects can become a reality.

“The infrastructure has been built, now it needs to be populated,” explains VRTogether Founder Daryl Atkins from creative agency REWIND. “We’re asking people to invest a little time to create content which has the power to make a difference. Virtual Reality technology provides a compelling new way of telling stories and engaging people. The stories that need telling the most are often the most difficult to get off the ground, and we felt that amongst the day-to-day commercial projects that helped create the industry, we had a social responsibility to give something back to the wider community.”

The platform launched with a project from Whales.org to create an immersive experience showing the reality for whales and dolphins held in captivity to inspire positive action.

One of the first projects on the platform is a partnership with Whale and Dolphin Conservation
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“By using virtual reality, we can create an experience that enables people to see life from a whale or dolphin’s eyes, and can educate them about the sad contrast between life in a concrete tank and life in the ocean. VR is a great tool to get the public involved with the issue and brings us a step closer to stopping whale and dolphin captivity for good. By signing up to VRTogether you can help us to make a real change through technology,” says Chris Butler-Stroud, Chief Executive at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC).

Virtual reality can change what a person sees, how they think, what they feel and even how someone behaves, in part because we believe it to be ‘reality’. This is why VR has already been used to treat conditions including autism, PTSD, depression, anxiety and even promote recovery in paraplegics and even tackle phobias.

“The way VR Together is wedding the inspired community of conscious VR makers together is unparalleled,” believes Catherine Day, Head of AR/VR at Missing Pieces and board advisor to VRTogether. “We all recognize VR has the potential to do what many hoped the first film camera would do – make it impossible to turn a blind eye to suffering, injustice, and ignorance.  There’s no way to turn a blind eye in VR, and because it is consumed digitally, and mostly via mobile, we can immediately take action before the transient moment of inspiration to do so has expired. Cause-based VR was the first genre to prove the power of the medium to the masses, the first to win awards, and if we continue to believe in one another’s dreams and help each other to realize them… pro-social and environmental VR will continue to sustain and advance immersive storytelling.”

VRTogether’s Board of Advisors also includes the “Godmother of VR” Nonny de la Peña, CEO of the Emblematic Group which has produced many experiences exploring the power of VR to create empathy as well as the Director of VR and New Media at the Raindance Film Festival Mária Rakušanová. Find out more about it at vrtogether.org

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to get a foothold in the growing Mixed Reality spectrum and enhance their brand strategy with these exciting new technologies. 

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedInand follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

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From Cannes to Venice and Tribeca, film festivals been showcasing a wealth of Virtual Reality content, and Raindance is no exception.

At a press briefing today they unveiled 14 experiences that will feature at its first ever VR Arcade (VRcade?) hosted at Covent Garden’s swanky Hospital Club.

Major film festivals have all been showcasing VR content this year
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It’s great to see the variety of content coming through for the medium, ranging from Oscar Raby’s Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel – produced by the BBC in collaboration with the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio – to RecoVR: Mosul, which brings back to life the historical collection of the Mosul Museum, raided by IS in 2014.

There's a strong emphasis on empathy-based experiences in this year's Raindance VR programme
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There’s also a strong emphasis on empathy-based projects, which create an emotional connection between viewers and storytellers. This sense of “shared experience” comes naturally to VR, and it is being used by filmmakers to explore themes as varied as abortion, blindness, imprisonment, epilepsy and terrorism.

Filmmakers are using VR to explore a wide range of themes, from blindness to abortion and terrorism
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Raindance tickets go on sale on September 1^st, but in the meantime here are some of the highlights of this year’s VR programme:

WITNESS 360: 7/7

The 13-minute film uses personal testimony, reconstruction and abstract imagery to immerse the viewer in the story of Jacqui Putnan, an ordinary London commuter on her way to work on July 7^th, 2005 when a bomb is detonated on the Circle Line carriage next to hers.

6×9 – A VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Ever wondered what it’s like to be locked up for 23 hours a day in space measuring just 6×9? When I visited Alcatraz during a trip to San Francisco earlier this year I remember standing in front of one of those tiny cells and physically feeling a sense of confined despair. The story of psychological damage that can result from such isolation is what the Guardian-commissioned experience tries to replicate.

ACROSS THE LINE

Here the “Godmother of VR” Nonny de la Pena combines 360°video CGI to put viewers in the shoes of a patient who goes into a health centre for an abortion, facing angry protesters along the way.

CTRL

An interesting take on VR, combining theatre and computer simulation to put the viewer at the centre of hard-hitting issues.

HOME – AN IMMERSIVE SPACEWALK EXPERIENCE

Aspiring Astronauts will rejoice at the chance to float 250 miles above the earth, enjoying expansive views of the universe. And if that’s not exciting enough for you, there’s even an option to get plunged into an emergency scenario where you have to jet-pack your way back to the International Space Station.

IN MY SHOES: DANCING WITH MYSELF



The film tells the true story of Jane, her friends, and the struggle with epilepsy, fusing film, theatre and technology into an empathetic experience.

INSIDE THE BOX OF KURIOS

Cirque du Soleil have a strong track record of bringing innovation to the creative arts space, so it’s not that surprising that they were among the first to embrace VR, creating this specially tailored performance for the medium.

NOTES ON BLINDNESS: INTO DARKNESS

This sensory experience, which already won awards at both Tribeca and Sheffield festivals, uses binaural audio and real-time 3D animations to immerse us in a ‘world beyond sight’

THE ROSE AND I

Based on the classic tale of The Little Prince, this film by Penrose Studios depicts a heartbreaking tale of loneliness, friendship and loss.

THE TURNING FOREST

Another BBC production, this film uses CG and creative soundscapes to take viewers into a magical forest where things are not quite what they seem…

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

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