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

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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.

Raindance Film Festival this year is embracing Virtual Reality with over 40 immersive experiences competing in ten separate categories.

Well, summer is now officially over, so it’s time to get out your mac, brollies and wellie boots. On a happier note, it’s also Raindance time! 2017 sees the 25^th Raindance Film Festival running now from the 25^th – 30^th September. 25 is a significant anniversary for any independent festival and one that sees Raindance looking to the future of film-making and storytelling during a tough time for independent cinema.

It's a tough time for independent Cinema, but Raindance is looking to the future and embracing immersive storytelling
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Tech Trends was invited to the very red Raindance offices next to Trafalgar Square to talk about the future of the festival and the exciting programme for this year. Maria Rakusanova is the Director of VR and New Media and VR Curator at the festival and she brings with her a fantastic industry background at Samsung as well an unstoppable enthusiasm for Virtual Reality, and boy has she made an impact!

20 pieces were showcased at this year's VR arcade at Raindance
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Raindance is the first film festival in the world to acknowledge ten categories of VR storytelling with 20 pieces taking part in the VR Arcade, running from the 29^th – 30^th Sept at Covent Garden’s excellent Hospital Club and 40 experiences competing in ten categories for the inaugural Raindance VRX Award to be announced on the 29^th September.

Big film festivals around the world have opened their doors to VR before, with a few even offering an award or two, but as Maria explains, the technical medium and the ambitious creators out there are now producing work that is more exciting and groundbreaking than ever before. This year’s festival entries certainly reflect that, which is why Maria decided it was the right time to welcome VR and other emerging immersive technologies into the main competition alongside traditional cinema and really recognise the exciting work being produced in the medium.

Creators are producing more exciting work than ever before
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It felt like the right time to welcome VR into the main festival competition
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You can check out all the VR categories here, but since here at Tech Trends we’re always keen to try out new experiences we tried quite a few of them ourselves.  The most interesting for fans of traditional cinema, and a strong contender in the Best Cinematic Narrative Experience category is Alteration from Dir. Jérome Blanquet. Here the narrative jumps around elegantly as you follow Alexandro, a volunteer for an technical experiment who is targeted by a malicious Artificial Intelligence hell bent on feeding off his digitized subconscious.

The experience uses beautiful cinematography mixed with the new tricks of 360 VR video to create a very absorbing and unsettling mood that sucks you into Alexandro’s head and memories. I really loved this one!

The most fun, interactive and annoying experience we tried is from creative Tender Claws and is entered in the Best Mobile Interactive VR Experience category. Virtual Virtual Reality is a fully computer generated VR environment where hectoring AI Overlord, Chaz badgers you through a series of levels – each with a small challenge attached – to which you advance by donning a Virtual VR headset, dropping you, level by level, further into (Virtual)VR.

This was really fun and the critical encouragement of Chez has to be experienced! The way you change levels is really simple but effective and the cartoon characters and environments belie a complexity of design with the challenges making use of the Daydream HMD and controller, a really fun experience overall. There are too many awesome experiences to detail them all here, but they are all open to the public to try at the VR Arcade this year so we strongly advise you to pop along this Friday or Saturday and test them out for yourselves.

Festivalgoers could experience VR storytelling for themselves in the latest edition of the Raindance Film Festival in London
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Raindance is also famous for its education and training programs, and Maria has thrown VR filmmaking onto this mix as 2017 sees the festival partnering with Facebook to deliver the VRX Summit on awards day (September 29^th ) when Award nominees, jurors and special guests from Facebook and Blend Media will take part in a series of talks, panel discussions and keynotes on all things 360 & VR.

Tech Trends was sad to miss yesterday’s 360 Filmmaking Masterclass presented by experts from Facebook’s 360 team, covering topics including camera systems and audio techniques, but Maria confirmed Raindance’s commitment to VR, AR and emerging storytelling technologies in future festivals, so we can’t wait to hear more. Watch this space, but in the meantime Raindance are running a Hands on VR Course on the 21 & 22^nd October so do sign up to get those virtual hands dirty!

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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Virtual reality has the potential to be a game-changer when it comes to empathetic storytelling by challenging stigma and shifting the conversation about abortion access in America, according to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The organisation’s Executive Vice President and Chief Experience Officer Dawn Laguens says that by sharing their virtual reality film Across the Line with more people around the country they hope to create opportunities for more people to talk openly and honestly about abortion.

Planned Parenthood hopes the film creates constructive conversations around abortion
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Across the Line places viewers in the shoes of a patient who encounters protesters while entering a health centre for a safe and legal abortion. Co-created by Nonny de la Peña of Emblematic Group and Brad Lichtenstein and Jeff Fitzsimmons from 371 Productions/Custom Reality Services, the film uses real audio gathered at protests along with scripted scenes and documentary footage.

There is a growing body of research around VR and empathy
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The film is part of on-going efforts by Planned Parenthood and other sexual and reproductive health organizations to reduce stigma and change the conversation around safe and legal abortion. By putting the audience in the virtual shoes of someone who is trying to access a safe and legal abortion, it tries to provide a better understanding of the upset that thousands of women face every day as they seek health care in America.

Virtual Reality is a powerful medium that inspires a deeper level of empathy
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There is a growing body of research around the fact that such virtual experiences can engender feelings of empathy by allowing the viewer to experience something from someone else’s perspective first-hand and this latest survey data adds further evidence to that argument.

From January through April 2016, researchers from the Sea Change Program, an organization dedicated to transforming the culture of stigma around abortion, surveyed 284 viewers and intended viewers of Across the Line on their attitudes toward abortion and toward clinic harassment and violence. The survey results indicated that VR can move people’s feelings on sensitive issues such as a abortion and the harassment that is commonplace at many abortion clinics, specially in the US where planned parenthood operates, as an extract from the report details:

Overall, Across the Line is an effective tool for increasing support for women who have abortions and decreasing support for protestors outside of reproductive health clinics — even among moderate and slightly conservative audiences. After viewing the film, most interview respondents become more sympathetic to women entering health clinics and become more critical of clinic harassment outside of abortion clinics. On surveys, film viewers expressed more disapproval of clinic harassment than a comparable group that hadn’t yet seen the film.

Planned Parenthood also worked with the strategic communications firm SKDKnickerbocker in close consultation with Sea Change to interview people in Kansas City and Atlanta with moderate and conservative views about abortion, and found that seeing the film led to decreased tolerance for clinic harassment and increased empathy toward women who decide to have an abortion. More than three-quarters of people interviewed said that they would support legislation that keeps protesters away from clinics and two-thirds said they would more likely support candidates who support access to safe and legal abortion.

“We have suspected for a long time that virtual reality is a powerful medium which can incite empathy at a deeper level and also potentially shift opposing attitudes,” said de la Peña. “This study breaks new ground by showing that this in fact does hold true in the real world. With so many women facing increased lack of access to health care, it is exciting to see that our VR piece can have an impact around this issue.”

According to Planned Parenthood, while an overwhelming majority of Americans believe abortion must remain safe and legal, in reality many women in the U.S. face barriers to sexual and reproductive health care. Since 2011, states have enacted over 300 abortion restrictions and more than half of American women of reproductive age now live in states where access to abortion is being restricted by their state legislatures.

Women in the U.S. face barriers to sexual and reproductive health care
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Across the Line premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and received the Future of Storytelling Prize People’s Choice Award at the 2016 Future of Storytelling Festival, a SIMA 2017 Award for Best Sound Experience in the Virtual Reality Category and was recognized at the annual Media Impact Festival. Tech Trends experienced the film first-hand at the Raindance Film Festival in London last year where it was part of its first-ever VR Showcase. It is currently available here on GearVR, Google Cardboard and desktop viewing.

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.

The post How Virtual Reality is Changing Minds appeared first on Tech Trends.

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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