Shooting an Interactive VR Film: Zena's Case Study
“Shooting an Interactive VR Film: Zena's Case Study” Chapter of the Volume “Looking Forward, Looking Back: Interactive Digital Storytelling and Hybrid Art Approaches” by: Rebecca Rouse, Mara Dionisio
ZENA is an immersive and interactive film set in Genoa, Italy. The story unfolds in a 360º environment created through 360° high-definition video capture developed to create virtual reality experiences such as Cinematic VR (cVR). In ZENA, the user plays an active role inside the narrative by taking part directly in the story: s/he decides which way to go in a Maze type structure (Ryan, 2015), if s/he wants to follow or ignore the advice of some character, or access extra information that contributes to story understanding. The narrative structure has been inspired by the labyrinth of alleys in the historic center of Genoa, where passersby come face to face with choices that lead them to interact with different environments and people. ZENA, which means Genoa in genovese dialect, was recorded inside the historical center of Genoa (Old Town), which is a World Heritage Site. The scenes, that develop in the alleys and in some important palaces in the Old Town, show these environments for the first time in VR.
The main objective of ZENA is to bring together an interactive film narrative inside a 360º environment to be enjoyed with a Head Mounted Display (HMD), in order to create an interactive and immersive cinematic experience: an Interactive VR experience similar to hyperfiction, in which the user rearranges a choice of story fragments into different configurations (Ryan, 2009), placing him/herself between a passive reception, as it is the case with cinema, and a highly active role, as in videogames. In this paper, the shooting process of ZENA is reported, highlighting the main challenges we faced and hindsight gained. For the production of ZENA, we based our methodology on the traditional cinematography production workflow, being cinema the audiovisual art form closer to this type of experience, but adapting it to Interactive Narrative (IN) (Dettori, 2016) and the immersive nature of Cinematic VR.
Looking Forward, Looking Back: Interactive Digital Storytelling and Hybrid Art Approaches
edited by: Rebecca Rouse, Mara Dionisio
This volume collects documentation of the 2017 International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling Art Exhibition and new scholarly texts from the artists involved. The work traces themes of Time & Tempo across Digital Poetics and Literature, Digital Heritage, and Urban Space and Politics.
This volume collects documentation of the 2017 International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) Art Exhibition and new scholarly texts from the artists involved. The work traces themes of Time & Tempo across Digital Poetics and Literature, Digital Heritage, and Urban Space and Politics. Since 2013, the ICIDS Art Exhibition has been chronicled online, as well as documented in a printed catalogue.
This collection documents the 2017 exhibition, held in conjunction with the ICIDS conference at M-ITI Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Funchal, Madeira, November 14-17, 2017. This represents the first time the ICIDS Art Exhibition catalogue has been published, and it is also the first time the catalogue has been expanded to not only document the work presented, but also collect textual scholarship from a subset of the artists involved, reflecting on a range of challenges and questions in the field.
The blended nature of this volume, including contributions across traditional scholarship and theory as well as research-creation art practice helps to expand notions of knowledge production by highlighting and bringing together these multiple approaches in the interactive narrative field. In addition, the wide range of creative works exhibited here pushes the boundaries of what ‘counts’ as interactive narrative.
These two moves toward expansion (expansion of what research means; expansion of what is defined as interactive narrative) are meant as productive and generative provocations for the field.
Pages: 148
Language(s): English
Release Date: 30.11.2018
DOI: 10.1184/R1/7406924
ETC Press
ISBN: 978-0-359-11468-9
Nijole's World Premier at DOK Leipzig
Our film Nijole will be premiered at the 61° edition of the Leipzig Film Festival. Next Masters Competition. Nominated for the MDR Film Prize. A lituanian-italian co-production.
DOK Leipzig 29. Oktober – 4. November 2018
61. Internationales Leipziger Festival für Dokumentar- und Animationsfilm
Antanas Mockus and I working on Nijole’s presentation “Works and Reflexions” at the Contemporary Art Center of Vilnius.
I am one of the 4 components of a trip to Lithuania in 2016: Nijole, Antanas, Sandro (the director), and me. Of the 4, today we are 3. We wanted to make a biographical film and we ended up making a film about the relationship between art and love, about freedom. This film, called Nijole, will become Cinema (with a capital C) in a few days: the world premiere will be at the 61st edition of the Leipzig Festival, the European documentary's temple; just a day after Herzog, in person, released his latest documentary; in the competition that highlights the next masters of the documentary. But this is nothing: the film will see the light in the country where Nijole was trained as an artist, and from which the conditions that later led her to Colombia arose. The film will be screened for the first time, only one month after his death. Those who will see this film, will see it, in its essence, next to the essence of his son Antanas (his work). Nijole yearned to make art without an object. This movie is that, it's herself, made light.
“Antanas Mockus was Mayor of Bogotá, several times Colombian presidential candidate, and voted into the senate in 2018. But this film is not about the politician, but about his 88-year-old mother, the idiosyncratic artist Nijolė Šivickas. She has consistently protected her private life from the public eye, agreeing only reluctantly to media interviews. Even her son knew almost nothing about her Lithuanian childhood. In her artistic practice, but also emotionally, she had turned her back on her homeland.
Now Nijolė has been invited to give a workshop on the occasion of a great retrospective in Vilnius. The film follows her and Antanas on this journey. It’s basically a son’s look at a mother whose independence and critical social spirit were his constant inspiration. Sandro Bozzolo and his team approach their protagonists with restraint, adapt the montage to their rhythm and focus on the rooms of their creative work, on Nijolė’s meetings with Antanas and their journey home together, which moves both deeply. The son takes his mother by the hand, as does this story of an outer and inner journey with the audience. Which events continue to shape one’s life and which had better be forgotten?”
Towards The Artificial Experience: Interactive Fiction in Cinematic VR at ZIP-SCENE
I will be sharing the results of my PhD Thesis in Interactive Fiction in Cinematic Virtual Reality at the ZIP-SCENE Conference, that will be held at the University of Art and Design, in Budapest, Hungary.
How cool is to show the main organizer as the ideal interactive VR-viewer. Surprise from Cecilia Maria Reyes, initial picture taken at #icids2017 mise-en-abyme photo by @orsidoczy at #zipsceneconference #budapest #vr #interactivestorytelling #immersionmodel — con Orsi Doczy y Xeh Reyes en MOME - Moholy-Nagy Művészeti Egyetem.
I will be sharing the results of my PhD Thesis in Interactive Fiction in Cinematic Virtual Reality at the ZIP-SCENE Conference, that will be held at the University of Art and Design, in Budapest, Hungary.
The topic of this year will be Perspectives on Digital Interactivity and Narrative in Performing Arts and VR
Immersive Learning Research Network
I'm at Coimbra, Portugal. Tomorrow I'm going to present my paper "Screenwriting Framework for an Interactive Virtual Reality Film" in the Immersive Learning Research Network 3rd International Conference.
I'm at Coimbra, Portugal. Tomorrow I'm going to present my paper "Screenwriting Framework for an Interactive Virtual Reality Film" in the Immersive Learning Research Network 3rd International Conference.
The conference have been very interesting, the network is strong and the focus is clear: how to use avant-garde technologies in order to improve learning. Hololens, VR, AR and gamification are just some of the technologies presented in the conference.
Reyes, M.C (2017, June) Screenwriting Framework for an Interactive Virtual Reality Film. Paper presented at the 3rd Immersive Research Network Conference iLRN. http://castor.tugraz.at/doku/iLRN2017/iLRN2017OnlineProceedings.pdf
Nijole - Best Doc at FEST Pitching Forum
Our documentary project NIJOLE has its first AWARD! We got the - Envy Post Production Award for Best Documentary at FEST - New Directors New Films Festival pitching forum.
I had the opportunity to pitch the documentary project "Nijole", a movie that approaches for the first time the life and art of Nijole Sivickas, mother of Antanas Mockus, at the Pitching Forum of FEST - New Directors New Film Festival 2017, at Espinho, Portugal.
The project was selected as Best Feature Documentary Project. The film won the post-production price at ENVY studios in London, UK.