Independent film is always the cutting edge of what’s next in tinsel town and now its Virtual Reality’s turn. The 2020 Sundance Film Festival this year creating a separate attraction for Virtual Reality and Mixed reality work of films.
A Peek down the Road
Created to showcase media from the new age of mixed media virtual art and cinema. ‘New Frontier’ gives all the artists from the digital art age the chance to shine. Redefining what it means to go ‘watch’ something Virtual Reality may let feel more like we lived through something. Experiences are more memorable when your not a bystander, but the subject of the story. VR/MR filmmakers of today amaze by blurring the lines between all of our favourite things.
New Age Masters
Featuring the work of 32-year-old Virtual Reality artist Theo Triantafyllidis, An MFA graduate from UCLA Design Media Arts with a degree in architecture from the National Technical University of Athens. He is both the builder and painter in one he creates virtual reality spaces for users to explore. He created ‘Anti-Gone’ a whopping 75-minute virtual experience. An entire city to live through with specific experiences created to take you through the narrative. Letting you experience the entangled joys of gaming, watching a great film, and being to places you could never go to in the real world we occupy!
Natalie Cabrera a mixed media artist who’s work had exhibits in galleries in New York, Berlin, and Santiago. Her work has also been hailed for its visual grandeur at biggest film festivals. Her art is diverse stretching from Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applications to Interactive art installations as well as documentary filmmaking. Her film is microscopic transportation of the viewer into the fungi kingdom.
Lifelike Cinema
Winner of the best narrative category Randall Okita is a VR filmmaker known for his ability to blend powerful subject matter with breathtaking worlds from his mind. Okita’s masterpiece is the story of a Japanese Immigrant who arrives in Canada to be treated as an outsider. Sowing together the journey of his grandfather’s life with animated vignettes animated in sync with virtual scans of old family pictures. innovation in a story for a medium so fresh deserves the win. With more and more skilled filmmakers emerging with degrees in multiple fields armed with the creativity to hang with the best of today’s cinema the next step might be a shaky transition.
We will be purchasing the ability to be in our favourite stories with our favourite actors with the influence to shoot and harm a foe. Our actions controlling the outcome of a concept already explore in the 2018 interactive Netflix film ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’. Virtual Reality will take us all the way into the story. No exit signs or black peripherals.
Get Ready for Transport
Merging together gaming and Cinema goes hand in hand as the future is clearly gearing towards a headset in every home. The next big thing might not be an app or a streaming platform. It’s the way we experience and engage with our cinema and entertainment altogether.
