Tag: Film

Come to the VRCon Film Festival in VRChat Today, December 17th, 2022!

This evening in VRChat, the VRCon 2022 Film Festival will be celebrating 30 VRChat films made by filmmakers from across the world! The event takes place today, Saturday, Dec 17th, 2022, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, with an after-party.

You can check out the details on all of the films on the VRCon website. Here’s the trailer for the VRCon Film Festival:

If you wish to attend this evening’s film festival, please fill out this Google form. The organizers have made it easy to attend, even if you are a newbie! If you’re new to VRChat, you can follow this helping getting-started guide from the VRCon website (there’s also this detailed Google document, titled VRCon 2022 Film Festival Instructions). They’ve also posted a three-minute How To Guide video to YouTube:

See you there!

Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times: A New Feature-Length Documentary by Draxtor Despres, Premiering on YouTube and in Second Life on April 2nd, 2022

Second Life filmmaker Bernhard Drax (better known by his Second Life name, Draxtor Despres) will be premiering a new, feature-length documentary on April 2nd, 2022, titled Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times. I have written about Drax many times before on this blog, notably when he released his previous feature-length documentary, Our Digital Selves: My Avatar Is Me. Drax is a truly indefatigable chronicler of Second Life, who often creates promotional short films (a.k.a. machinima) about various aspects of Second Life for Linden Lab. He is also an insatiable reader, who hosts the popular weekly Second Life Book Club.

According to the official website for the film:

Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times is a new feature length documentary by media maker Draxtor.

Since March 2020, Draxtor has been following researchers Tom Boellstorff, Evan Conaway, Chandra Middleton and Sandy Wenger (based in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine) around Animal Crossing and Second Life to find out how COVID-19 is reshaping online interaction.

In the 85 minute film, protagonists from all over the world speak openly about their anxieties and everyday challenges during this global crises and about what virtual worlds and social games mean to them in the context of a pandemic.

Mixed reality interviews and group discussions provide the basis for a sprawling narrative: a mosaic of impressions, shared by people from all walks of life, some well known figures from science, arts and culture, some just regular folks (like the research team itself), trying to make sense of a new age dominated by uncertainty and physical isolation.

The online premiere of Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times will be happening on YouTube and in the virtual world of Second Life, at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time/SL Time on April 2nd, 2022.

For more information on the project, and to register for the premiere, please refer to the official website for the film. You can also search Twitter for the hashtag #VCinPandemicTimes for the latest tweets about the film and the people it profiles. You can also check out Drax’s voluminous output over on his YouTube channel (including a playlist of teaser clips from Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times!).

Catch the Cannes XR Marché du Film Festival in the Museum of Other Realities, Only Until July 3rd!

Have you ever wanted to strut and pose on the red carpet for the paparazzi* at the world-famous Cannes Film Festival?

Photo by Joel Ryan/AP/Shutterstock: Model Bella Hadid pose for photographers upon arrival at the screening of the film La Fille Inconnue (The Unkown Girl) at the 69th international film festival, Cannes, southern France La Fille Inconnue Red Carpet, Cannes, France – 18 May 2016 (Source)

Well, this week, you can! The Museum of Other Realities (MOR), a social VR platform devoted to art and media, is hosting the Cannes XR festival, which (like so many other real-world events) has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to MOR’s Steam page:

We’re excited to partner with Marché du Film, Tribeca, Kaleidoscope, and Veer VR for a groundbreaking online event, Cannes XR Virtual. With a curated program keen on covering the full ground of immersive technologies and artwork, in connection with the art of storytelling and the film industry, this virtual event is dedicated to immersive entertainment.

Virtual reality has been linked to new technology and evolving modes of stories telling, the Cannes XR Virtual is known to serve as a meeting point for a futuristic, collective imagination. Professionals from the filmmaking industry, XR artists, producers, tech companies, and (location-based and online) distributors are known, and likely, to attend this event.

The virtual event will pan over 3 days, between June 24th and June 26th, 2020. Cannes XR Virtual aims to be a genuine growth accelerator for the XR ecosystem, fostering ties between XR players internationally, helping them to promote and develop their activities in collaboration with the film industry.

In this reimagined edition of the festival, Cannes XR Virtual will be presented in different formats on several platforms:

• All VR content will be available through the Museum of Other Realities within a new architectural design conceived for the festival. Several XR works and Cannes XR events will also be experienced in 3D, with social events, showcases, and networking possibilities giving center stage to inspiring tech leaders and artists to share their insights on VR as a new technological frontier and its impact on the global film industry.

• Cannes XR Virtual 2D live video stream: Conferences and pitching sessions/projects presentation will be accessible on the Marché du Film Online platform, and the websites of our partners, Kaleidoscope and Tribeca Film Festival.

• Curated in association with Kaleidoscope, the Cannes XR Development Showcase will announce 23 of the leading latest virtual and augmented reality titles currently in-development to be pitched and showcased.

• VeeR 360 Cinema: This program dedicated to 360 VR films encourages creators to push the limits of immersive storytelling. The selected films will be showcased in the inaugural VeeR 360 Cinema during Cannes XR Virtual

• 12 selections from the 2020 Tribeca Virtual Arcade are scheduled to make an exclusive debut. The line-up is curated by Tribeca Immersive’s 2020 programming and includes World Premieres which were intended to debut earlier this year, before the postponement of the 19th Tribeca Festival.

• Selected international directors, artists, and creators will be considered for the inaugural Positron Visionary Award at the 2020 Cannes XR Virtual.

• A network of Location-Based Entertainment (LBE) partners in several major cities in the U.S., China, and France will offer access to Cannes XR Virtual to journalists and guests who do not have a VR headset.

While visitors will experience the events live from June 24 to 26, they can be accessed anytime in the MoR up until July 3. Free access for attendees!

I popped in this morning to take a few snapshots to share with you, before work. This is definitely a do-not-miss VR experience! Be sure to visit the tutorial room first to learn how to properly navigate:

To take these snapshots, all I had to do is hold up my hands as if I were making a frame, and press the trigger! Very intuitive.

There is a handy map at the entrance to the sprawling virtual exhibition, next to a booth where you can customize your avatar, which will allow to you teleport to any part of the festival:

You can even see where both you and other avatars are currently located on the map!

The art installations on display run the gamut from whimsical to menacing. Many incorporate motion and animation. Sculptures bend, twist, and morph; colours shift. Schools of virtual fish and strange sea creatures win through the air. This is the cutting edge of immersive art. In some cases, you can even shrink down to tiny size and walk around inside the artwork!

Other pieces of art, created by artists using tools such as Medium, are static.

If you have a higher-end VR headset tethered to a gaming computer with a good graphics card (i.e., PC VR, as opposed to standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Quest), then I would strongly encourage you to purchase the Museum of Other Realities app from Steam, the Oculus Store, or Viveport, and explore this wonderful virtual exhibition! MOR is not a free VR app, but in my opinion it is worth the cost.

Please note that to see some of the films and media, you will need to separately download DLCs, which will require a significant amount of hard drive space!

Kent Bye of the Voices of VR podcast has posted an excellent, informative Twitter thread with his impressions of the Cannes XR festival, with recommendations on what to see and experience! He says:

Two ways to download MuseumOR content (free for next 3 days). #1.) If you have 65GB of space, then I’d recommend downloading the beta: Right click on MOR > Properties > Betas > “cannesallfiles” > Close > Install. Takes 1-8 hours depending on download speed.

If you don’t have 65GB of free space, or want in faster, there’s Download buttons in world. Navigate to MuseumOR Auditorium > Go to Cannes Space > Find & click Download > Find the Add to Wishlist Button > Exit MOR > In Steam, go to Store > Wishlist > find 4 MOR Watch Now DLCs

Cannes XR is a mind-expanding experience with virtual art, film, and media, and it is simply one of the best VR experiences that I have had all year! Highly recommended.

*Although there is plenty of red carpet throughout this exhibition, I’m afraid there are no paparazzi included in this experience 😉 but don’t let that stop you! Get your friends to come with you, and you can take pictures of each other!