New Dimensions: Virtual Reality from Africa

and he and how to build the

but I and I just wanna and

say very short what you can expect from this talk 1st to get insights about making as the arm move you can project element and to get information

from an award-winning filmmaker sitting next to me and you get also some insights about and the VII FIL making um seen in Africa socially Kinnear end as you know after this talk what is the betting on Africa happy and this is the reason why and sits there and if you have some question please keep until the end and I hope you will answer so M. 1st now I have to check my papers something so I'm sitting next to an animal care and maybe have seen the

movie and a yellow fever of a stream on out and of course you can see it on um the e-mail element and um she prodded presented today and at Nairobi barriers the very 1st via project and I have a short question to you and holding you watch the R movies by itself the FIL pay have you and thanks for coming so and the 1st question about watching the movies actually I forgot that I have my Google cardboard and we were talking about how

accessable all of this of the art technology is becoming because I know mean of being of 4 of year festivals before and

then you see a camera that costs 50 thousand dollars and you wondering how you meant to access a staff and literally the movie that I shot I used a camera that in total was costing about 900 dollars including and under water casing and it's the Kodak picks approaches from the 2 little 360 cameras put together and I yeah when I wanna watch my way FIL Midas had this little box it's about 10 bucks so I think we just wanted to put in context that the are can be extremely cheap to make considering also like all of these other formats that we're still using and then also to consume and I think a lot of people don't realize that you can consume the with a little cardboard box that is 10 dollars to purchase online it thank you very much and and then makes an innocent young evolve she's and the but

that's comparable to think that long time working in the film industry and since the late nineties she had various position at international and national film festivals and she's working for the E f m at the belly let what is yeah famines European Film market at the beginning of a lamp and she expenditure me it's the 3rd biggest place in the body can buy movies you're the cinema on a network and um I have a question to Yana and at the European Film Market there's the belly non-african happen what is it and why is that why is there and Africa and another African hope and thanks for having me here

and what basically with the band enough a couple wanted to set the light on Africa and we created this initiative which is like a part of the European for market which is again part of the non as you just mentioned and really basically aimed to create a platform for a new innovative projects from Africa to offer a forum for late like the new technology these ideas and developments in the African film industry and also to bring the next generation off African professionals to in and uh the habit elves of only a platform is actually a physical

space that we built in the so called Gropius part right next to the mountain all his ball which is where the European for market takes place each year in February and on the hoppers a kind of billion as you can see some it serves as a meeting point and of course we also offer program there which consists of presentations and Halton panels on different topics and networking events of course and we also have the i lounge um well represented among others the new dimensions

projects and I'm very happy that mental could make a way to Republican so we can talk

about her experience and the project and we are in Africa the

please can we go to the flight so thank you

very much Christiane an OK is to and Nairobi barriers you can all watch it if you haven't had so far in the 3rd floor and so if you haven't had just go up and we'll just have some nice pictures and to make your mouth watering and we don't wanna talk

so much about it but when you know maybe can explain shortly what was the idea behind movie berries case so we were invited to Johannesburg by new dimensions to have a workshop in virtual reality and that they selected 5 that different filmmakers and artists from across the African continent and we were just told to we did like a theory course and the are and then we were told that we should pitch an idea and see they can find funding for it so what I really enjoy about the errors is the feeling that you're in this space that is completely separated from everyone else and I wanted to make a dreams scape that is based on a poem I wrote about living in Nairobi and I thought that it's really interesting to be able to move through water it through different forest spaces through different places in Nairobi but to experience it more in terms of a dream where you don't have control of what is happening and it it I also enjoy adding animation to my film so this is like a surreal space that I can make for people to experience can be what I watched it I really felt like I was in your head in your green so some holes to experience how did you work because you and before ordered an animation into the so hard at your work change if director editor and major in the and the arm movie

L what you experience on what was big change like storyboarding editing so 1 of the 1st things that I found really difficult to digest when US trying to figure out how to make my film was the had to storyboard for 360 and this woman I met suggested that you have a deal and you start drawing the things that will happen like a circle and you start drawing all of the things that will happen under different parts of the circle completely confusing so what I ended up doing was thinking about and because it would 2 cameras as the assisted me and I thought of 1 camera facing north and 1 camera facing south so when I storyboarded I had 2 frames for each time sorry word that I was trying so I made sure that there was action going on in the north part of the image and also in the south part of the image and then people can always have something to enjoy when they're watching but it was also interesting because when you shoot in your editing you can shift the whole image around so you can line up so that every time the search a cut a short cuts now you cut to the neck shot you still have action happening in front of you know where the person was last looking so and and the part that was really

complicated was figuring out how to do animation on top of the alive action that had shot yeah and N. A. I really enjoyed that the

spinning chair was a very good idea them in there watching you will because I really needed to turn the back and because something was happening there which I wasn't used it was some of your projects to so this is the 1st time we have some last time on the report there and Republika we had and also the ah I watched several stuff mostly from big players bigger companies or um organizations but not so much content from independent filmmakers and this definitely totally change this year and then and also what and you showed up the cart but I think this shows that the area we are watching ends and making as accessible for everybody and this also not only changes the work of the artist but also the markets and the honor and this is my question to you and how do you how do you feel that the R is changing the market into you feel it is it's already time to talk about how to to cinemas react on that they change concepts and it's happening something or not but of

course I mean that's the big question that we have 1 all wondering about because we actually coming from the classical from industry and from cinema and to us I like to me let's say I can I think I cannot generalize this but the R is not just some this some other sort of film but it's basically a completely new format and the changes the experience completely because what we used to is sitting in a cinema would like a hundred or thousand people watching the same from at the same time and the R is known as a different kind of experience because you want to find yourself you're like in an closed in this emergent you go through and um so we are actually wondering at the moment of the like 3 D had a big hype and it didn't really contain itself for a long time and now we are as a big high when we're looking into it of course with open eyes and following with the what's happening and how things are changing and developing and then of course you conscious sexual the are normal in but you need to make new spaces all different spaces that was of course also question of money always and there are some the cinemas we also had of the ah pop-up cinema right next to the African Pavilion and to the African as said at the European Film Market and it was interesting to see all interested like people were on 1 hand it was also amazing to see how many people from that it's a classical from industry haven't had goggles on in their lives so for them it was a completely new experience as well and because and and all market that basically looking for films for their cinemas they're looking for content that they can show on a big screen and done of course if this concept is successful it will change a lot but I think it's a long way to go and turn it has different forms of distribution there's no classical distribution and

we on like seeing a lot of festivals like adapting to the are in the sense that some they create the our sections where people can watch the R movies and Venice will even have uh the a virtual reality competition this year in the vessel for the 1st time they're the 1st ones to do this so of course very curious to see how this works are they going to do it's what the spaces are looking like and how many people within the and be able to see the film or the all projects that because it's a it's always a limited space in the end because I think this is a very funny to point out that and the put the produce the producing of the our content is much more easier nowadays there's content coming from arches and they wanna show their films and projects but the the listener must so far don't have the structure of men don't don't have concepts to to book and implement the hour in their program is also question if they want to have this concept in I think everybody's like a bit stepping back and looking at what's happening because since

that very much connected to money into investment you have to see how things evolve and that everybody would just X which around the whole concept of a cinema they might create spaces in order to check this out but this also depends on the content on the content that you see and it's at the moment mostly distributed file ATA or platforms where you can download stuff you have an app on your phone and then you have either the Google cardboard or the more sophisticated uh goggles system that you can look through but it's a very and it's a it's a private thing you know you can you can do this at home you know don't necessarily need to go to cinnamon go to cinema means you share an experience with people at the same time in 1 space so that it's a different thing of course the concepts 1 can think about like people watch a same thing on as at the same time then you create like artists torques around it after was suggested because it's for us it's not always as on only about like the film itself and for presenting something it's also for it's about the oral culture for for the talk about it for discussing topics and foreign make the word is always combined with what you see an OK I think we can talk about the loneliness of the watching we are later because I think you said something very interesting in our preparation but what's happening in Kenya

and of what's happening in Africa this is also the title of this talk and you talk about new they already described a kind of a corporation with new dimension and M is the cooperation in your daily life with 3 are scene connected other other people OK so that when I

started shooting I don't know if there were other people who was shooting VR and there'll be or not and but while I was in preproduction was looking for equipment and stuff that's when I write discovered that these other people who are already operating in the R but it's extremely commercial and it's not artists were doing it it sound Mike organizations that want to cell land so you can they have they have the camera set up in the plot of land and they describing you know the water is over there you can access it for your agricultural production on this side you can see the plantation of maize or whatever is being planted so they using the 360 space for very commercial purposes like they want to sell the land so so yeah also for properties in terms of apartments and and that sort of thing to help people understand the space so it's more that sort of work and then there's you know like me and another guy who are doing artistically are pieces that are dreamscapes and strange like a political pieces so yeah OK good from the half yet as that just brings to my mind that of

course some of the are in the in the industry at the moment is mostly used for marketing that's a so people put their

trailers on the odd because anyway something that you watch by yourself so you can there some trainers producing the are in order to make people curious for the film but this is a film which is then actually into the so this is cycle what so basically is a parallel to a halt to use the on the commercial way at the moment appear we know we have an office sitting here experiencing

working with we are uh what about as what's next what the cynics project also we are at of that is a project that i'm currently developing right now it's a 2 D

animation peace and now based on the real-life story of a young boy and there'll be and but there is another project that I want to get some signed on to where I'm not the director but I'll be doing animation added to their action film and it's not about selling land not great selling can I ask you ask you a question and would like to know is there is there would you say

there's some sort of like and that's a movie or a community and that's a either in King because this new dimensions project this I combining artist from different countries and so is the kind of network that like gets established slowly or are you talking to each other I you exchanging experiences while we were in production means when he came to the workshop some of us had never met before

so we definitely uh interacted a lot at the workshop and we keep following each other's work since then in communication with each other when we were shooting we were contacting each other to ask some questions but you were basically shooting in your own country sorting out your own thing so there are people who were really their structure for all of us were the producers were based in South Africa so we were Constantine contacted them however there were some things that we have to ask each other like what are you shooting have you done this wanna issued underwater how am I supposed to do this have you anyone tested out animation adding animation what did you how did you figure this out now 1 of the things actually when I was producing my film because I'm obsessed with mixing animation like you can see these little creatures in the water I by animated them into the into the scene and I I remember arguing with my producers and they said you know we don't have a structure to support you we don't know how to add animation into live action the ah you don't know how to do animation in 360 films so why don't you just accept your film as it is finished yet it and we call it a day and we

argued for like 20 minutes and I said OK yes OK I agree it's going to be too difficult and as soon as I hung up on the Skype call I just went on to you tube and started looking for tutorials on how to add animation to 360 film and took like 5 days of figuring it

out and then I did it and I was like please don't tell me not to anything ever again because it just makes it worse but I think like and I really needed to because it's a dreams scape I really felt that my film would not be complete if it didn't have these animated elements to accentuated but that was like 1 of the experiences and put in the production was being told no by the people who gave you the money and then ignoring them thank you very much for this some

yeah level off on in the because I just take a look at the Watson and I think we maybe have time for a some quest for 1 question and unknown it it the that thank you for insights my question is about what you mentioned um have good new remember remember name it should if you said that v it's something new in a way so that's not here to replace the normals more the industry but then I am wondering what what kind of valued as the option add to the movie industry because as you could see from the images they're

VII our it shows the image universe skewed minor you are not

seeing the full seen the way yeast and if you were about to see things the way it it is you only see 1 specific part even though it's 360 you only see 1 part at a time so with that in mind what kind of valued at the

I if fits securing

reality in a way that in terms of being able to view 1 part of the film at a time at this part in

terms of being a director you can't really control what the person is looking at that thing is that when you put on a headset you have the impression that you have the ability to look around and see and choose what you want to watch the director is really able to control that I'm able to put in a little points of sound and you turn around to look at because automatically if you hear sound behind you you turn around to look at it so if you're looking in the scene and you hear a sound and it's not anything there you automatically turn to look for it and that's already me directing you to follow the action so I can choose exactly where I want you to be in this film and as I the

thing with the odds that you as the audience are only reacting by instinct there's other of the art films that i've seen like animated via films complete the animated and literally the film will not continue and tell you look in the right

direction and that means that in the end you're going to do exactly what the director wants you and I think it's nice to have a mix of both to allow the audience to explore as they want to but I've seen directors create like script to the entire thing this will happen and this will happen then this will happen and all they need is for your eyes to look at a certain point and you've triggered the action so you don't realize that you triggering action by turning your head so that I think it's a completely different format I agree with the young and be added if you have the impression that it's

like free choice that's good thank you

and thanks for the last talk and also of things we must pictures I'm interested in your constant nearest at a constant which is behind you're talking about the dreams your me making of which you can control uh in could you go along some the people so I a road employing and I think the thing is that

whenever I'm watching films about Nairobi it's usually dealing with the

poverty of Nairobi in like people struggling a lot and what I wanted to do was to create this poem that was discussing how I feel about living in there'll be living in this context where there's a lot of suffering but at the same time Nairobi's apart that really feeds my heart in a special way and I want people to understand that these 2 things sort of live next to each other and on so I wrote this poem and I'm speaking the point within that piece and I O I was trying to find spaces where like the forest is a really beautiful column space but I wanted to introduce like the aggression of Nairobi in this space and

is also like the butterflies and the elements that I've added which of the things that I find quite magical in the city so that was the concept and then I creating this dreamscape it's just that the sort of way that you feel when a dream and you end up like you underwater your suddenly in a different space and you move really freely I found that that is really beautiful to

using the R to just finding a mean we had that this another argument had my producer he was saying that I should have I could dip to black and come back out so

that people can get used to the space and you know don't cut to quickly because they'll get disoriented and but because it's a dream I feel like I can move people

how I want to quite quickly through the space cause that's what happens when you dreaming anyway I'm the the answer I just created some characters and I wanted them to move to be in the different space performing these actual actions together with each other and it was really important to me to have spaces that you can explore alike very

near to the camera and also at a distance and they were visually rich yeah and we the yeah things and unfortunately I came a little bit late uh so I could very curious because of the photos where to watch you folks all OK and you and you yeah just just as you come off the stairs on your right our the new dimension section and there's all of our films of their my film was called Nairobi varies OK wonderful and things the things you knew moved here in the end of life and the life such as

what are my thanking Yankees at