moreover, they were present therein in the form of avatars. Organized the our award – Russians. And they have big plans. Because the Cannes content market, which will be held in an online format this year, in contrast, the largest film festival companion which he is preparing not just a great program dedicated to VR, but intends a number of events – discussions and panel – to be held in a virtual format. However, the Russians already know how to do that. How? Our source Georgiy Molodtsov, Director, producer, curator of the prize, which was discussed above, the Open Frame Award, held in the framework of goEast film festival, and the organizer of Russian Seasons VR initiatives.
why do you think recently again started talking about virtual reality?
Georgy Molodtsov: Virtual reality has two main plane of application as a practical tool and as a self-contained format. Applied educational initiatives (training using VR), online conference, presentation. In film applications of VR technology is seen in the foreign and Russian projects where scenes of the upcoming films “played” the crew level previsol (previzualizare – the process of creating the draft version of the animation future film development scenes – approx. “RG”), allowing you to schedule difficult shooting scenes collectively with a high degree of realism. And that is what applications are now suddenly again became popular.
However in parallel with this there is also VR as art and entertainment, which has movies, art performances, immersive experiences immersive. In this niche interest is a little below, as it always is at the forefront of technology and requires much more time and cost, and the coverage of the audience a little less.
What in this case helped a pandemic?
Georgy Molodtsov: In the case of a pandemic initially, many of my colleagues were not prepared to what came the moment when VR was supposed to go forward “in silver armor” and show everyone their best side. The need to translate an infinite number of conferences, festivals in the online format with the ability to connect hundreds of thousands of participants simultaneously was an almost impossible task, since most projects for online-conferences in VR were in the prototype stage and beta testing, limiting the number of attendees 50-100 people maximum. But the industry quickly recovered from the shock of increased demand and lack of offers – and now we see how one after the other appear solutions that allow all of these online meetings in a virtual reality connecting people without the necessary��odiogo equipment and create a much greater element of involvement and participation than all other attempts.
Recently, your team organized the closing ceremony of the VR-prize of the film festival goEast, which was held completely in virtual reality. What was it like? What you need equipment – so called VR headset.
Georgy Molodtsov: We started to develop several scenarios of the festival, once in Europe appeared first restrictions. On VR-prize at the film festival traditionally nominated 8 projects from Central and Eastern Europe, and the jury, often European, selects the winner and presents a statuette and a prize of 5,000 euros (quite considerable support, even in comparison with other major festivals). Exhibition of works is held in the framework of the festival in Wiesbaden and in the Primorsky district of Odessa in Frankfurt.
Nothing to do in the current situation we couldn’t, but the nominees have been identified and we are faced with the question: how can we not just replace physical activity, but also to use the situation as an opportunity for all. In the end, we have invited the winner of the 2018 Russian XR-artist Denis Semenov (XR is an extended reality, including virtual and augmented reality – approx. “RG”) and asked him to recreate in its style the virtual Caligari – the legendary movie theater in Wiesbaden, which is almost a hundred years. Created space, we moved to a virtual multi-user platform in conjunction with partners. In addition, since the visual style of the festival this year was permeated with the aesthetics of the residential areas (looks almost the same in all post-Soviet countries), we created a similar art style of another space – Vrooftop – that is the roof of the sleeping area where you placed the screen with trailers and presentations of the projects of the nominees, the booth where you can see their work created in the format 360. We were given the opportunity through a special platform to access interactive projects nominated. These efforts did not require additional budget, but rather the reallocation of existing funds for regular activities. As a result, we were the first VR-festival, which was able to translate online (and VR) are not only all events – presentations, communication with Directors, the awards ceremony, but the works themselves, since it is usually interactive projects are available only in exhibition format.
it Should be noted that other festivals have announced the same activity, but their scale is bigger and the dates of later, so we could show the possibility of this kind of format, stepped on all sorts of “rake” and gladly shared all the “pros” and “cons” with colleagues who will do�� these activities after us.
we made: due to the lack of need to travel, we were able to invite in jury of representatives of the largest companies working with the author of the VR content, our jury was in San Francisco, new York and London, while the festival headquarters were in Wiesbaden, our VR team in Moscow, Italy and France, and the nominees – all over Europe.
to Evaluate the work, we invited festival curators, distributors and selectors from major international festivals, they conducted tours and meetings with authors; from virtual reality, we are every evening were broadcast live on the festival website, thereby greatly expanding the geography of the audience and giving authors the opportunity to present their work to professionals from around the world. The platform was available either with a VR-helmet, or with a fairly powerful personal computer on which to install the program to visit the site without VR.
The bright event – the closing ceremony to which we invited only the jury and nominees and set up a virtual camera, and the stage was placed a statuette, also recreated in virtual reality Denis Semenov, the benefit of his house stood just the same in 2018. And here we have all of 6 different time zones gather in a virtual Caligari, the nominees in the truest sense of the word sit on the seat in the audience, the jury announces a special prize – VR-project “Babi Yar” Alena, Stoli, and then the winner – Polish project “Whispers” directed by Jacek Nagowski and Patrick Iordanovca.
And here stunned Director in Poland in the virtual avatar of the vampire rises to the virtual scene where the representative of one of the biggest company working in VR, an avatar of the shrimp passes the virtual statuette. Everyone in the hall clapping, the picture is the real Director, he tries to find words, his outstretched hand prize. This is the moment when you’re watching and forget that you are inside the computer, not in reality, because emotions, feelings and the sense that together you cover “a sober look”.
This is not the first event, which was the last time you organized in VR format? What other plan?
Georgy Molodtsov: Since the beginning of March VR community has formed a group ZeroEvent, exploring the platform for conducting VR-conferences, meetings, presentations. Every Friday this group meets in Zoom and listen to presentations of various startups and companies offering such services collectively and then goes into virtual reality and explores these platforms. Our colleagues Andrey Lunev and Alina Mikhaleva take an active part in the organization of these meetings (including a great pitching investors in mid-April). All these ��research help organizers of conferences and film festivals to decide on one or another area and the opportunities that open up before them.
Separate the format is a panel discussion held within the virtual reality and write so that they can be attached to regular television multicamera format and put it online – like material. It looks, of course, not at the level of the top graphics of computer games, but certainly much more interesting than the endless conferences at the Zoom. I hope this format will be able to demonstrate and in Russia at the upcoming international film market Key Buyers Event in June.
At the end of June will market at the Cannes film festival Marché du Film Online, which promises not only to expand the program dedicated to virtual reality – it was held the last couple of years, but also part of the lectures and discussions to be held in a virtual format. How will this happen? Russian will also help to organize it? What’s new from the world of VR will be in this market, what then will be able to join ordinary users?
Georgy Molodtsov: the Past few years under the Marché du Film, there was a pavilion of virtual reality – Cannes XR. He was in the basement on the ground floor and did not use blockbuster. This year’s Cannes XR had to go out in a beautiful pavilion on the Croisette, was opened for access not only to the accredited visitors, but also for ordinary viewers. We were discussing possible Russian activity. However, all learned about the cancellation of the festival and conduct of the market online. And, at the same time, Cannes XR found an opportunity as goEast and go entirely online on the ground of “Other Realities Museum”.
Imagine this as a real Museum, where each room is dedicated to a single company, represent the country. And this virtual hall move user avatars which can communicate with each other, to look at the work, listen to discussions and presentations. That is, each author of the project presented in Cannes XR, will be able to add as an element of their virtual experience in the format of the exhibition facility, and to provide access to the full view of this work. In addition, all discussions, presentations and meetings will be broadcast on channel Marché du Film, is available to accredited participants. So for guests who don’t have VR equipment, broadcast from Cannes XR is a great alternative to broadcast recordings from other segments of the market. And important guests from all over the world, the organizers of the Cannes XR agreed with is that the closed parks virtual reality about renting their equipment and provision of VR helmets for the exhibition in virtual reality. Now I really want to create such opportunities��s and in Russia, and still fully represent bright more Russian projects in the pavilion. It is quite a complex work, in which no well-established practices, but I hope our experience with goEast will help us to meet deadlines.
About some of the most interesting projects by Russian today in VR format we can tell the world – movies, achievements, etc?
Georgy Molodtsov: In Russia virtual reality is developed in the applied direction much faster than copyright, such as use of technology, particularly in the area of safety and education, and gives large corporations the obvious results. More VR projects require costs comparable to the production of entertainment VR-shooter, but the quality and artistic value of such projects will vary. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the Ministry of culture has issued a rental certificate for a spherical movies (the first one we got back in 2017 at the movies for one of the VR-film festivals, and was recently handed the rental certificate VR-project of Sergey Selyanov), subsidized financing not only VR, but also online and cross-media projects yet. Although, it would seem that these projects can get a clearer audience indicators, allow the young audience to give a wide coverage and so on. So now the projects are made initially, or as more independent work is self-funded, or as experiments in student laboratories (here in the lead, of course, the Moscow film school, with whom we have done projects for Liza Alert, and our first VR film festival of works created in these learning labs, travel to festivals for several years).
a Separate experiment to create the project “Effect Kessler” directed by Anton Utkin with the participation of Yuri Kolokolnikov and Irina Starshenbaum – it is a combination of game and narrative, disseminated through a network of VR cinema in Russia and abroad. Personally, I’m currently working on the project “Under the pillow” together with Belarusian colleagues based on tales my father, Sergey Molodtsov. It is created in a virtual reality tale of the cat Mormodica to help children, but also a game with elements of augmented reality and animated series. The project was originally done with the expectation of international audience, and that is why now it has become one of the participants pitching in the framework of the International animation festival in Annecy. Pitching, speaking in Russian protection projects, will also be held in online format.
At the same time, VR is the complexity of creating projects designed for children – age-restricted manufacturers of helmets. Therefore, VR-tale is positioned as a project for the whole family, the problems that we raise, pain��e as tips for parents on how to help children cope with difficulties, and how to see children’s world from the perspective of a friend, not an adult. The basis of fairy tales the story of a brother and sister who spend a lot of time together and were constantly fighting. And though the tale my father was written over 25 years ago, it is now in a period of self-isolation, has become much more relevant. So I hope that the work will be equally interesting, both in Russia and abroad.
