Authors — Randy Astle
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Tribeca 2018: Composer Ariel Marx on Scoring To Dust
Ariel Marx is a film composer to watch. It’s early in her career, but her credits already include an impressive variety of dramas and comedies on both film and television. She’s assisted on projects like Wonder and Amazon’s Z: The Beginning of Everything, and her own scores have been in the films West of Her, By Jingo, and The Tale, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year and runs on HBO next month. She’s even worked in augmented reality with Armen Perian’s The Angry River, a piece about human traffickers that changes with the direction of the viewer’s gaze — an impressive challenge for a traditionally linear form […]
by Randy Astle on Apr 24, 2018 -
It’s Really About You and Your Friends: Alex Henning on Creating Social Virtual Reality and Coco VR
With the release of Coco last year Pixar created yet another film that won over critics and audiences with rich visuals and a compelling story; it’s earned over $200 million so far and just took home the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Pixar wanted to use the property to push forward into new territory, though, and thus used Coco as the vehicle for its first virtual reality experience. To do so they tapped Magnopus, a Los Angeles-based VR/AR company that had previously produced Moana‘s virtual reality product for Disney. The result is Coco VR, a visually arresting gaming experience that also constitutes Oculus’s largest foray into social VR thus far. […]
by Randy Astle on Mar 5, 2018 -
“A Post-Digital Art Festival”: The Artistic Director and Curators on transmediale 2018
On the heels of Sundance and its New Frontier section every year comes transmediale, the Berlin-based festival more singularly focused on interactive film, video art, transmedia, virtual reality, and other forms of new media. Founded in 199, transmediale also excels at maintaining a clear focus on how these new works engaged with broader societal issues; traditional artwork, panel discussions, academic papers, and other offerings are always an integral part of the proceedings along with films and videos. This year’s theme is “face value.” With forces like globalization and feminism in stark public contrast with nationalistic authoritarianism and racial inequalities in […]
by Randy Astle on Jan 30, 2018 -
Interactive Video in a Gallery Experience: Lisa Truitt on National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey
For years the space at 226 West 44th Street in Manhattan was known as Discovery Times Square; it served as a tourist-oriented gallery space that housed temporary exhibits that alternated between artifacts like the Dead Sea Scrolls or Chinese terracotta warriors and contemporary pop—and film—culture like The Avengers, Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. By and large these relied on physical items and held little relevance to those interested in film and video. On October 6, however, the space reopened as National Geographic Encounter, and the first exhibit there, Ocean Odyssey, relies entirely on interactive video, motion-tracking gaming technology, 3D animation and intricate […]
by Randy Astle on Dec 18, 2017 -
My Favorite Film Screenings of 2017
Here are my favorite film experiences of the year: 10. Loving Vincent (2017; dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman; Lincoln Plaza Cinema) 9. The Red Turtle (2016; dir. Michaël Dudok de Wit; Lincoln Plaza Cinema) 8. Metropolis (1927; dir. Fritz Lang; Marble Collegiate Church) 7. La Belle et la Bête (1946; dir. Jean Cocteau; Tribeca Film Festival at Town Hall) 6. The Last Animals (2017; dir. Kate Brooks; Tribeca Film Festival at Cinépolis Chelsea) 5. City Lights (1931; dir. Charlie Chaplin; United Palace) 4. Harmony of Difference (2017; dir. Kamasi Washington; Whitney Biennial) 3. Romeo + Juliet (1996; dir. Baz Luhrmann; Little Cinema at House of Yes) 2. Imponderable (2015-16; […]
by Randy Astle on Dec 17, 2017 -
“Speaking to a New World”: Addison O’Dea on the Virtual Reality Series Discovery TRVLR
Last month Discovery Communications, Google, and Here Be Dragons released one of the most ambitious virtual reality documentary series yet produced, Discovery TRVLR. Writer-director Addison O’Dea and his team created 38 episodes on all seven continents, going to as remote locations as possible and focusing on the universality of the people who live there. Available on DiscoveryVR.com, the Discovery VR app, and YouTube, the series marks the next step, after works like Felix & Paul Studios’ Nomads series, to push VR into the field of ethnographic nonfiction. But as O’Dea emphasizes in our conversation below, TRVLR is first and foremost a travel show, not an anthropological […]
by Randy Astle on Dec 4, 2017 -
Making VR that Matters: Johns Hopkins’ New Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies Program
In last summer’s print issue of Filmmaker I wrote about the ways that university film and computer science departments are adapting to teach virtual and augmented reality in their classrooms. In schools all over the world, students are finding ways to use VR and AR to create narrative films, documentaries, animation and games as aids in therapy, medicine, architecture and innumerable other fields. Now the newest school to launch a program is Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where a graduate level Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies Program is beginning in January. Headed by filmmaker Gabo Arora under the direction of Roberto Busó-García, the Director […]
by Randy Astle on Nov 22, 2017 -
Five Questions with Night Night Director Guy Shelmerdine about the Future of Horror and VR
Earlier this month — and just in time for Halloween — the production company Dark Corner, known for its genre films and virtual reality projects, launched a new app that aims to become the go-to platform for horror, science-fiction and other genre VR. The app itself, named after the studio, is available for iOS and Android devices as well as Oculus Rift, Google Daydream and Samsung GearVR. It’s free to download, and offers individual titles as both free content and in-app purchases, generally for around a dollar each. The initially available projects include two past works from Dark Corner founder […]
by Randy Astle on Oct 31, 2017 -
Four Years of Access to Whale Hunts: Director Mike Day on The Islands and the Whales
The Islands and the Whales, which recently had its North American theatrical premiere at IFC Center and broadcast premiere on POV, is one of the most innovative documentaries on marine conservation I’ve seen in years. Director Mike Day is carving out a niche for himself by addressing the interstices where traditional cultures butt against modern conservationist ideals, resulting in nuanced interactions that defy expectations. The Islands and the Whales, for instance, shows the people of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic — Viking descendants who have lived off of the sea for generations — and how they are struggling […]
by Randy Astle on Oct 19, 2017 -
Through You: Stopping and Feeling Through Dance and VR
Although dance and virtual reality seemingly lay at polar ends of the creative spectrum, they can come together to make incredibly moving artistic experiences. That, at least, holds true for co-directors Lily Baldwin and Saschka Unseld in their new piece Through You, a VR film heavy on physical choreography that premiered at Sundance earlier this year and on August 1 was released on Samsung Gear VR via the Oculus Video app. The piece features a couple as their relationship evolves over the course of decades through discovery, fulfillment, loss and rejuvenation. It uses handheld camera movement to create a very visceral […]
by Randy Astle on Aug 15, 2017
