Next month the Raindance Film Festival will be holding a special event to celebrate the launch of its Raindance VRX Awards, highlighting pioneering virtual reality (VR) experiences by independent creators and filmmakers from across Britain and around the world.
The evening event is set to feature a selection of talks by notable VR creators, live VR avatars and a VR showcase. REWIND founder and CEO, Sol Rogers, will be hosting a keynote address on the ‘VR Landscape and State of Play’ while a panel will discuss ‘The Future of VR Experiences’. This will feature Resh Sidhu, Creative Director, VR at Framestore; Canaan Rubin, Director of Content and Production at Jaunt; Reeps One, an award winning musician and artist; and Zillah Watson, Editor at BBC Research and Development.
Other sessions will include:
- Chris O’Reilly, CEO Nexus VR
- Oliver Kibblewhite, Head of Special Projects at REWIND
- Avril Furness, independent filmmaker and VR Director
- Shafi Ahmed PhD FRCS, Founder Medical Realities
- Toni Shepard, Executive Director at Animal Equality UK
- Peter Boyd Maclean, independent filmmaker and VR Director
- Bioni Samp, VR character, sound designer, DJ and beekeeper
Raindance will also be inviting the public to join in on the event though VR social platform AltspaceVR, with some of the speakers to be motion captured and turned into live avatars.
The VR experiences showcased at the launch event will then be selected for awards, with the winners in each category then announced during the 25th Raindance Film Festival which takes place from 22nd September – 1st October 2017.
The Raindance VRX Awards will be held on 8th May starting at 5pm GMT, with the live avatars beginning at 6:40pm GMT for the official announcement.
In 2016 the 24th Raindance Film Festival held its first ever VR focused segment, a two-day public event called VR Arcade with a selection of 14 short films featuring documentaries, animations and cutting edge experiences.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of the Raindance VRX Awards, reporting back with the latest announcements.