Category: Sheffield Doc/Fest

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Sheffield Doc/Fest Reveals Its Alternate Realities Lineup

Sheffield Doc/Fest, the documentary festival held in South Yorkshire, UK, is celebrating its 25th edition, and is celebrating with a diverse programme of documentary features, shorts and performances, including an impressive 27 interactive and immersive projects; including 1 game, 1 augmented reality (AR), 3 interactive documentaries, 3 installations, 9 virtual reality (VR) installations and 10 mobile VR projects.

The features ad performances that contain immersive elements will be part of the Alternate Realities exhibition, which will be spread over two floors at the Trafalgar Warehouse and will be featuring virtual and augmented reality, videogames and digital installations.

The exhibition lower floor will have an area called The World Unknown to You which will feature several VR and AR installations. The floor above will have an area for Better Known Truths, supported by the DDD60 project, a communal space where synchronous VR shows will be shown in order to bring audiences together to experience 360-degree documentaries.

Special live events will also be shown during the event, such as the ‘live-action text adventure’ The Dark Room, dark Orwellian interactive show DOUBLETHINK ans other shows such as The Incredible Playable Show and Reeps One: We Speak Live Music.

In addition, the Alternate Realities Summit, supported by Arts Council England will take place on Sunday 10th June. There will be three keynote speakers; William Uricchio who leads the MiT open Doc lab, Ruthie Doyle from the Sundance Institute and Zahra Rasool, the lead of Al Jazeera’s Contrast VR team.

All the Alternative Realities projects, except the special live events, will be competing across three award categories; the Virtual Reality Awards, Alternative Realities Interactive Award and Audience Award. The winners will be announced at the Sheffield Doc/Fest Awards ceremony on 12th June.

The Sheffield Doc/Fest begins on Thursday 7th June. The Alternative Realities exhibition will be open for the duration of the event. Further information and tickets can be found on the Sheffield Doc/Fest website. VRFocus will be sure to keep you updated on the latest news from Sheffield Doc/Fest and other VR/AR events.

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Sheffield Doc/Fest Announces Alternate Realities VR Commission Winner and Two VR Premieres

In February VRFocus reported on Sheffield Doc/Fest announcing a new commission as part of its Alternate Realities Exhibition. Today, festival organisers have revealed the winner of the £12,000 GBP competition as well as unveiling two virtual reality (AR) project set to premiere at the June event.

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The 2018 Doc/Fest commission has been awarded to Face to Face by Michaela Holland, Michelle Gabel and Ivana Jiron.  Both immersive and interactive, the experience tells the story of an American mother with two daughters – whose life was forever changed by a gun accident. Chosen from a record number of highest quality international entries, Face to Face was selected by a committee that included Sarah Ellis (Head of Digital Development for the Royal Shakespeare Company), Katy Yudin (Executive Producer of the Future of Storytelling Festival in Canada) and Dun Tucker (Curator of Alternate Realities).

For the 2018 Alternate Realties Exhibition, two international VR projects will make their debut: The Day The World Changed – by VR veterans Gabo Arora (ZIKR: A Sufi Revival) and Saschka Unseld (Henry, Dear Angelica) and Hold The World – a one-off VR encounter with natural historian Sir David Attenborough.

The Day The World Changed is an immersive documentary that combines archive, animation, photogrammetry, 3D scanned objects and native VR tools together to send a clear message about nuclear disarmament. Made by Factory 42 for Sky VR, Hold the World is a one-on-one guided journey through a series of natural history specimens that the audience can interact with, learn more about, and reflect on how the past informs the present.

Hold The World Header

“These Alternate Realities works challenge the documentary form with multi-sensory stories using the latest digital innovations,” said Dan Tucker, Curator of Alternate Realities, Sheffield Doc/Fest, in a statement. “Today we reveal our incredible commission, Face To Face, the story of a mother with limitless courage; a first time collaboration between renowned VR creators Gabo Arora and Saschka Unseld with The Day The World Changed; and Hold The World, an innovative one-on-one encounter with Sir David Attenborough. We are looking forward to seeing audiences come to Sheffield with curiosity in abundance and leave with a desire to collaborate, create and share their own immersive and interactive stories”.

The Alternate Realities Exhibition and Summit showcases the world’s latest non-fiction interactive, augmented reality (AR) and (VR) projects. The Exhibition runs throughout the duration of the Festival (7-12 June), and the Summit takes place on Sunday 10th June 2018. For further information and to get tickets head to the official festival website. As further details are released, VRFocus will keep you updated.

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Sheffield Doc/Fest Launches £12,000 Immersive Documentary Competition

The annual Sheffield Doc/Fest returns to the UK city in June, bringing with it plenty of new virtual reality (VR) films as part of the Alternate Realities section. For budding immersive content creators the Alternate Realities Exhibition has announced a new commission, tasking artist(s) based anywhere in the world to create an imaginative immersive documentary for the event, offering a £12,000 GBP prize.

Following the success of 2016’s winning project Indefinite by VR artist Darren Emerson and 2017’s winning project Future Aleppo by Alex Pearson/Marshmallow Laser Feast, Sheffield Doc/Fest’s third commission is an opportunity for creatives to truly innovate in the field of documentary-based interactive storytelling.

Sheffield Doc/Fest states that: “To be considered, projects must be immersive or interactive documentaries. We are particularly interested in projects that push the boundaries of what is technically possible within factual storytelling. Applicants should be able to demonstrate a strong commitment to innovation in interactive storytelling in the realm of non-fiction and documentary-making.”

While not essential, the organisers would deem it desirable that anyone considering entering will need to show a body of artistic work in the field, including a proven track record of recent work, projects, exhibitions, publishing, and/or commissions.

The project doesn’t need to be made specifically for the Alternate Realities competition, with the panel being open to projects that may have already been started or developed or are in production, providing they respond to the brief and they are made aware of any other partners or funding bodies involved in the project.

Winners will be awarded £12,000 to cover artist fees and all production costs and expenses. Travel (including international flights) and accommodation for the artist to install their work and participate in the Festival will be covered in addition. One member of the project team must be available to be present during the Festival, 7 – 12 June 2018.

Submissions are open now with the deadline for proposals being 12 noon GMT on Monday 12th March, 2018. For further details on the competition and the application process head to the Sheffield Doc/Fest website. For any further updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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Sheffield Doc/Fest Offering £12,000 For The Next Great VR Documentary

Sheffield Doc/Fest Offering £12,000 For The Next Great VR Documentary

For the past few years, Sheffield Doc/Fest has highlighted the latest in VR documentary making via its Alternate Realities section, and this year’s show will be no different.

In the build-up to Sheffield Doc/Fest 2018, which runs from June 7th – 12th, the festival is offering a £12,000 commission for an immersive documentary to be made before and the premiered during the show. It’s the third year in a row the festival has run this creative competition, with previous years spawning intriguing VR pieces such as Indefinite and Future Aleppo.

Doc/Fest is looking for pitches for projects that push the boundaries of factual storytelling using immersive and interactive platforms. Applicants will need to demonstrate their commitment to innovation as well as be backed by a strong body of existing work in the field.

If you have those things and think you have something that needs to be told in VR then you’ll need to get your proposal in by 12:00pm GMT on Monday March 12th. The commission will be selected the following week. The commission isn’t just exclusive to UK artists, so don’t think you’ll be left out if you’re in the US or elsewhere. You can find out how to apply here.

If successful your piece will be put on display next to some of the best works in VR documentary making right now.

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VR Film Wins Sheffield Doc/Fest Alternate Realities Commission

The winner of the second Doc/Fest Alternate Realities Commission has been announced. The Award commission is worth £10,000 (GBP) which is awarded in partnership between FACT and Arts Council England. The winners are Alex Pearson and creative collective Marshmallow Laser Feast.

The project that netted the winners the award was Future Aleppo, the story of how a young Syrian boy named Mohammed Kteish painstakingly recreated the city of Aleppo with papercraft models after he was forced to flee his homeland in the face of violence and conflict.

Pearson and the Marshmallow Laser Feast used photogrammetry and 3D modelling to recreate those delicate paper models in a virtual reality (VR) experience where users will be guided by Mohammed through the buildings, showing the life he lived in the city that is now destroyed.

Curator of Alternate Realities, Dan Tucker said: “Future Aleppo is a poignant and powerful project. I am excited to see how Alex and Marshmallow Laser Feast interpret Mohammed’s story told through his beautiful paper-craft models, created to defy the destruction of his home city. As a creative team Alex and Marshmallow Laser Feast are well known for pushing boundaries and making the impossible possible. We are thrilled that Future Aleppo is the Alternate Realities Commission for 2017 and look forward to sharing it with audiences in Sheffield in June.”

Sheffield Doc/Fest will take place from 9th-14th June 2017, where Future Aleppo will see its première, alongside several other films, documentaries, talks and discussions. Further information and tickets can be found on the Sheffield Doc/Fest website.

VRFocus will continue to bring you information on new VR projects.

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Sheffield Doc/Fest Inviting Entries for 2017 Alternate Realities Market

Sheffield Doc/Fest, aka the Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF) continues to grow and evolve. Much as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) continues to.

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This year’s event, taking place across the 9th to the 14th of June 2017 will be the fourth year that VR-related content will be featured. Part of which will be that found in the Alternate Realities Market which has now opened its doors for submissions.

The Market is open to anyone looking to create VR, AR, or projects that are in any other way interactive and who might be looking for some manner of support. Be it financial, manpower related or if you are looking for assistance in areas such as distribution. The Market is set to feature, according to the event, over 300 individuals that would-be pitchers can meet with on a one-to-one bases to sell their product or vision. A not unsubstantial amount of opportunities to make valuable industry contacts.

The deadline for submissions is Thursday, 16th March 2017.

Along with other projects Sheffield Doc/Fest is also busy working with the European Commission H2020 programme. Beginning last month the organisation began involvement in a new project focused around compression and transcoding technologies called DDD60, which is working to make both fields cheaper and easier to use.  The project is set to run until 2018.

VRFocus will bring you more information as to what is going on at the event as the talks and attendees are announced.