Video Consortium EDU

VR Workshop

16:9 to 360 | VR Video for Nonfiction Filmmakers

How are filmmakers leveraging VR Video to tell their stories, find engaged audiences and define the language of an emerging art form?

Millions of people own VR headsets and the numbers are growing fast. Filmmakers who think outside the frame can reach captive audiences who dedicate undivided attention to the stories they are immersed within.

As producer and moderator of this Video Consortium EDU workshop, I ask three creators about their journey from the world of video to VR and how they’re simultaneously making & breaking the rules for the still nascent medium of virtual reality.

Topics Include:

  • How we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice

  • VR Video as cinema verité

  • Audio in VR and how it’s different from traditional video

  • Essential gear to start shooting, stitching & editing + New Frontiers of the Tech

  • Film festivals and platforms for distribution

Panelists:

Lauren Ruffin is a co-founder of Crux, an immersive storytelling cooperative that collaborates with Black artists as they create content in virtual reality and augmented reality (XR). She also serves as co-CEO of Fractured Atlas. Her upcoming collaboration "Iconic Black Panther: XR" is a mixed-reality public art experience dedicated to exploring the enduring social and political impact of the Black Panther Party.

Cassandra Evanisko is is an award-winning director and creative producer. Her immersive 360° documentary, SEND ME HOME profiles one of the longest serving exonerees in U.S. history and explores his surreal, new life post-prison. It was featured on The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and as a Vimeo Staff Pick, before winning the Jury Prize at SXSW 2019.

Michaela Ternasky-Holland is a multi-racial Emmy, Webby, and Sheffield Doc/Fest award-winning documentarian, who combines experimental content with traditional mediums. Her breakthrough documentary project titled FACE TO FACE was a three-act installation that allowed the audience an intimate look at gun injury and human resilience. described by The Guardian as gut-wrenching, visceral, and heartbreaking. In 2020, she produced & co-created Lutaw, an animated VR story based in the Philippines, highlighting students that swim between small islands in order to travel to the nearest elementary or high schools in their remote areas.

Moderator:

The conversation will be moderated by Sam Baumel, a member of the VC Education Committee. He produces 360 Video documentaries and VR experiences with collaborators, including Museum of Food and Drink, Fast Company & Oatly. Sam’s goal is to facilitate artists so that they can tell their stories.