Recently, the works created by the teachers of Beijing Film Academy once again appeared on the international stage. “Agarwood VR”, directed by Liu Yuejun, School of Animation, Beijing Film Academy, with Sun Lijun and Li Jianping as art directors, was selected into the XR competition unit of the 80th Venice Film Festival and Venice Biennale.
The XR unit “Venice Immersive” of the 80th Venice Film Festival and Venice Biennale was grandly opened on August 30th at Lido Island in Venice, and will be open to the public from August 31st to September 9th. The Venice Film Festival ranks first among the three international established film festivals and has been held for 80 sessions. “Agarwood VR” is the only work selected in the immersion unit in mainland China this year. The selected works this year include “The Seven Ravens” by the top international company Felix & Paul Studios and “Wallace and Gromit VR” by Aardman. In addition, Chinese movie star Shu Qi served as a member of the jury of this year’s film festival, and Fei Xiang participated in the film festival with “Feng Shen”.
“Agarwood VR” is China’s first immersive metaverse interactive feature film. The film uses the world’s cutting-edge metaverse technology to present the magnificent world of Chinese mythology on the international stage for the first time. The audience can take a 6DOF fully immersive flight on the crane , and feel the mythical world within reach in an unprecedented way. The innovative design of the film is based on the independent space-time model. The audience can freely choose the spatial position and perspective, and switch between the far, medium and near scenes independently; they can also independently compress or lengthen the time process to experience the shocking experience. For the first time, the film designed a brand-new multi-mode combat experience, such as watching the battle from a distance, fighting side by side side by side, and face-to-face combat with FACE TO FACE. The film deconstructs the linear model of traditional movies, integrates the story into the flowers, and let the audience explore independently one by one. In addition, the film strengthened the audience’s participation in the plot, playing the first-person role to explore the third-person story of Chen Xiang saving his mother, deeply moved and finally sacrificed his life to save her. In terms of technology, the film combines my country’s latest HDR Vivid (high dynamic display) and Audio Vivid (spatial audio) technologies to further enhance the user’s immersive audio-visual experience.
Wu Nanni, Shi Tao, and Xu Jingqiu participated in the main creation of the film. Beijing Film Academy’s Digital Film and Television Animation Creation Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education participated in part of the production. This work is the creative practice of Beijing Film Academy in conjunction with teachers and students of sister schools, and it is another masterpiece to promote the excellent Chinese culture to the international stage and the international development of Beijing Film Academy.
In the internal experience link before the official opening, the novel and unique experience of the film deeply touched the program director of the Venice Film Festival and international counterparts.
