Every Spring over the last few years, hordes of XR lovers and creators descend upon Tribeca to experience ground-breaking immersive works at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Virtual Arcade and Storyscapes competition.
Tribeca Immersive is known for showcasing cutting-edge augmented, mixed, and virtual reality works — some of which are extremely difficult to see anywhere else. A quick glance of the program reveals a number of prestigious firms and individuals showing off brand new work, usually as a world premiere: Jessica Brillhart (working with Yo-Yo Ma), Fable Studios (working with with Jeffrey Wright and Noah Schnapp), and Baobab Studios (working with Ali Wong), just to name a few. Many of the pieces shown at Tribeca Immersive will go on to influence creators around the world or score large distribution deals (like last year’s Spheres and Vestige).
We had the opportunity to talk to Loren Hammonds, co-curator of Tribeca Immersive, over email to learn more about what’s in store for this year’s fest.
No Proscenium (NP) Can you tell us a little about yourself and your role at the Tribeca Film Festival?
Loren Hammonds (LH): I am Senior Programmer of Film & Immersive for Tribeca Film Festival, so I help to curate the feature film program as well as oversee the Immersive section. I’ve been programming films for nearly nine years, and started working on Immersive five years ago.
NP: What, in a nutshell, is Tribeca Immersive about? What is the goal of the program?
LH: We are about story first and foremost. The goal is to celebrate the intersection of storytelling and technology, and our exhibition allows the creators the opportunity to create an immersive space to tell their stories. We encourage lots of creativity when it comes to presentation, and lean into our role as a destination for location-based experiences. We also have our Cinema360, which presents curated 360 programs in a theatrical atmosphere.
NP: What kinds of projects will people find there this year?
LH: We have everything from a gorgeously shot stop motion experience featuring creepy puppets from animators Clyde Henry and Félix & Paul (Gymnasia) to a fully immersive WWI experience from historian Dan Carlin and MWM Immersive. There’s something for everyone.
NP: How has the type of project being showcased changed over the years?
LH: The exhibitions continue to grow in ambition, and also in size. Just four years ago, everyone was in virtually the same eight by eight footprint. Now some of the experiences have full sets, live actors, haptic effects and more. Beyond that, creators continue to experiment with what it truly means to tell a story in XR, and this led to some major evolutions in interactivity.
NP: What’s the most exciting thing about pulling the Tribeca Immersive program together?
LH: I think it’s the element of discovery. I have the opportunity to travel the world throughout the year meeting creators and finding out exactly what kind of projects they’re working on. It’s so inspiring to see some of these projects come from initial conception to intricate execution in such a short period of time. It’s always exciting to see how audiences respond to brand new work.
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NP: How have other genres like escape rooms, immersive theatre, and live-action games changed the augmented, mixed, and virtual reality space, from your perspective?
LH: Those genres have had a great influence on the XR world recently. This is mostly because location-based experiences have become so crucial to the sustenance of the XR ecosystem. If creators are truly attempting to design experiences that can’t be duplicated at home and therefore add more value towards monetization and distribution, then of course they must look towards other forms of immersive entertainment that have been proven profitable and, more importantly, memorable.
NP: Which pieces at Tribeca Immersive this year use real time/live motion-captured actors?
LH: We have several projects that embrace their theatricality in part by incorporating live actors into the exhibition. Two of the Storyscapes finalists, Traitor and The Key include a live element as part of the presentation. There are also live performance elements in Wolves in the Walls: It’s All Over.
NP: Can you tell us a little about each one and what’s exciting about them?
LH: Traitor is a great adaptation of an immersive theatre from Pilot in the UK. It really throws the viewers (the piece is experienced in pairs) in the midst of an immersive thriller in which you get to play a major role.
Wolves is a unique collaboration between Fable Studios and Third Rail Projects, in that they used actors from that company to motion capture the characters in the experience, and those performative elements bleed out of the headset and into the exhibition.
The less said about The Key, the better, since it’s a mystery!
NP: What advice do you have for folks coming to Tribeca Immersive, especially if they are new to AR/VR?
LH: Try as many different projects as you can, and exercise patience. You can’t see it all in one visit. Showing this work can be challenging, and there is an element of waiting, but we provide you with a three hour block to explore, as well as some truly amazing sights to see before you ever even don a headset.
NP: What do you hope people take away from a visit to Tribeca Immersive?
LH: I hope audiences recognize this as not just a viable but an incredibly exciting form of storytelling that is being invented right before our eyes. Most crucially, I hope they are able to feel transported through these experiences.
Tribeca Immersive runs April 26 — May 4. Tickets are $40 for a 3-hour time slot and go on sale today, March 26.
View all of our Tribeca Immersive 2019 coverage.
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