In collaboration with Cibap and Mediacollege Amsterdam.
Last semester, students from: Software development, Digital design & motion, Audiovisual specialist and and Media and event management worked on a Virtual production film. They did this together with students from two other mbo vocational schools: Cibap and Mediacollege Amsterdam.
The idea for this film originated from the Metaverse workshop. A workshop where new immersive applications are developed, which can be applied in various sectors such as healthcare, urban development, education and media. It is a creative breeding ground for students, teachers and employees of media organisations where they will experiment with new technologies. Six vocational schools, including SintLucas, decided to join forces and start training the talent of the future together.
Virtual production film
A virtual production film is a combination of physical and digital platforms in a real-time film or video environment. In virtual production, those platforms are merged to create virtual sets and environments during filming. This allows for more flexibility and creativity in productions, as it eliminates the need to physically build all sets or bring people to a location. The project involved working with a large LED screen wall with a camera that could move with it.
Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUAS) has equipment to make a virtual production film. Each school made a part of the film which eventually became a long film together. In the film, a common object was used which had to pass by each school on screen during the scene. This object was a water bomb. Furthermore, everyone had total freedom to shape the part of the film.
Multidisciplinary team
From SintLucas, a multidisciplinary team worked on the film. From the courses: Digital Design and Motion, Software Development, Audiovisual Specialist and Media and Event Management led by David Buzzi (Animation and 3D Lecturer). David: “We first came up with a world. A planet on which capybara people live. In the story, a person wakes up in this world and eventually the snap turtle dragon enters the picture.” Coming up with the story was quite a process, “We came up with a lot of story lines, but also deleted a lot, but this was just a nice learning process.”
Within the team, there was also a division between the different courses. The Digital design & motion course, for instance, created the 3D elements, the world in which the story took place and the monster and animations. Audiovisual students handled the script, direction, lighting and camera work. Finally, Software development students took care of programming the virtual scenes.
Students from the Media and Events Management programme supervised the production. Among other things, third-year student Joris took care of the production’s script. Joris: “It was an interesting project. You have to take so many things into account and this was a real challenge.”
Collaboration
The shooting day of the actual film was at BUAS in collaboration with Ironfilms. This is a virtual production company from Eindhoven. Together with Ironfilms, we devised the production and looked at what was feasible in one day, says David”. The filming day was a beautiful day and it was quite an experience for the 15 students present to be on a set. David: “They worked really hard from 9 to 5 to shoot 15 shots.”
Premiere
22 June was premiere of the film at Vue Eindhoven in the main auditorium with 250 seats. David: “Our students went through the whole process of a virtual production film. We hope to start another great collaboration next year both internally with our various courses and externally with other schools.”
