FEED Autumn 2024 Newsletter

in a male-dominated industry. It’s also a world tour of culinary tradition because it takes you through all these different places. We originally couldn’t do the topic of food in VR because, when you’re filming with a 360 camera, you can’t zoom – so the dishes would have appeared distant and you wouldn't be able to capture all the details and texture of the food. So we decided to create a custom rig that alters the distance between your eyes, essentially providing you with the view that you would have as an insect, in that the dishes appear enormous in front of you. It is such a new and exciting way to experience food. The 9/11 documentary was also a particularly poignant one. It tells the story of Genelle Guzman- McMillan, who survived for 27 hours under the rubble of Ground Zero. It was challenging as we didn’t want to show anything violent, so you dive into her memories of the attacks surrounded by a blurry halo that doesn't depict anything graphic. The experience is divided into three parts: the first is her genuine experience as a young immigrant in New York City, starting to work at the Twin Towers in the early 2000s. Then you experience her memories of 9/11 and it concludes with her returning to Ground Zero for the first time around 20 years later. The most incredible thing was finding out about photographers using VR back in the early 2000s. It was amazing to see people were already using this technology. We obtained the original photos, remastered them and made them compatible with today's VR headsets. What’s interesting is that it’s not a 3D recreation of the Twin Towers, but rather a picture taken on that day. These are real people immortalised on a specific day, which creates a special connection to the moment. It was the first time we realised VR is a powerful tool to take people back in time. It’s also an interesting perspective on the evolution of immersive media, you realise people were experimenting with the same thing as you 20 years ago.

@feedzinesocial

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