Diolch yn fawr iawn am wylio'r fideo. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, does this work? Yes. Good morning to the second day of Expanded Animation Symposium, the 10th edition as far as I know. And I'm happy to be the moderator in the morning session. And this morning session is called a C4 Austria forum. called ACIVA Austria Forum. And at first, I'd like to welcome the president and chairman of ACIVA Austrian stage. He will tell you about ACIVA and Austria a few sentences. Thank you very much, and good morning. ACIVA is an international association of animation filmmakers, very traditional, exists since 60 years internationally and ASIFA Austria, the Austrian chapter, exists already more than 35 years. So for the first time we are really connected to the Ars Electronica, two organizations beginning with an A, ending with an A, but that's not the real reason for the connection, but we are friends in spirit for many years. Jürgen Hagler, the curator of expanded animation is Ars IfaIF member also Reinhold Biedner. They both curated this panel for CIF Austria and as Ars Electronica and we are completely delighted to have this collaboration because as Austria in general as you may have noticed is very goes into a direction of a kind of expanded animation not so much industrial but also and so things find together and I wish you all a very pleasant morning and day here at expanded animation with ASIFO Austria and Ars Electronica. Thank you very much, and have fun. So for that panel, we thought that it's, yeah, we tried to find some positions that make sense for Asifa and Expanded as well. And in that sense, I'm happy to introduce the first two speakers who will talk about the art of Greek, their game, both based in Czech Republic in Brno and Prague. Jan Chlup, is that correctly? And Radim Jurda, the art of Greek from Amanita Design. Okay, thank you and good morning. So, and I think let's just start it, because we have, the talk is quite long and we have to rush a little bit to tell you everything we want to tell you. So my name is Radim Jurda and I am a lead designer and artist of Creeks, which is the game from Amanita Design Studio that was released in 2020. Yes, and my name is Jan Hlub and I worked on Creeks mostly on paintings and on graphics. And yeah, Radim is going to start. Okay, and I would like to ask if some of you already played Greeks or no? Cool. So cool. We have some basic stuff, so it wouldn't be boring for you, because, yeah, we tell some stuff like this. We are from the studio that is called Amanita Design. And it's the studio that was founded by in 2003. And the studio is somehow like, it's A je to studio, které bylo vytvořeno Jakubem Dvorským v roce 2003. A studio je nějakým způsobem z tradicionálního animace. A každý z hráčů se stále cítí jako audiovisuálně zajímavý a úžasný. Je tady pár malých týmů, kteří pracují na každém z těchto hráčů. Je to asi 5 do 7 lidí, nebo 2 do 7 lidí. teams working on each of these games. It's like five to seven people or two to seven people and there are four teams at the moment and each of the team is working on its own game so that's why we are able to somehow release one game per year or per two years. But the development of the games is much longer and for example in the case of Creeks to nás zjistilo od prvního začátku a to bylo asi 8 let, aby to ukončilo. Ale vlastně máme rekord v dlouhém rozdělení v studio. A teď pochopíme se zpět k Creeksu a já vám hraji zpět a pak se zpět vznikne a mluvíme o tom, jak jsme to všechno vytvořili. Kampung Kampung I'm going to go get some water. okay and just a little bonus. Okay, so now we are going eight years back in time, and I would just like to tell something about the theme of the game or how the idea was created. I was actually studying Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the animation studio and Jan was studying painting in Academy of Fine Arts, right? And when the time came for me to make my diploma, I decided to make a game or like a concept for the game. And in the time I was somehow interested in visualization of human psychology and also interested in a situation if we see or know something just partly, our brain like fill the gaps and create some new reality for us. It is a bit complicated, but to vizualizovat. A vzpomínám si situaci, kdy jsi v mladém místě, podobně jako tohle, a vidíš na konci nějakou zvláštní siluétu, která si mohla vzpomínat nějakou zvláštní kříži nebo monsteru nebo něco. Ale pokud si vzpomínáš na světlo, vidíš, že to není monster. Může být jen taková náročná část vrnitky nebo možná stentkota s nějakými kloveními, ně to není monster, může být jen náročný květ nebo možná stent s kločkou. A my to takto přijeli a vytvořili jsme tyto výrobené kreatury. To je první sklep jednoho z našich básních závodů. Je to takový záležitý pěk v štěstí a v štěstí a náročný náročný stent v náročném. And so it's like a dangerous dog in the darkness, in the shadow, and like a harmless nightstand in the light. And I like this idea because it was interesting also visually. And it could create some interesting visuals in the world. And also, I thought it's potent for interesting puzzles to have these strange shape-shifting creatures and turn on the lights, turn off the lights, and somehow manipulate them in the way you like and solve the puzzles in this way. Yeah, and I was also designing the world for the game, and this is one of the... It's actually the first sketch of the game environment, and I kind of like it because quite a lot of things from this picture made it to the final game, like the overall mood and this look of the hero and this lake inside the strange cave. I was also doing these three drawings where on each of the drawings I was trying to realize something for me or try something for me. This is just the mood, our hero is safely sleeping in the light a chtěl jsem si něco vědět nebo zkusit něco. To je jen hodina, náš hráč je v pořádku v lůži a zvířaty se na něj kříží v městě. Tady náš hráč se s námi přijde. V této fotografii jsem chtěl zjistit, jestli hra bude se dělat v neodběrném městě nebo domě, protože mi líbí hodina zvířat be the whole game will take place in underground city or underground house, because I also like the mood of abandoned public libraries and swimming pools and stuff like this. But in the end, we decided to make it just underground house, because it's kind of intimate. It's also cool, and it's not so much work. Like, we already did the house for many years. If it would be whole city, we would be still working on it. And this is picture. takže jsme už dělali hodinu hodin, kdyby to byla celá města, kdybychom ještě dělali. A tohle je pochop, já to taky líbím, protože všechno důležité věci je už v pochopu, vidíte hru, avionovou charakteru, věci, monstry, kávu v povrchu. My jsme také vytvořili historii a v tradici designu Amanita jsme se rozhodli, že příběh přečetíme úplně bez slov, takže není všechno v pohodě, není všechno vytvořeno, všechno je představováno animací. A proto jsme vytvořili velmi dlouhý příběh s 1000 způsobů a vytvořili jsme každou scénu do velmi důležitých detailůav, která vytvořila všechny scény do velmi důležitých detailů a pak jenom vydáváme to na našeho přátelé. Bez komentářů, takže by si věděli, když jenom zjistíme představy, jestli by si mohli vědět představu. Je to velmi jednoduchá představa, ale nemůžeme říct také velmi komplexní představu, kterou vytvoříme jen v animacích. Ano, a tyto které vytvoříme v animacích. Tato iniciativa nás vzala, že budeme splnit celý hračský svět na mnoho distrikcí. Každá z nich vytvoří jednu novou závěru, novou závěru z tohoto distrikce a vzájemný vizualní styl. Přeji jsem několva digitalního sklepky a v každé z nich se chtěl zjistit nějaké elementy, které bych měl vypořádat a které by měly vytvořit významný pohled. Toto je sklepka pro etiku, která je plavá na křížových důmích full of wooden creaky floors and old tools and dried herbs and garlics and stuff like this. This world is called Towers. It belongs to the true character that is called Librarian, and it's full of libraries, full of books. It's inspired by Gothic architecture, and it has space and spiritual themes. This one is the most modern example. It's called Science Labs, I think. And this one is inspired by cubistic architecture, functionalistic architecture. And for example, we took inspiration also with cubistic architects and furniture makers so this one is for example wardrobe inspired by use of go char check list architect so yeah and I was when I was doing all of these I was also designing the monsters itself for the Greeks so I have here some just free sketches some notes and here I have three examples each of the creeks is tak jsem se také prodejil křížové zvuky. Tady mám tři skričky, nějaké noty. A tady mám tři příklady. Každý z křížů se vytvoří zároveň podle našeho hráče. Pěká hra časí na náš hráče. Toto štěstík, který jmenujeme spíšem, mimikuje svůj vrch. Takže když náš hráč pojde na levé, tak ať i na levé. Když náš hráč pojde na pravé, tak ať i na pravé. A když náš hráč jde na levé, tak se jde na levé, když jde na pravé, tak se náš hráč také na pravé. A jenom jenom jí zvířatí, ale když se náš hráč dotáčí, tak se náš hráč zvířatí. Na této slidce vidíme evoluce hráče, od prvního prototypu, které jsme vytvořili v Flashu, do konce výstupu do hry. Na případě jeho klovení se vůbec nezapadlo, ale všechno se stále stále stále stále stále stále. Ale co se většinou změnilo, je, že jeho oči, které se začaly stát jen jednou pikselem, a následně se stále stále stále stá. A také se hlavní většina zpětí a jeho ruky. Protože my jsme si věděli, že když jsme vytvořili kastrny a animaci, nemůžeme tak velmi zpět zvířat. A to nás nějak pomohlo, aby jsou tyto expresivní části větší, takže nám to pomohlo říct historii na lepší úrovni, takže by se karakteri můžli představit historii na lepší úrovni, takže by se mohli charaktery vytvořit lepší. Když jsem vytvořil svět, tak jsem si zjistil, že musím nějaké inteligentní významy z tohoto místa. Protože nějak pro interpretaci hry bych měl dva interpretace. Že náš hráč vznikne na zajímavé fantazijní světě, ale také bych měl vědět, že ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě ještě je. Takže jsem se zeptal, kde je něco jiného než člověk pro tyto charaktery. A tak jsem se zeptal o různé věci. Připojenil jsem různé závody z zemí. A nějak to bylo naturné, jako byly tyto ptáčky v mojich výběrůch. Ale myslel jsem si, že to nevíc nevíc. Ptáčky nemůžou být na hře, je to prostě zvláštní. Ale myslel jsem si, že by byly běžné. Ale kolegy mi to zase zjistili, že je to zajímavé, že je to takové dobré, že by byly běžné. Takže jsem jim přišel a tohle je poslední design na naše výrobní charaktery. A také se mělo dát nějaké způsoby animací. Měl jsem způsob animací které bylo příliš výrobné. A v této způsobě myslel jsem si, že by bylo hezké, abych měl vypustit všechno z hrače. Takže jsem si udělal způsob animací které bylo výrobné. Měl jsem způovat všechno z hrana. Takže jsem vytvořil tato animaci z hrana. Mělo se, jak se hra hledá na charakteru. Bylo to hodně špatné. Potom jsem se zeptal, jestli toto je takovým jakým bych se líbil, jako tohle je jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si řekl, jakým bych si I like this one. Yeah, and okay. And here, as I was telling it, like the concept for Creeks was my diploma. And so I was presenting there some artworks and some ideas for the puzzles and also this video. And this video has a short trailer and then some examples of the scenes. I will just show you now the trailer for it to see how it was during the school project phase, how it looked. Yeah. OK. So there was a different name, working name. We then changed it for Greeks. And we were also thinking that the game will be finished much, much sooner. So we a little bit delayed in the end. But OK, in the end, as I was telling you, we did this storyboard with a lot of cut scenes and stuff. We decided to actually use cutout animation. Because it's maybe a little bit simpler, but also if you would do all the animations, all the cutscenes in frame by frame, it would be a lot of data. And the game would be many gigabytes and too big. So it was also quite practical for us to use the cutout animation. But as I like the frame by frame, I was doing maybe some parts like this hunter stuff. It's like growing up with frame by frame. Also, the changes of the monsters are done in frame by frame animation. And each of them is prepared from the main characters. It's like around 200 cutouts. které jsou připraveny z účinných kategorií. Je to asi 200 vzpomínků. Je připraven z všech stran, takže může dělat všechno, co se nám potřebuje. A tohle je video z animátora Pavela Pachta. Vyhledá to na vývoj hrana, z nějakých designů do finalního animátora. a little bit showing the evolution of the hero of the hunter from some designs and to the final animation in the game it's interesting like pavel pachta he he was like experienced in stop-motion puppet animation and he actually never never worked on computer animation before so it was a new thing for him he had to learn before, so it was a new thing for him. He had to learn. Yeah, we were using Unity for it, for the animation, completely. So for the short animations, it was fine. But for the longer, it was crazy, because it's not basically animation software. And if we had the cut scene that is two minutes long, and we change something, Pavel had to wait for five minutes till the keyframes like recalculate themselves But he's like the most patient guy I ever met so he made it Yeah, easy to cut out here, and now I will just like a little bit hop in time Yeah, yeah Preparing this and it looks in the final animation, looks like this then in the game. Cool. All right. Hmm. Okay. Here I'll tell you a few words about actually the backgrounds and scenes and puzzles in the game. So it's a puzzle game and like actually eachény a puzzle v hru. Je to puzzle hra. Každá střeva je puzzle, který musíte rozhodnout a pak se toho přeještě dělat. Vždycky jsem vše začal v mém sklepě, kde jsem udělal tyhle špatné věci. Měl jsem nějakou idei a chtěl jsem, jestli to funguje s penem. A když jsem si myslel, že to funguje, idea and just try if it works like with my pen. And if I thought it works, I made a very simple storyboard where I kind of like played the puzzle solution. And in this, I already find some problems of it and made some iterations. And when this worked, we give it to our programmer. He made a really basic prototype with really geometrical graphics. And we tested it if it really works. It was OK. We start to find the illustration for the background. And it was quite interesting because we knew the shape, how it should look. I call it like a visual puzzle, that we knew the shape. And we have to find something that is natural, a věděli jsme, že je to výborný, ale museli jsme najít něco, co je výborné, které je organické, ale možná i nejvíc kaotické. Bylo to velmi ráno. Takže jsem udělal nějaké věci, nějaké designy. V konci jsem se nejvíc líbil, takže jsem to printil, vytvořil na taříčku, a pak jsem to vytvořil s inkou a akvarelem v této básní čisté čisté a čisté výběru, pak to zeskálo a v komputérě jsme vytvořili nějakou postprodukci, vytvořili kolory a další věci a tohle je poslední významný význam v hře. V této fázi jsem vytvořil hodně těchto výběrů, mám tady nějaké více předmětů, nějaké další výběry, tohle je nějaká část v hře, nějaká střeva I have here some more examples, some other levels. This is some part in the light, some tower. And actually, a lot of these drawings was created. And it was a nice work, but it was really, really time consuming, very much. And for example, we made some mistake, maybe in the puzzle, that it was somehow stuck and it cannot continue. So we have to repair it. So it meant to draw it, print bychom to chtěli vydržet, vydržet, vydržet, pak to znovu zkontrolovat a možná nějak to přešli do předmětného příkladu, takže to bylo docela špatné. A tak jsme se představili, abychom chtěli vytvořit věci, které byly partí digitalně, jako kombinace digitalního vzdálení a digital drawing and scanned aquarelle textures. The characters are done like this already, so we decided to try it also with the background. This is the first background that was created this way. Now I will give the microphone to Honza and he will continue. OK, thank you. I will talk about how we work on it digitally, and then I will talk about the paintings. So we started to do the paintings, the backgrounds digitally, and it was actually a huge time saver because before we worked on one background for more than one month, and when we worked digitally, it was much quicker. So it also allowed us to work better with the depth in the level and also with the layers. And any change was much easier. Well, to achieve this, we've created imitations of a pen tip that we used when we worked on a paper. And we also made imitations of a brush. And here you can see a looped texture that we used as a background for the levels. So here's an image. And you can see that we do the drawing as we would do on a paper. And then when the drawing is done, we just add some colors to it. We add some adjustments layers. And we are trying to add a volume to the shapes and to add some spatial depth to the level. So to do this, we set few post-production rules, because in fact, we are two artists that are working on one game. And these rules are quite important. So because it is important to keep the coherent visuals throughout the whole game. So for example, I'm going to mention a few of these post-production rules. Well, one of them is that the floor is always the brightest part of the scene, of the level. And it is because it shows the player where he can go and where he can step. And for example, the ceiling or the area across the ceiling is always the darkest part. So, yeah. And also we set a color palette, for example in this case it is the stones of a green because this level is in the area that is dedicated to the character called Hunter and he likes the woods He likes green Yeah, and if you play the game you can see that it is full of animated details in the backgrounds. So we have to Everything that moves in a game has to be created or drawn separately from the background. And it has to be post-produced in a way so it looks like it fits. It was a bit tricky, and it was also very time consuming. And to save some time, we've created special tools. We programmed them to help us to export these cutouts more easily and really speed the work up. And here you can see the animation timeline in the level. You can see all the cutouts, all the frames for just one object in the background for this mask. And actually, there is more than 20 objects in this level. So it's really a lot of things to do. Well, we did... Well, in the Greeks, there are lights, and light plays an important role. And actually, in the beginning, as we were doing the things on a paper, we were drawing the lights on a paper separately. And yes, it was very time-consuming. We had to scan it and so on. And then we decided that it looks okay if we do it just in a computer. So we just add yellowish tones, yellowish colors, and we add some brightness to it, and it just works. So another time-saving measure. Well, and in our game, it consists of many of these drawings. And you can see from one level to another. And it was quite tricky to find out how to do this, how to make it seamless. So yeah, we just put all the levels in one big file, and we do all the adjustments in here. So in the end, we have this one big piece of work, one big illustration. And yeah, we actually got five of these in the game and it is easier to work with this. And this is how the level looks when it's in the game. You can see there is a lot of layers of caves, like six layers including fox and lights, characters and there's also this frontal layer that we call Front Parallax and it is this dark area that kind of frames the level. And in fact, it moves slightly differently than the main camera. And it also helps create this spatial effects, spatial illusion. So yeah, I'm going to show you just very briefly how we go about creating a level visually. So first, there's this sketch in the prototype graphics. It looks like this. And then we have to come up with a theme and with the architecture for the level. So yeah, in this level, we do have these two characters, these two code stands, or these two, we call them code stands, of opposite sex. And they do a kiss in the end of the level. And yeah, so we were thinking about a theme. And we were thinking maybe it could be a house with a children's room and bathroom and bedroom, some intimate spaces. And we were thinking that maybe it may be a marriage feast of some kind. And in the end, we went with the jail. And these two characters just break out of the jail, and they kiss at some meeting point. The level is about helping each other. So it's quite fun, helping each other to escape from the jail, and then they kiss if they manage. Yeah. And here's a short video how the level, well, how we think about the level, how we design the level, how we change it and how it develops, with all the layers in it. We're also trying to make the architecture kind of believable. So it's not totally crazy. We're trying to make things look like it may work. And it gives us some kind of boundaries in thinking about the level. Yeah. So now I'm going to talk about the paintings. Actually, the Creeks is full of paintings. And in our game, it works as a collectible. I'm just going to tell you very briefly what a collectible is. The collectible is something that you don't need to actually finish the game. It's something that is optional. And it is for those players that love to spend a bit more time in the game. It's some kind of a reward. And actually, it often gives you some hint of a history and mythology. And that is exactly what our paintings in the game does. So these are one of the first paintings. And these were created at the time when we didn't even know what inhabitants are going to be in the house but we knew quite early on they are going to be these paintings and maybe we are going to tell the story of the ancestors that of the inhabitants that live there and yeah and at the beginning we didn't even know what technique to use to make these paintings. We were thinking that using ink in the paintings would be nice because the rest of the game is done in ink, but we also did some tryouts in different techniques such as squash, acrylics, watercolors and yeah. And also, I'm showing you the frames because the frames play an important role in decision making about this. We wanted to add a frame so it's not just an image that you see on a screen when you play the game, but it is an object. It is something that belongs to the house, that is a part of the house. And adding the frames to the paintings, to the image, actually helps with this. And we find out that the frames done in oil look the best. And that helps us to decide if we're going to go with oil. But actually oil is also my favorite technique to use in my art practice. For example, ragim is ink. And we wanted to see these techniques in this kind of media. So in the video game. We want to see these techniques in this kind of media, so in the video game. We want to see them alive. And also, using oil painting is interesting also from marketing perspective, because it's quite unique to see it in a video game. We don't know much video games that decide to go with the oil just as medium to use. And yes, as you see, the first paintings were these science fiction leaning characters. And we didn't like it that much because this science fiction is quite an obvious choice in a video game. It's not too original. We wanted to go with something more poetic, something different. So we didn't know too much when we started with the paintings, but we know one thing, and that was that there is going to be this character called Hunter, this guy. And so I looked into famous hunt scenes, and I was interested in a British painting of the 18th and 19th century, and the genre painting, and yeah we get inspired inspired me here. You can even see some Gainsborough Gainsborough part in our just part of a Gainsborough painting in our in our paintings and Velasquez is painting in our paintings and Yeah, we get inspired by children Book illustration and by animated shorts and we combine it all together and we're creating these weird looking paintings. And actually our paintings very often take place outdoors. And we call them these windows outside from the dark cave because the game takes place underground and there is no sky, nothing, so we wanted to create something colorful, something that has a different atmosphere, just takes place outside. The paintings, they do have an implicit connection to the game. In this painting you can see the tree, it's a tree that you can find in one of the levels. And yeah, I know it tells a story. Actually the paintings at a level of complexity and also ambiguity to the to the mythology and history of the world. It just makes it Yeah, sometimes more confusing and sometimes yeah well actually Yeah, sometimes more confusing and sometimes, yeah, just a bit more. Well, actually, working with paintings, we have a few themes that we were working on. We were making sketches. And these are just a few of them. And not all of them made it into final game. But yeah, it was fun making these sketches. And I'm going to tell you very briefly how we go about making a painting in a video game. The first there is just a sketch, and it's just a sketch to remember an idea, just a draft. Then we take it to a computer, we think about the colours, about the composition, and we think about the painting as a whole. And when the sketch is done, we paint it. It's me doing that. And then we have to take a photo of it and get it back into the computer. And this is how it looks right after we import it into the computer. And this is when we do the post-production. As you can see, the post-production is quite heavy because it has to look good on a display. And yeah. And then there's another kind of paintings. We got aesthetic paintings. And then we got interactive playable mini games. So we find out that we've created a lot of these static ones, and we wanted something more interactive because it is an interactive media and it just um yeah there was just a lot of them and we were inspired by uh automatons and these uh and these things and what we wanted we wanted to make it uh feel like a mechanic toy like somebody can really really make it So it was a limitation, but it was a great limitation. Because regarding the game design, it was very simple, because we have to be in the physical boundaries of this mechanical object. And it's also good because of animation, because all the cutouts move only on one axis. So we really don't have to make a lot the cutouts move only in a one on one axis so it's really uh we really don't have to make a lot of a lot of cutouts so there's also yes it's very similar as in static paintings there's a sketch there's a game design sketch which is very very simple and then we do a prototype i program it and then i check it with the team and see if it works. And I also see, as I do prototype, I also see all the cutouts that we need to animate it. And this is the cutouts. You can see it's not a lot of them. It's a very production, it's a good for production. It's easy to make. Yeah, there are covers, there's the background. This is a static one. And I'm going to show you a short video where you can see how it moves and how it develops. Yeah, so this was interactive paintings, there's a lot of them. And then the last thing about the paintings, it is that you can see the static painting on the right and we were inspired by working on these interactive mini games. And in the beginning, we were scared to add something to the static painting. And so we added some small animated details to the static paintings. But I'm going to tell you something about the music. Actually, there's a beautiful music in the game. It's done by Hidden Orchestra, aka Joe Eshason. And the music in the Creek Six is adaptive and generative. Actually, the music plays an important role, given the gameplay. When you do something right in the puzzle solving, it gives you a hint that you're on the right track. So you know that you're doing something good. Actually, in the end, we managed to stroke a deal with an apple. And it happened when the game was almost finished. And we had to add some features. For example, it has to be more widescreen and we add touch controls and stuff like that. And it was released on many platforms. The Grid Digital was company to help us with that. And actually, the work on KRIGS doesn't end with the game release. There's a lot of stuff that we did after that. We released a book, some LPs, and collector boxes. And we also created some other applications, for example, KRIGS box that plays music differently. And we are also working on, yeah, and there may be some other projects that we may work and expand the world of Greeks, yeah, in the future. That's it. That's it. Thank you. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So thank you. Thanks a lot. So maybe a quick Q&A during setting up the next speaker. Is that okay? And first, at first, you know, they talked already about it now. So they took those beautiful, Jan and Radim took those beautiful things with them. So this is a book. Maybe some of you still see. And also the record. So I guess you were around today. Yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll find a way that's maybe people who are interested yeah if you would be interested like they are there you can you can buy them from us because yeah they are quite heavy so if somebody would bought it it would be cool you have to carry it back is there any questions questions microphone of you or you have my god cool yeah hello thanks a lot for your talk I really enjoyed your unique design we tried for a few years to get you and now you are here we are I'm pretty happy for that so one thing that really interests me a lot is how much time can you really invest? I mean, you talked something about eight years and continuous work and so on. Are there other projects in parallel or does it mean that you're really super focused on one project? Yeah, during this time we were just like focused on this project, really. Like it was a full full time job for us. We were like in the beginning, it was five people working on a project. It was like two of us. And then we had the animator, one animator, one programmer, and one supporting game designer and dramaturgist for the game. So it was like five of us and we worked for it maybe four years or something like this. And then the musician and the sound designer joined the team, and then we continued on it. But it was really like we didn't even have holidays during that time. So it was quite focused work. But it was interesting because, for example, me, I didn't know it would be so long. So maybe if I would imagine that I would be working on it for eight years, I maybe wouldn't even start, but I was always like thinking, ah, okay, we are, we are almost having it done. Maybe just like half of a year or one year and we are finished. And this like moved like this. So this vision of like to have it already done, maybe keep me going. So he was, he was a second question. Hey, a couple of technical questions. Have you played with tools like Spine for your animation work? Yeah, yeah, we've heard about it. But why we haven't used it? I don't know. We just started with Unity, and we were scared that it may break something, and we changed the tools in the middle of development. So we wanted to stay with it. And we were hoping that maybe Unity will make it better. Every year we're hoping, but I think they made it better the last year when we were finishing. But we've made a lot of tools along the way for our animator, so we made things easier for him. As we were watching his workflow, then we adapt a bit. Another quick question. Are you using the auto-generate tool in Photoshop to spit out your assets for your characters? Things like that? No. Okay, I have to talk with you guys after. You mean like to draw them for us? No, basically to export. How do you export from Photoshop all of your assets. Yeah, OK. So we've created a special tool. We've programmed it. And yeah, it's kind of sophisticated, because it's a work that we do with Radim, this cutout exports, and export of characters, stuff related to it. And yeah, and so we observed our workflow and created a tool that is especially working for us. It's for exporting, because the exporter from Photoshop wasn't good enough. We observed our workflow and created a tool that is especially working for us. For exporting. Yes, for exporting because the exporter from Photoshop wasn't good enough. We're missing a lot of things. Because for example, we have to keep the squares around the area. We cut out the same all the time and the Photoshop was sometimes three minutes and much more. And we got special adjustment layers, and we had to export it all together. And it works with the composition in Photoshop as well. So it's a special tool we've created. And we made better as we were giving ourselves a feedback how to make it even better, this tool. If I get the chance, I'd like to go over in depth with you over that stuff. I guess you're still around sometime. Great. So because I would say we should move on to stay a little bit in the schedule. So thanks a lot. Thank you. For all those insights. And maybe as a last comment, you will also have an exhibition in Bratislava, right? Which is, Bratislava is just close to Vienna, so go there, close to Linz maybe as well. Starting on the first of October and last four months, so yeah, you can see all these pieces like live live originals of our drawings and things like this. Cool. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to introduce our next speaker, Michel Granot. And I think you're sort of set up, right? Okay. And... So to keep it short, her topic title is Expanded Animation with a Focus on Collaborative Processes. So maybe a little welcome to Michelle Cranow. Thank you. First, I want to thank my friend, Yon, who lent me his computer, which doesn't seem to be responding so well at this point. Cuz I'm supposed to press slideshow in it. You think that one's better for me? I don't know. Do. This one's better. It's better. This one's better. It's pink. So it's going to just connect while I do this. You'll have to excuse me if my talk seems a little scattered. It's the nature of what I do and who I am. I would like to maybe first, before I launch into my presentation, and while it's considering whether it wants to be online or not, I'd like to thank Asifa Austria for making this possible and for Alcidek Tonika and the Expanded Animation Symposium for inviting me. For you all who are here, both in this room and remote. I want to thank Jürgen for having arranged this and invited me, and hopefully we get to collaborate in the future. I hope this works now. It's still trying to connect. See, I should have gone first because it was working. Well, I'll just say, I mean, it's true that I'm here alone, but I'm never really alone, because I work together with Uwe, my partner and co-director. That's why it says Michelle and Uwe. We met at an animation festival with films and competition when we were students, and we've been making work together for 20 years so all of the things that I will be presenting here are collaborative projects with URI. I could also show it from the PDF my backup. Okay, well my next slide has a logo of the animation workshop. I'm based in Denmark at the animation workshop in the research and development center. I run different programs at the animation workshop, but maybe I could tell you just a little bit about it. The animation workshop is a school where we have different lines of bachelor education in graphic storytelling, in computer graphic arts, and character animation. And we also run professional training courses from storyboarding to Houdini and everything in between. One of the professional training courses that I run is called AnyDocs. You can see my little slides. Can you imagine, like, the miniature? So AnyDocs is a program that Uwe and I have been... Yoni. Hello. He's my favorite animation director. I did remember to thank you in the beginning of my presentation. And thank you for your presentation yesterday. It was brilliant, and you didn't have any of these. The computer worked. It's just the internet. Well, I'm just going to, I'll just quickly tell you about the Antidocs and then move into my personal works. At the Antidocs, I run a residency program, a lab. I run an exhibition of VR works, animated documentaries and virtual reality. And if you end up in Viborg, Denmark, we have an animation festival and a special exhibition of animated documentaries in VR. Okay, so I did this. I told you about the animation workshop. And more about the animation workshop. We do a lot of stuff. You should come see and check out our website. And the Open Workshop residency, which is where I started. I came as an artist in residence to the Open Workshop many years ago and I stayed. The two main things I do now at TAO is the anti-docs program, which is all of these different things, including a lab. And I also produce other people's animated documentaries. We have an open call coming up, by the way. And I also work in the research and development department under this practice based or practice as research. And I'll be talking a little bit more about this immersive storytelling line that we've taken. But maybe just quickly mention that one of the things that I do as a researcher is look into well, the challenges that we've been having in distribution of XR content. So soon I'll share some links. You can find our research projects, download the research projects if you're interested, and looking at distribution and distribution challenges and channels for XR content. I'd like to go back to the AnyDocs because it's one of the things I'm really most passionate about and really the place where Uri and I started making work that I guess would be considered animated documentaries. I think that you'll get to see Martina's egg here. Hi, Martina. Thanks for playing with us. But you should take a look at our Annie Docs website where you can see a lot of different things. Well, because my talk, I told you I do a lot of different things, right? So I felt it was important to maybe launch with something that was a collaborative process, something that was very much about mixing media and something that still in the realm of sequential linear storytelling. As I trace my steps towards interactive multimedia, if I don't talk too much about all this other stuff I'll tell you about the VR game, the multi-user co-location experience that I'm developing now. But first I'd like to start with telling you about How Long, Not Long. Because we were very honored to work with a film director, a documentary filmmaker called Eric Gandini. If you love documentaries, you would know him. A very prominent Swedish-Italian filmmaker. And he was working with the University of Lund University in Sweden the Stockholm resilience center around the concept of cosmopolitanism so we had made a 25-minute film a lot of talking heads really good talking heads we had coffee and non narrating and all of these different perspectives on what is cosmopolitanism, what makes us a citizen of the world. And we were, I think, very, very, he was very generous and let us take the materials that we'd crafted together and the animation that we'd made for his film and edit our own film. So we made a short film called How Long Not Long that's based on the longer film called Cosmopolitanism, which we collaborated with Eric and Dineen. So I'd like to start with showing you this because I think it's kind of fun to to see films. I'm gonna hope that it works and you'll have to bear with me while I switch to this. I know you're asking today, how long will it take? Somebody's asking how long will prejudice blind the visions of men? I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth, trust, true Christ will rise again. How long? Not long because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long because you shall reap what you sow. I am not lost. Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. Thank you. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 I want to be a small world. A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. thank you. I'm a little bit of a talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk to talk Thanks, guys. Yeah, so because the title of my talk was collaborative projects, I thought I'd show you that one. But it also, but how long, not long is also a project that we used in this expanded format, massive projections on buildings. V-Borg is also a UNESCO media art city and we had an opportunity to show works on a large scale to the public with live music and I really got a taste for what it's like to work with, well, an audience and with people and asking a lot of questions about what who is the audience and who is the the person I make work for because I think that in the beginning of my foray into animation it was really just about wanting to paint the same thing over and over again. I just wanted to be left alone to make frame by frame by frame. And then I realized that I had a message to share, that I wanted to open up the practice. And then this is where I guess the topic of my talk sort of shifts towards the transition from the screen-based arts, the sequential linear storytelling, and the more traditional classic animation, to looking at virtual reality and what we like to call expanded animation in order to really question the role of audience participation and ultimately where the audience or the, something wrong? Anton, you're here because. Oh, I see. Oh, I see. Yeah, so I'm going to maybe tell you a little bit about the journey that we had with Nothing Happens. Am I? I could tell you about Nothing Happens. Nothing happens in this movie. But it did start as a film, as an animated film. We're not happy with the internet? It's just, you know, it's nice. I get to be put on the spot and you feel more awkward it's good I mean I did come like an hour early to make sure that it worked okay cool cool so I'm gonna tell you very quickly oh my gosh very quickly about nothing happens and maybe just just a little prelude to Nothing Happens. We'd experimented with participatory theater before. Nothing Happens was a film, an animated film that we had adapted to VR, but our first encounter with virtual reality was not actually virtual at all. We had worked with with a theater company and trying to understand the essence of what is this immersive storytelling or fragmented immersion with a project. Maybe if I click it it'll work. with a project. Maybe if I click it, it'll work. I'm going to show you a little clip. And I'll talk over it a little bit. So we made a film called Hollowland. and Hollowland is a puppet movie and it's it is quite a narrative story about the couple who immigrate and fail what we did with the Hollowland experience was that we had engaged with a theater company called Kaplanche and we'd extracted the characters from the scenography and we projected 360 in a space that was quite big and we had 30 40 people come in and put masks on and put on costume the masks were of characters in the film but the eye holes were very small so you had kind of a limited view and then we played these games with them. We basically had them feel as if they were participating in the animated film and feel it in their bodies. And I think that for me that was really an eye-opening experience, what we could do with animation. Um... So yeah, in 2017 we released Nothing Happens. And like I said, Nothing Happens is, I I mean it's not like a traditional film though it is made hand-painted frame-by-frame animation but what we decided to do with there's only three shots in it and they're edited rather abruptly so it's quite a formalistic film. And I don't have time to show you all the films, but this one happens to be online, so you might want to watch it in the dark. I think that what was interesting for me was especially looking past the... What happens after film? Where can I take... The theme of Nothing Happens is spectatorship. It's about witnessing. So what happens when I move the audience from being a passive spectator in the film, which is about passive spectatorship, to a virtual reality space that transports them between the different locations and literally changes their perspective changes their point of view you're watching people watching something that you don't know what it is and then we put you in the tree and then we put you in the pit and every time your perspective changes your role as a witness changes as well so even though nothing happens was first a film and then an adaptation to VR we understood what it meant to really play with this medium and we became very curious about it that I'd like to not talk about it too much but maybe just mention that it was and it was also an installation piece where we used earth projections. We had onboarded our now participants, visitors, into the Nothing Happens space where they stood on earth, and people were watching them, watching other people being watched. It was kind of actually quite poetic. And that did really well. But I feel like the next step was to look at interactivity. There was some very subtle interactivity and nothing happens, but it was mostly triggered by gaze. You looked at something long enough, it changed. The duration of your gaze was the catalyst for the editing. But the next project that we took on is a project called Songbird. We were approached by the Guardian newspaper, the Guardian VR. They used to have a VR department. They were making a project about an extinct bird. It was actually about sonic fossils. And they were making a project that was to be sent on the Google Cardboard to 200,000 of their subscribers. What we did with Songbird eventually was turn it into an interactive piece. Maybe if I press that, you'll see it. Far, far away in the middle of the vast blue ocean, where rolling waves sweetly rose and fell, a distant island lay. An enchanted place of deep canyons, lush forests, and birds. Magnificent, graceful birds. Birds of all kinds. And to this glorious land, the scientist Mr. Jim Jacoby traveled. Even if I go back 50 times, all of it is really exciting. It's a pretty spectacular place to be, let me tell you. Oops. Oh good, it works again. So I'm just going to very quickly run through these slides because I thought it would be interesting to talk about process, how we worked with journalists and how we worked with scientists and how we worked with researchers who are also very keen on accuracy. We worked very, very closely with biologists, ornithologists to create these, I'd say, almost realistic depictions of the island of Kauai. I didn't actually get to go, which is too bad, but I got to paint a lot of forest and a lot of trees and a lot of bushes. It was fun. And it was also really challenging to take the paintings that I had made and map them to fit an environment you could walk around in. And we weren't pretending that they weren't paintings. We weren't pretending that they weren't flat, but we needed to create an environment that was rich enough and believable enough for you to get lost in, in the jungle. There were also quite a lot of work with birds and a little bit of AI. Where would the birds be landing and how do we program that, that you're always, wherever you look, a bird will come. And it was kind of fun and very techie. There's also a device where you can record the OO bird. It's a very sad story about the bird that came to the recording, but it turns out that's the last one. Anyway, we created an educational package around this. The Songbird is actually still touring libraries, a lot of libraries around Denmark, and different places in France and Europe, schools. So it's an installation. It's kind of a self-contained installation. And we worked with pedagogues and with librarians to kind of create an environment that people could learn something about our age of extinction. So Songbird was a lot of fun, but we wanted to move back to tell... The next project I'll tell you about is called The Hangman at Home. So Songbird started out as a VR piece. We decided, when I did some more financing, to turn it into an interactive VR piece. And Nothing Happened started as a film, and then it was adapted to VR. In The Hangman, we made a multimedia piece from the onset. We decided to see if we could make a piece of work that not only was created in different mediums, but also reflected on those different mediums. That our choice of medium didn't define the story, but it did define your interpretation of it. And we worked on these simultaneously, these different outputs. We like to call them rather than versions because they aren't versions. We made a film. The Hangman at Home is a film. And it's also a single-user VR experience. Additionally, it's a multi-user, co-location, interactive piece, installation, and a performance. But all of these things were generated, conceptualized at the same time, though they're very different from each other. Maybe I can tell you a little bit about it. Oh, I just mentioned that production is the National Film Board of Canada production. And we had two co-producers in France, both Miyu Productions and Floreal Films. Our Danish producer, who I'm extremely thankful for, is Lana from a production company called Late Love Productions. And actually it's thanks to her that we managed to make such a complex multimedia project. And she's still touring with this thing and cursing a little bit. But I think that it's been a wonderful journey in understanding what it is that VR can do for us. Wait, I'm not going to show this, actually. I'll show something else. I'll just note, because I think that this is maybe important, the starting point for The Hangman at Home is a poem called The Hangman at Home is a poem called The Hangman at Home by an icon in American literature and poetry. His name is Carl Sandburg. And the poem, The Hangman at Home, appears in a collection of works called Smoke and Steel. So this poem is 100 years old, but it's really relevant and it was really meaningful that we could approach it when we did in the way that we did. Am I gonna show you I'm gonna show you the VR maybe I will. Does that play? What does the hangman think about when he goes home at night from work? should work You didn't see much. I think that was like a teaser. Hey, that's Uwe working on something. Our studio kind of looks like that. This is also some of the... Oh, I have to hold this closer to my face. This is some of the early artwork for The Hangman at Home. I'm just going to sort of zip through the process because it was so fun to make. It was all hand-painted, but I think maybe the most challenging part was to direct VR, interactive, kind of create your own adventure at the same time as making a film that again had a very structured, very almost dogmatic editing. And we really embraced the cinematic tools that we have at our disposal. Whereas in VR, you get to walk through rooms. You get to choose which rooms you'll be in and what happens in the way that the story unfolds. Maybe there's also a little bit about how we made it. There's a lot of painting. I don't think I'll ever make another film on paper like this. It's really not ecological, but it was a lot of fun to shoot it and paint it. This is some of the kind of the color scheme and the different characters that appear in them. We played, we did a lot of sketching when we played with puppets because I'd mentioned that our previous films we'd also used puppets and that was something we wanted to go back to. We used a little bit of photogrammetry, tested all kinds of different techniques what would work for us because we needed to make the interactive elements 3D. How do you move the style that's very much handmade, very painterly, or drawn into a 3D universe was quite challenging. And we wanted to keep something very tactile and very much in our fingerprint. And since we'd also designed it as an installation to begin with, we thought a lot about spaces and how you would move around spaces. And we were looking at different participatory traditions and participatory art and how we could learn from that. Is that the multi-user? Okay, so yeah, we had a lot of fun with designing the performance and the installation, and we feel that bringing people into the room and the way that you give them guidance and instructions on how to use the technology could disarm them and make them feel comfortable in a space, which I think is a key. We also feel that this off-boarding is another very important part of what we do. It's all theater, basically. It's all theater, basically. So we engage with people who come from the performing arts when we onboard and offboard people from our VR experiences and design installation spaces with projections and reactive projections. We use different kinds of sensors in the room so that it's also interesting to watch from the outside. Even if you're not in VR, there's still the story unfolds. So yeah, so the thing that happened between the VR single user, which is a very solitary experience, the Hangman at Home is not about hanging people. It's really more about like your role um as a participant whether it's in your own life or whether it's in the very domestic moments that you choose to engage or disengage um so creating it or crafting it for a for a group required a very different kind of approach to the topic. And in the Hangman at Home single user, you get to choose your own pathway and open that door and see that. You don't get to see all the rooms. You have to crawl through fireplace and things. But in the multi-user, It's different because you have common actions you have to work together or do something together as a group in order to Kind of move move on from one episode to another and there's interactive Elements that really bring you together as as a group. So we're sort of looking at your responsibility as an individual, but then also how does that change when you're in a group of people sharing something? Do I have time to show the hangman at home? It's 12 minutes. When was the... I think the start was at 11.55, so basically... I have a couple of minutes. 12. So 35 is basically the end of the 20-minute session. Oh, right. Okay, so I'm not sure I get to show you the hangman at home, which is too bad. But maybe I'll tell you just something about the next project I'm not sure I get to show you the hangman at home, which is too bad. But maybe I'll tell you just something about the next project I'm doing. I thought you would have liked it. So, yeah, yeah, but that's why I asked. Otherwise, I would have just plowed ahead. Learning from our experiences or moving from the, moving from audience as spectators to audience as participants and then to users and players was a kind of a natural progression. So I was also telling you earlier about the research project that I was engaged to do about distribution of XR. And I think that I've learned really a lot from distributing The Hangman at Home and We Are at Home. So the project that we're working on now, we're also doing a short film. I'm also proposing a PhD and I'm developing a feature. But this, Garden Alchemy, is a game. It started out as a, I guess I'm going to talk about it after all. It's really fresh. It's really new. We've just made a prototype. It's so ugly I can't show it to you. But we did a concert. We did a series of concerts. Because garden alchemy is based on this idea of bioregionalism or what connects you to the place where you are. And I just wanted to make... I wanted to get to know my garden better. I wanted to feel more connected to my neighborhood this feeling of displacement is just so unhealthy how do I um create the sense of community around you know the artwork that we make um and I'm very curious about eco prints and textiles and I'd love to work in the print workshop where so most of the work that I've done for Garden Alchemy is dry point and etching, non-toxic etchings. So in a way, it's kind of a frame for me to experiment with very traditional fine art techniques. But also it's about listening and creating a space for live music. So we wanted to do a show that's live music and handmade animation and we play live. It's like I basically do VJ. But it's grown together with the musicians and with the music so garden alchemy is a concert audio visual show and then we've done kind of an adaptation to a vr space and then we thought okay so if garden alchemy or this this changing seasons of the year is a visual and tactile framework for the concert. Well, what are we doing in this VR space? And the space that we have to work in is about 10 meters by 12. We've got sensors in the floor. We can put in 15, 20 people in VR sets where the anti-latency is great, calibration is great, it really works. So what now? So we're making a game. We're making a game where you can play and you have to kind of create this equilibrium. You're the weather, you get to be a rain cloud or a sun and you get to have these different weather events. And we've noticed with our prototype that it's really fun to play the game. And the visuals and the audio support that. So that I think we managed to create a very poetic experience that's also very playful. One of the things that we learned from The Hangman is that narrative in VR, yeah, I don't know. It's like there's so much control exercised when I make an animation film, and I have to completely relinquish that when I'm working in virtual reality, especially when I'm working with a multi, like people, people are like, yeah, unpredictable. They do this emergent behavior thing. It's really funny. But we have to create like a setting that will support that. So we're still very early in our research, and we're looking for people who'd be interested in working with us and developing it further. who would be interested in working with us and developing it further. Yeah, here's some images of that concert. Oh, and there is a picture of the very ugly prototype. It works, by the way. Prototype works. And it's fun to make. But yeah. Thank you very much for your attention. Does that work? Yes. So thanks a lot. I don't know if we have time for questions. I don't know if we have time for questions. But I just wanted to let you know that I'd be around, and I'm very happy to talk to anybody about any of the many different things that I've mentioned. So maybe we can make the setup change and during that time a few questions, if there's a chance. I'm going to move out of the way so Martina can do her thing. So here's one question. Yeah. What you're doing, super exciting. I love it. I'm curious about physicality. Yeah. So the experience that happens through the corporeal senses as we position our bodies, feel ourselves through our senses and our gestures. And the challenge of having a VR headset, being multi-user within a shared space, these things that we're familiar with in terms of the challenges that that can bring, or becoming familiar with. Dizziness, fear of walking into things, tripping on things, bumping into each other. What is this like? How are you approaching this? What are you considering, including, are you starting to look at the use of HoloLens to work with mixed reality? I think mixed reality is really a way forward. I'm very pleased to report that I'm much more comfortable in the newer VR headset. I'm very comfortable with this kind of calibration so I can really see where people really are and I work in a very large space so that it allows kind of an ease. But we you know we do very much consider what we do like a tactile digital. So we work with scent and we work with touch and we work with different reactive textiles and materials. The other thing that we've been playing with now is attaching sensors to objects. So your objects are placed in places where you could move them around. You could take the sun, move a plant. There's all kinds of interesting, tactility is a key, I think, when we're looking at sort of this kind of digital games. And I'm very curious to work with people, mostly in the performing arts, who sort of know, I mean, they've been doing this for, yeah. I'm just really curious about inviting different practices to inform, especially the tactility and embodiment. I have a question here. First, I really like the project. I think it will be an amazing experience to explore that space in VR. And my question is, you said your newest project will be a game. Will it be about exploring a space? And do you think you could add a layer to the game with, for example, gloves? Like many open source projects suggest how to make picking up objects really feel like you're holding them in your hand. Do you think that will be something you will explore? Well, I've tried working with sensors on like a little wristband with a sensor, which I think is important because one of the biggest problems is kind of this fidelity or this, you know, yeah, the track, the hand tracking, it's a thing because I really hate controllers. So we've given up on the controllers, but there's a, it's not perfect. But we're definitely working with different kinds of sensors in order to find that next level. I'm open to it, but they're very expensive, the sensors. So if I want to make a big show for a lot of people, yeah, it's a consideration. It's really strange. This one? Anyway, I would say... Mine works. Now it works again. Thanks. I would say thanks a lot, Michelle. Thank you. I'm very happy that you get to introduce my friend Martina. I'm going to hand this over to Grace. Thank you. Do you want... The funny thing is, originally, when we thought about inviting Martina, we thought she's, in this ACIFA context, the more traditional part and after the first meeting we learned that she quite changed in the last years where she's also based in Denmark so Martina is from Italy originally and yes, so I will hand over to her and her talk I just wanted to draw Thank you Thank you everybody for coming. Yeah, I think now I have to step up my game after Michelle and Craig's presentation, but I have a background as a fine artist and my whole life I just wanted to draw. And then the past seven years since I moved to Denmark, I ended up engaging in all sorts of other activities that involve drawing, such as animation. And now I'm also producing films as a producer. I'm a creative director of a virtual theater that uses VR and motion capture and do real-time performances. And so I do all sorts of things. So this talk will mostly go through a little bit of a journey through a selection of my work, where I'm trying to highlight what are the things that have always been there from the beginning and how technology sort of sneaked into my practice a little by little. So yeah, as I mentioned, I work at Weithold Theater, which is a virtual theater in Wiburg. I own a company called Martina Scarpelli Studio, where I used to make my own films and produce films of other people when sometimes you stumble on a project that you can't help but be part of and so I help other directors make the films. I also have an art collective of great professionals working together called Plastic Collective also in Viborg and as Michelle I'm also part of the animation workshop research and development department and open workshop residency which is a great place to be if you're doing animation this is my most of you know a kind of like a recap of my work which I'm going to talk about my graduation film Cosmético Egg, my first professional film made in the context also of Anidox, where I met Michel. And this is a feature film I'm working on now, which is an animated opera. I don't do only my own work. I also work for hire quite a lot lately, directing music videos or lately I've been also working as a designer for games, which is something new and I learned it's something I actually like to do. Using I kind of don't mind changing style and trying different things. This is an app in collaboration with a psychiatrist to use as a supplementary tool for treatment of eating disorders. Illustration for books and whatnot, I really mix it all. But always with the focus on basically drawing. I'm classically trained. I studied in the art academy in Milan in Brera. Mostly painting and etching. That's my biggest love. And I also, you know, bread and butter during the studies I was working as a graphic designer for a snowboard company. And some of my teachers noticed that I had this passion for creating these universes, these worlds. And one day, one of my teachers asked me, why don't you try to do the same thing you're doing while you're drawing, but with a camera instead of a pencil? And I was a bit surprised, but I took it very literally. And I started making these little storyboards and like trying to look at my process inward and take notes and so I would go around and take little videos and then edit them learning after effect of what what what was at the time and I started making these little experiments moving experiments I'm not gonna play, but results were not great, but I learned a lot about directing an audience, guiding the audience experience and rhythm and editing and basically storytelling. No, don't play. Yes. Another big passion of mine is iconography. In Italy frescoes are everywhere, so you kind of grow with it. And I've always been fascinated about what the symbol is behind this. It's allegory, so you kind of have to start a little bit behind it and learn how to read it. So I got really passionate about all these figures, and these are some of my favorite from Siena in the 300. Lucky enough, in Brera Art Academy, who was, by the way, built by an Austrian empress, Maria Christina, I think. She thought that to make good art, you have to be inspired by literature, so there is a library, and science, so there is an observatorium on the roof, and nature, so there is a botanical garden in the academy. And so I had access to all this knowledge and books, and I found some iconography manuals that I really liked. And so I ended up writing a thesis about vices and virtues, iconography in art history. And I mention this because it's going to make sense later. And then that year in Milan happened to be a William Kentridge exhibition, which I visited, and that was the last link. And I said, okay, I really would like to invest in moving images and animation. And so a week later I was applying for animation school. My graduation film is called Cosmoetico. It was inspired by mathematics, something I read during some theory study at the Art Academy. It was a collection of attempt to define nothing in a very mathematical way, which I mean, I couldn't understand all of it, of course. But one of it was very simple. And it was, if you can imagine the whole world as a balloon full of things. And so nothing is that balloon with the radius equal to zero. And so I imagined this girl who was trying to find out what is the smallest part of the universe, and she imagined she can empty the world to find out what's the smallest part. And then in doing that process, she realized that she's also part of it, and so she will not find the answers. I definitely developed a lot of my style through this film. At least with a moving style. I'll play a little clip so you get an idea. I'm sorry. So, during the, right after school, I decided that, yeah, directing film was something I like to do. And so I started to develop a new project called Egg. It started as a school little workshop. It's a 2D film. It ended up being a 2D slash 3D animated film. It's 12 minutes and it's going to be screened tonight at Deep Space as well. It's based on a personal story about me dealing with recovering from an eating disorder. But it's also not just about that. It's really very much about a story about failure. There is a woman at home. She's stuck at home with an egg, and she's very afraid of it. She doesn't want to eat it, but then she eats it, and she regrets it. So that's the story in short. As I said, the story was developed first as a... I made the first animatic of the film at school in like three days. The whole idea came from one of these iconography that I found out in the art academy. That's gluttony. The ancient Greek believed that food pleasure comes by the touch and not by taste, because it's driven by the contact between food and throat walls. So the longer the neck, the longer the pleasure. And so I basically took this iconography and tailored my own story to it. So the film is different than the original idea, the original animatic that I made in that week. But some of the ideas of the film were actually already there. So the film is mostly square. There is, like, a lot of it is developed vertically. There is a sense of claustrophobia. There are houses, a cube. And all these things were basically just drafted from the first moment. The film originally was really dark and very rough. The drawing sketches were really rough. So in the two years and a half of development process from the first draft of the animatic to the actual filmmaking, I cleaned the film in all possible ways. The style became much more polished. I also learned what it is that I wanted to have from the film, both as a director and as an audience experience. I started to understand how to direct an audience experience through style and voice and all this. So I always felt, when I first screened the first draft of the animatic to people, I always felt a little bit shy and a little bit not proud of it. And that's definitely not the feeling you want to have. You want to stand behind your film. So I also felt that the rough lines wasn't really expressing what the feeling of, not anorexia only, but just like that moment didn't feel that dark or that rough. It felt more sharp and pointy and poisonous. So I felt that the style had to reflect that. I did the same on the character from the original sketches that, coming from the etching, you want everything to feel a bit grainy and rough and dirty. But then instead, I wanted everything to be more sharp and polished. I did a lot of experiments. Again, I was obsessed with glitches and colors, and polished. I did a lot of experiments. Again, I was obsessed with glitches and colors, but ended up going for classical, elegant, black and white. Again, I experimented with text. There is this Zalgo generator that makes glitchy text, and I tried all sorts of things, but I ended up not using it. I like to find out what it is that works in function of the film. I always think, you know, I'm a visual person, I get attracted to things that look good, but sometimes they just look good on Instagram and not on a film. Like, I don't know, like I love this, but it didn't really work. This is like we did some camera mapping to try with the style. And that's all because you are, because I was in this animation workshop residency, open workshop, and you are surrounded by people who try things and they are so skilled. And so you get a beer and you can try to do this thing in two hours in an evening because everybody lives there. And it's really inspiring. Anyway, it ended up to be 2D flat. And these are some of the final sketches of the film. So the environment outside the body of the woman, the protagonist of the film, is very polished, very sharp, very pointy, geometric. And instead, the environment inside the body is very deep and layered and a little bit more tactile and sensual. Yeah, this is my animation style. I do very rough, rough, and then I do most of the work in cleanup and line work. the work in cleanup and line work. I have a part of the film that was made by my dear friend Lars Hemmingsen, a CG artist, who made the cube. We designed it together, and then I did some animation, and he rendered the cube, and then compositing. It's really simple. There was one long, big shot that was really hard to make, and I never planned the layout that was this complicated. I mean, it looked simple, but it was really not easy. I have a little make-off for the animators, maybe, in the room. I ended up animating everything in TV Paint because I couldn't get the organic feeling I wanted to get from overlaying loops in After Effects. It didn't feel right. And then some of the scenes where I always really wanted the egg to be on focus. I didn't want to cheat by putting things on top of it to kind of have a cut. So it was really painful, but it paid off. I had a click. Anyway, success story. We are really happy to release the film in Annecy. That's Lana, my producer and Michelle's producer. She's a great late love production. She likes to take on projects that are really hard to make normally. So, yeah. She likes to take on projects that are really hard to make normally. After EGG was done, because I live in Viborg and because Viborg is the land of why don't you try to do this thing, I was asked to try to adapt EGG into a VR experience. And so I'm a VR skeptic. I'm skeptic. I don't know the medium. I always felt I didn't feel engaged. And I don't know. I think it's hard enough to make a film and try to answer the question, how do you want the audience to feel? And I feel like in VR, you have to get to the question, how do you want the audience to behave. And I feel like in VR, you have to get to the question, how do you want the audience to behave? I don't know. It was really, really hard for me. But we did a test. We made this boob cave where the egg was falling while you hear a piece of the narration of the film. It looked great. But I also felt that there was really nothing in there. I feel sometimes it's not enough that you're just in a beautiful space. You really need to have either a role or there has to be something more. It's just not, you know, after 10 minutes you're in a beautiful space. What was there for you? So I felt a little bit that VR was not for me. So I decided to go back to 2D and I started developing Psychomachia, which is a feature animated opera. And staging all these little vices and virtues, characters that I encountered in my past in the art academy. So yeah, those are some of the characters. There is greed, there is gluttony, there is rage, there is justice, beauty, and so on. And back then, I started to do research on what are these characters today and what could they be in us. And there is this little poem, it's not a little poem. It's a long poem from a Roman poet called Prudenzio, very old. He's a Christian monk, and he's contemplating God, and he's having a hard time because he doesn't know where is God. And so he's describing this human struggle of finding answer as this inner fight between the army of the devil and the army of the god and so the army of the devil are obviously the vices and the army of the god is the virtues and of course virtues wins the vices are destroyed bleeding and is all bad for them and so I'm not readapting the poem but I thought that I like the idea of this inner epic of these epic characters and describing life as this giant opera within ourselves. So I started developing, starting again from the characters. And so what I normally do is that I take the book and I start research on iconography. I have different sources. And then I try to find either symbols or things in what I read that inspire storytelling or narratives for the characters. So this is Beauty, for example. She is normally a woman with a head above the cloud that is visible only to god and goddesses. And then, OK, I try to play with tools, play with 3D, whatever I think is fun. But I always end up back in drawing and sketching. And so this narrative ended up being the story of a mother with a very long body and the head above the clouds, so she can't talk to the daughter that lives on the floor, so they can only connect through voice. And of course, voice is important in an opera. So that's our work. This is very early development. I don't have a full pitch, but just to give you a little bit of the ideas. This is Rage and Time. Rage has a bear helmet. She spits fire. And this is the character of the current pitch. Might not make it to the final script, though, so I don't know. And these are Hope and Fate. And, you know, Hope and Fate are such old... In the past, they were represented in a certain way. And today I could not link them in a way. So I really try to put everything into the context of today. Sometimes I develop, I take some symbolism and I try to make drawings that help me finding out what the narratives are, what the stories are or could be. And then end up creating characters through instead more traditional drawing. So I go all sorts of ways, actually. And then sometimes I use the characters in other contexts, like these are album covers for some musicians. And I like to do that because I end up testing the character and see what the character can or can't do, or can or cannot communicate, and also help me developing the style for the film. And I like this a lot, but I also feel like it's very, despite the color, I feel the line is very dramatic, and I don't think it will take a lot of attention from the film, so I ended up with this as a final idea for the look of the opera, which is a little bit of both the sketches and the digital. Now, sidetracking. During the development of this script, this is one of the characters of the script is MV. This is one of the characters of the script, it's MV. And in Psychomachia, the opera, sometimes the character is a piece of the environment, there is a character with a lake, and MV is 21 statues. It's a field where everybody has to pass through and all sorts of things happen. They are like a group of step-siblings that don't like each other and they're stuck in this field. But at least they are not alone. And so because the film, the feature film, the opera format, because all of this is so hard to produce and so hard to pitch, Lana and I, Lana, Leidloff and I, decided that it was a good idea to make, not really a prototype or a proof of concept, but just like use some of this character to make a short version of the opera, even if it's not in the same style or in exactly the same format, just to learn how do you adapt a script into a libretto? How do you work with a composer? How do you work with the orchestra or the singers? How do you make live dubbing on the concert? And so I started developing a short animated opera called Songs of Envy. And it's about 11 dying statues that reflect upon the misery of life. And I need to also go on a detour. In the meantime, when I started developing Psychomachia, after finishing Egg, I started this art collective with a group of friends and extremely professional people. And those happened to be a lot of coders, programmers, game developers, writers, and producers, and really good directors as well. So this is the environment I'm in every day. And so all of a sudden, technology started to be less scary. VR, it's like a thing that everybody does in the house, and mapping, projection, AI, so video games especially as well. So I don't know, it became more friendly, it became more of a thing that I can, like when I was back in the residency, something that is just there, you can try, it's not that hard. At the same time, I started working as a creative director for a virtual theatre, Whitehall Theatre, started working as a creative director for a virtual theater, a white hole theater, where we do these real-time performances in. So the way it works is that we have actors in motion capture suits performing a story that happened 900 years ago in the city that we are. So we are staging the show in the same square where the play took place 900 years ago in the city that we are. So we are staging the show in the same square where the play took place 900 years ago. So it's based on Saxo narrative, Danish history, basically. And so my role in all this is trying to develop a style that is kind of forgiving, because of course the tech never really works all the time correctly. So you want the body to look beautiful no matter what happened with the tracking and um and also just trying to use animation tools of storytelling that doesn't rely on just the the exact reproduction what's happen of the realistic body movement. Yeah, there is a little test. Processing. Yeah, we're using XSEN suit here. And yeah, the audience will be wearing VR headset Oculus Quest 2, part of the audience. And then a lot of the audience will instead seeing. Oops, Lars talking. The rest of the audience will see what happened in the meta stage on the screen. Yeah, that's also what I meant when I said we're trying to use animation for what animation is good for, so play with proportions and just really using the language and the medium. I can show you a little bit of this summer show. piano plays softly Anyway, you got the idea. Yes, everything happens outdoor, which is really a challenge, so next year we're going to move indoor. Decided. We also try to collaborate with historians and museums because we really care about being it correct as much as we can know from the past so we have all these assets from the past history of denmark that we end up then reused to create vr experiences for museums and yeah we collaborate with museum in in create creating more outputs for what we are doing. Also, talking about I didn't want to do VR, I was all of a sudden asked to make a music video for a jazz concert in virtual reality with the Aarhus Jazz Orchestra. Thanks also to the animation workshop research and development department and so we were asked to make this like 30 minutes concert where the audience would be partly in virtual reality and partly not and so we developed a an experience where the audience would be seated at the center of the orchestra there would be a curtain all around them and the audience would be seated at the center of the orchestra. There would be a curtain all around them, and the musician would be outside the curtain. So when the audience would enter, the musician would not be visible. So the concert would play. That was happening outside the curtain. So the first part of the concert was like a virtual reality experience. So you just hear the music, and you see some visuals in virtual reality. Then you will have to take the headset off and you see backlit musicians through the curtain. Then there is a second part of the concert where you're actually in virtual reality again. And then the second time you take your headset off, the curtains are out and it's very surprisingly and the music is just next to you so it kind of feels a bit i mean empowered music it's a bad term but like it's very powerful experience and i i felt there was something in there that was worth exploring more um these were some of the yeah it's it's a like color a bit different, but it was mostly an idea to be a tribute of Oskar Fischinger, optical poems and original animation experimentations and so on in an immersive environment. And yeah, these are some pictures of the event. So after all this experience with virtual reality, and I really wanted to try more of this with music, so I ended up transforming the Songs of Envy in a VR animated opera, because it wasn't easy enough. So yeah, to explain what's going to happen, Easy enough. So, yeah. To explain what's going to happen, we are in development now, so we are trying to build the project. We have a little bit of funding, so we started working on the setup. So on stage, there will be audience sitting on chairs with VR headsets, and then there will be singers. Instead of an orchestra, this will be a choir. So there will be singers. Instead of an orchestra, this will be a choir. So there will be singers, live singers, and then matched on the meta stage by statues. So the audience will only see the statues in the meta world and hear the singer's voice. And in the meta world, you see this is a mock-up, of course. There is this group of statues living life, stuck in the field and mocked by a group of birds. And then at some point, the weather changes, and the birds fly away, and they're really unhappy. The statues really complain about life. It's always worrying about other people's happiness and other sisters' happiness. And what is she doing to be happy? Why is she happier than me or should i be happier and but then all of a sudden the golden rain starts falling and the statues become coated with gold and they're really happy because finally they're shining and they find there was like the the climax of life they are finally together all golden and shining and happy but then they they realize that the bottom of the field turns into a muddy field, and they start sinking. So even when you thought you were happy, then life turns back and reveals to be kind of a mockery. And so while the statues are sinking, we ask the audience to take off the headset. And they find themselves in this dark stage, and the singers are revealed one by one through lighting. The way we have imagined the singing is very much singing at each other and not together as a group, so it's mostly sung through narration and dialogue-based at this point. And so you will see and hear part of the performance live by seeing the singers. And then we ask the audience to go back on the meta stage. And there, at that point, the rain has stopped. And the statues are completely at the bottom of the ground with only the head out. But then at that point, the sun comes back and shines and then for a moment they are actually truly happy and they realize that they can be together. And then they start singing for the first time together as a group and not alone. At that point we are out and then you actually hear the whole choir together singing as a group, which I hope will be as powerful as the experience we had with the orchestra. So the stage we are at now is that we are trying to work with Prototype and Unity and with some of the colleagues at the Art Collective. This is just a very early development. I'm not super happy about it because I think it's very ironic, but I really miss a little bit of the... Oh, no. I didn't know there was a move. Yeah, I miss a bit of the epicness and the classical mythology behind it that I think elevates the... or kind of connects you to something more idea of some sort. that I think elevates the, or like kind of like connects you to something more idea of some sort, and I missed that in the mock-up. I'm done, if here's a question. Paul? Hello? Yeah, this works. I have a question, and that also is a little bit almost for the previous talk as well, and maybe even for some talks from yesterday. But I feel like in general with vr being a fairly new technology having hardware requirements software requirements computational requirements of course that we're trying to overcome and hopefully get better with um all of you seem to come from a very traditional background you mentioned drawing a lot in the previous talk it was a lot of painting a lot of real real life art tools being used to create the art and then project it in a vr space do you feel the vr space being a little bit limiting in maybe a positive way maybe in a negative way you mentioned a mock-up it maybe doesn't capture a quality yet is what are the things that you're missing creatively when you transform your work for example into a vr space if anything or is the added immersion enough you know yeah maybe you want to answer too but i think i mean i definitely miss the style quality a lot like i most of my films are i take fun and pride into developing a look and a visual that I don't think is reflected in the VR in the same way. That's the biggest concern I have when developing VR. The thing is that you can't translate it one by one. So what it is that gives you the same effect for the audience in VR and finding that I think is still like for me that I'm new to the medium is still a question every time and so I got to trust the people I work with that they know better and so come with the solutions that is as interesting and gives the same I mean gives to the audience the experience that I want them to have and then the other thing I think is different is very much for me at least uh as a director of a VR experience I really try to I kind of design the I script the audience journey in in a way so there is an extra character in the in the film or play or whatever that be which i don't have the same when i do a film and is that's another problem if you want to and um and we had a nice conversation yesterday about it with michelle because it's true when you have when you're making a film you have a cinematic toolkit so you have the sound the colors style, and the editing that drives the audience to feel certain things. With the VR, you can't direct people. And so there is a certain time, there is control that you have to let go. And so how do you, where is the balance? I think that's the challenge. Yeah. So, another question? Yes, here. I wanted to ask a question about your comfort as an artist looking at your sketchbooks, these absolutely fabulous, wild and impulsive and imperative kinds of drawings and explorations, what is it like for you creatively to dedicate yourself to this kind of very technical process? Yeah. I don't know. I also really enjoy the tech, like nerdy-ing in it. I don't mind it. I think that I like both. I don't know. I think when I do a sketchbook, it's more of like my sketchbook is more a tool for research and I don't find it, they are finished piece necessarily. Sometimes they are. Or like if it's a series of drawing, that would be something. But what I like, what gives me the motivation is make something, make things. Whether that's a project, like at the beginning, it was just a series of drawings. Then it becomes a film. Then it becomes a VR opera. Then what's going to come next, I don't know. But I think the process of it, putting together pieces and formalizing and deciding what that's going to be, I think it's always the same for me. It doesn't matter whether it involves tech or it's only a pure paper experience. So, anyone? So maybe one question from my side as the last one, maybe. Egg was shown at so many festivals, 150 or something, and winning 45 awards, I read. Yeah. Are you concerned when you create now this, well, quite complicated things that it's not so easy to show them at festivals? Because, of course, always, you know, one topic of festivals is always budgets. And, you know, like it's a question to, yes, also maybe Michelle. And, yes, what's your point on that? I mean, I'm really glad how everything went with Egg. I can't deny it was surprising and beautiful. But no, I think, yeah, I mean, just after finishing Egg, everything you think about is like, oh my God, I have to make a better film, so you feel the pressure. But I don't know, I feel like I'm gratified with my work so much that I don't care whether it's going to make 46 awards, one more than Egg. I don't know, I don't think about it actually. I hope, I hope, what I really hope is that my work will be seen and connect to other people through it that's uh that's the that's the only thing that's important for me at least and maybe i didn't get it totally uh psychomachia it's a 90 minute thing is it is it a film or a live opera or both yeah so, so Psychomachia is, right now we only have a script and a pitch, but it's supposed to be a live performance with a film flat. So it's going to be a 2D film with a live music performance and then eventually we will record the performance and we will be able to distribute it also as a normal film. And then Songs of Envy takes inspiration from Psychomachia and is a 20-minute VR live concert, opera concert. Okay. So I think if there's no more questions, I think we are okay in time. So thanks to all the speakers. Thanks to Martina, to Michelle, to Jan and Radim. Do you have a, you guys in the live frisbee, you have some sort of slide, what's still coming? Because we are not finished yet with the whole day. Ah yeah, so we have a break now. No, but that's not all. Yes, so the plan is that it goes on with games and art and then AI, I think. And yes, also to mention one more time, the deep space screenings. 6.30 with Martina, am I right? Yeah. Where you can see egg. Thank you. And before at 6, also a deep space screening, which is connected to Rashad Newsome. Is that correct? So it's a whole day of expanded animation. Thanks for coming back and have a great break. Thank you. KAMPUNG KAMPUNG Thank you.