This “Big Film Festival x PICO VR Film Festival” event not only showcased innovative and imaginative VR film and television works, but also announced the “Creator Incentive Plan” on the “Super Sense Experience Day” to add college creators, Provide a platform for students to show themselves and encourage them to further explore new possibilities of VR film and television creation.
Figure 1: Event poster of “Big Film Festival x PICO VR Film Festival”
The “Big Film Festival x PICO VR Film Festival” event will screen a total of 10 works online, covering various themes such as historical records, sci-fi adventures, geological explorations, and narrative animations. Among them, “Exploring Mysteries in Time and Space” and “Travel Notes on Ancient Books” are very popular among users for their mysterious and exciting adventure content, super immersion and interactivity. “Exploration of Time and Space” is characterized by realistic CG modeling, 8K, 360° panoramic video, and restores the spectacle scene suitable for VR performance, so that the audience can use VR in-depth experience to experience the beauty of unknown spectacle from the first perspective. There are 9 episodes in this work, respectively centering on themes such as ancient civilizations, mysterious legends, space science fiction, etc., using VR technology to lead everyone into different spaces to explore the mysteries.
Unlike “Question of Time and Space”, which can only be viewed in 360 degrees, “Journey to Ancient Books” is a VR interactive documentary based on 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) interactive technology. Interact in the constructed scene. “A Journey to Ancient Books” has a total of 4 episodes. The “Ming and Qing Archives” and “Oracle Bone of Yin Ruins” shown this time are the first two episodes that are currently online. This series of works is extended according to the stories of cultural relics. Each content, from planning to modeling, preview and final production, has been passed through China’s First Historical Archives, Dunhuang Research Institute, Gansu Bamboo Slips Museum, National Library (National Classics, etc.) Museum) and other experts to ensure that the content is close to historical facts.
Picture 2: Left – the promotional poster of “A Journey to Ancient Books”, right – the poster of the first episode of “Quest for Time and Space”
The above two works are not only popular online, they have also been recognized by college students during the offline viewing and communication of this “Super Sensory Experience Day”. After watching the movie, the students expressed positive views on the application of VR technology in film creation. They believe that VR technology can have a profound impact on the film industry. Although they see the current limitations in lens language and equipment characteristics, the current technology can bring innovation to film creation. Some students expressed that they would try to use VR technology for creation in the future, and even develop VR games, while others hoped to try VR technology in the creation of literary films to provide a more immersive experience. In general, the students are full of enthusiasm for the application of VR technology in the film industry and look forward to more innovative explorations. In addition to students, university teachers also welcomed the event. Professor Zhang Gedong from the School of Animation and Digital Art of Communication University of China said at the scene: “Let the students take the time to watch more, especially the real-scene VR movies. Please comment on it with our staff.” Professor Zhang also said that the VR works shown on the spot can be considered to be added to the curriculum of colleges and universities, and companies like PICO are also welcome to come to the school for exchanges. Cao Minjue, a teacher from the Central Academy of Drama, also said, “PICO’s sharers are very professional, and most of the students ask questions related to their majors. This kind of school-enterprise cooperation is pretty good.”
“It is undoubtedly a good thing for the entire industry that teachers and students in colleges and universities recognize VR technology and even actively participate in the creation of VR film and television content.” The PICO staff on site said, “In recent years, with the development of VR technology, integrated With the gradual popularization of mobile devices, users’ demand for high-quality VR content is also increasing. This industry needs more new forces to supply content. We introduce the incentive plan to students in order to stimulate students’ enthusiasm for VR creation.” It is reported that the “Creator Incentive Program” was launched in 2022. It provides funds, hardware equipment, technology, traffic and other resources for professional VR content production organizations, VR technology companies, VR content creators and anchors to help high-quality content incubation and development. Creators grow. This “Big Film Festival x PICO VR Film Festival” is PICO’s first attempt to hold a VR film festival for college students, and for college students, it will add “VR Creation Training and Guidance” on the basis of the original “Incentive Plan” to help students quickly get started with VR film and television creation, At the same time, it also provides PICO’s self-developed interactive drama and interactive animation creation tools to improve the efficiency and empowerment of college creators in the creation and production of interactive narrative content.
Figure 3: The scene of “Super Sensory Experience Day”
In the past year, PICO has continued to build and develop in the VR video scene. During the World Cup in Qatar, users can not only immerse themselves in watching 64 games on a large screen, but also interact with fans from all over the world through virtual images, unlocking a new form of “VR + sports” game viewing. In terms of entertainment performances, PICO has also shown the industry more possibilities of “VR+ performances”. It not only launched Zheng Jun, Wang Feng and other star concerts, Coco Lee 6DoF full virtual concerts, and jointly launched a VR New Year’s Eve concert with Jiangsu Satellite TV. PICO also launched Expand the content to talk shows, fighting shows, LiveHouse, VR car shows, electronic music performances, etc., and diversify performance types, bringing new vitality to the offline performance market. At present, PICO has cooperated with more than 30 VR original content companies and 65 live broadcasting organizations. Users can watch the official self-made work “A Journey to Ancient Books” or imported classic 6DoF VR works such as “The Sky” and “Jellyfish” in PICO videos , hundreds of “classic 3D blockbusters” from the six major Hollywood film companies, and VR content such as game live broadcast, talent live broadcast, and cultural travel live broadcast brought by more than a thousand anchors. In addition, PICO recently launched the “VR Panoramic Creation Project” jointly with Douyin, and launched a collection of VR panoramic video content for creators on platforms such as Douyin. At the same time, in order to allow more users to experience VR videos in 360 degrees, PICO also opened up the function of uploading panoramic videos with one click with Douyin. Creators can simultaneously publish VR panoramic videos on PICO Video and Douyin.
With the gradual lowering of the threshold for VR video creation and the participation of creators in various fields, PICO has gradually completed the supply side composed of self-made and professional institutions in the ecological construction of video creation, and shifted to the stage where the production capacity of the supply side and the consumer side complement each other. VR The industry will also have the opportunity to further increase the scale of video content.