A film directed by Sojung Bahng, a postdoctoral fellow and instructor in the Media Production and Design program and produced by MPAD program director Vicky McArthur has been selected for screening at a prestigious Los Angeles film festival.
“Youth During COVID-19” has been selected to be shown at the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories (FIVARS) this October. The virtual reality short features stories by MPAD students Brendan Currie-O’Brien, Eddie Benhin, Everett Rama, Jada Rodgers, Liam Arp, Shirley Hu, Yuchen Hu, and Xinpeng Liu.
The film began as a class project for ITEC 3100: Immersive Storytelling – a required course in the third year of the Media Production and Design program. This project represented a unique opportunity to help BMPD students create and share their own COVID-19 experiences, leveraging the storytelling affordances of VR. The course was taught by Bahng, an internationally recognized digital media storyteller whose own VR films have been featured at many prestigious film festivals around the world.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impact on mental health issues in North American university students, including increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depression,” Bahng said. “Creating their autobiographical stories about the COVID-19 pandemic could allow people to indirectly experience undergraduate students’ experiences of COVID-19 and the effects of isolation on their daily lives. The resultant works can serve as a historical archive that contains personal feelings and ideas related to the pandemic experiences of university students.”
This year’s festival is a hybrid event with the in-person screenings October 15th – 17th and the virtual event from October 22nd to November 2nd.
To view the trailer for Youth During Covid-19, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cix8aeVy9XM
For more information about the festival, visit https://fivars.net/
Tuesday, October 5, 2021 in General, Media Production News
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