Experts from the virtual reality (VR), culture and 5G industries yesterday participated in an online panel held by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency as part of the Venice Production Bridge, the industry section of the 77th Venice International Film Festival.
The three-part forum was themed “What Will Drive the Future of Cultural Content?” and was moderated by agency President Hu Ching-fang (胡晴舫).
In the first part of the panel, titled “Content Creation,” directors Hsu Chih-yen (許智彥), Tang Chi-chung (唐治中) and John Hsu (徐漢強), as well as festival Venice VR programmer Liz Rosenthal, spoke about the differences between VR and traditional filmmaking.
Hsu Chih-yen’s Jiou Jia (Home) (舊家), and John Hsu’s Great Hoax: The Moon Landing (星際大騙局之登月計劃), which he codirected with Argentine director Marco Lococo, are included in the Venice VR Expanded section of the festival this year.
On the other hand, Tang and HTC Vive Originals’ The Sick Rose (病玫瑰) is a VR frame-by-frame animation project that is still in production, and is to be presented at the festival as part of Venice Production Bridge’s Venice Gap-Financing Market.
“As a storyteller ... you can no longer force the audience to look [at] whatever you want them to see,” said John Hsu (徐漢強), whose debut feature film Detention (返校) won him the Golden Horse Award for best new director last year.
“They always have the freedom to look around even if you guide them,” he said, adding that in VR projects, audiences have the freedom to “disobey your guidance.”
Great Hoax tries to “play with this kind of agency and the illusion of choices,” he said.
Rosenthal, who joined the discussion virtually from Venice, emphasized the multi-disciplinary nature of VR projects, saying they require the skills of people who understand the dynamics of physical space, as well as game design experts and directors, among many others.
“The need for so many creative sectors to work together ... makes it [VR] such an exciting medium,” she said.
“As a VR maker, what I’m looking for is a tool that can make the process of using VR much more convenient and user-friendly,” Tang said through an interpreter.
Taiwan AI Labs founder Ethan Tu (杜奕瑾) said in the second portion of the panel, titled “Technology Application,” that while artificial intelligence (AI) technology is capable of mimicking activities such as the way musicians compose music, human intervention is “still very important” for those who want to “think outside of the box.”
While he believes that artificial intelligence would eventually go into “autopilot” and complete projects on its own, Tu said that “humans will never be satisfied, which means that even [if] AI can create a very beautiful song, humans [would] still want to intervene.”
In the third part of the discussion, titled “Industry Ecosystem,” Digital Domain director of content Jimmy Cheng (鄭心) stressed the importance of VR producers and creators defining their audience.
Saying that content is targeted at a general audience is the “wrong answer,” he said, adding: “Every audience has different tastes.”
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