The Melbourne International Film Festival has always been an emotional and immersive experience. With the festival increasing the number of VR sessions in its program, the brief was to demonstrate the event was more immersive than ever before.

VR is deeply engaging and highly immersive – for one.

To launch this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, we wanted to turn that engaging and immersive experience for one, into an experience for many.

We developed a virtual reality world paired with live 3D Projection mapping to create a performance embodying the festival’s spirit.

Firstly, we wrote a film script. Only the facial performances of the characters’ were filmed. These then were projected onto a mask using 3D projection mapping attached to a VIVE virtual reality headset worn by the human puppet. They then became the characters in our short film.

To match the movement of our puppets’ bodies to the film script, we digitally directed them in real-time via a virtual construct of the stage.

As part of an integrated campaign, Digital Puppetry created a shared and immersive cutting-edge filmic experience for our virtual participants and audience.

First, we wrote a film script, only the performances of the character’s faces were filmed – such as a baby, a crazed methodical killer and a promiscuous house wife. These facial performances we’re projected onto custom-built masks using 3D projection mapping. The face mask was attached to virtual reality headsets worn by audience members, who would play the characters in our short film.

To match the movement of our digital puppets to the action in script, we digitally directed them in real time via a virtual construct of the stage powered by a gaming engine. Each layer of technology further detached them from the real world, sinking them deeper into their on-screen personality.