The Unknown Photographer (French: Le photographe inconnu) is a 2015 Quebec virtual reality work based around found photographs of World War I, co-produced by the digital production agency Turbulent and the National Film Board of Canada's French-language Digital Studio, both located in Montreal. The lead artists on the project were Loïc Suty (director, sound designer, scriptwriter), Osman Zeki (lead developer, 3D modeler) and Claudine Matte (art director). The work was produced by Claire Buffet and Louis-Richard Tremblay, with executive producers Marc Beaudet, Benoit Beauséjour and Hugues Sweeney.[1]

Background

The Unknown Photographer is an immersive experience based around almost 300 photographs of World War I, which Montreal director Philippe Baylaucq had found as a teenager in 1974, in an abandoned house in Morin Heights, north of Montreal. Years later, Baylaucq passed the photos on to a friend, photographer Bertrand Carrière, who used them as the basis for a photo exhibition, Lieux Mêmes,[2] as well as a short documentary, Finding Fletcher Wade Moses. For over 10 years, Carrière had tried to find some trace of what happened to the owner of the photo collection, without success.[3][4][5][6]

User experience

The Unknown Photographer's VR experience involves a walk through a kind of "surrealist museum," exploring these World War I photographs. The production offers users three possible narratives, accompanied by spoken word passages on the horrors of war, written by novelist Catherine Mavrikakis, narrated in English by Julian Casey and in French by François Papineau. The experience lasts 20 to as much 50 minutes, depending on the choices users make.[4][5][6]

Release

The Unknown Photographer premiered at the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal on November 13, 2015.[4][6] It had its U.S. premiere in the New Frontier section of the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.[5]

At the 2016 Webby Awards, The Unknown Photographer won the People's Voice award in the Online Film & Video/VR: Gaming, Interactive or Real-Time category.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "THE UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER". Sundance Film Festival website. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  2. ↑ Happé, Amanda (17 November 2009). "Then and There in the Here and Now". Torontoist. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
  3. ↑ Houpt, Simon. "Reality check". Globe and Mail. 14 January 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 Cloutier, Mario (11 November 2015). "Le photographe inconnu: une image vaut mille guerres". La Presse (in French). Montreal. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 Wissot, Lauren (31 January 2016). "Experience Designing a Surrealist Museum: Loïc Suty on The Unknown Photographer". Filmmaker. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Mathys, Catherine (11 November 2015). "Un jour du Souvenir en réalité virtuelle". Triplex (in French). Montreal: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  7. ↑ Wong, Jessica (26 April 2016). "Webby Awards 2016 winners include The Weeknd, the NFB". CBC News. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
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