The Making of the VR Awards 2018

from 1st International VR Awards Book of Achievement

INSPIRING A PERFORMANCE

THE MAKING OF A LIVE STAGEVR PERFORMANCE

When designing a production for over three hundred, knowledgeable and experienced attendees in the Virtual Reality industry, it must be approached in a completely different manner. VR is already evidenced as a completely new medium for content consumption, which naturally means a celebration of VR has to follow suit. It had to be targeted with precision and make use of contemplative thinking to be anything meaningful to our attendees.

Meeting with many talented individuals and companies from across the world, a conversation began with the team behind Tilt Brush. Conversations blossomed into ideas, and ideas blossomed into concepts, until we are met with tonight’s entertainment piece featuring the talented Tilt Brush artist in residence, Anna Zhilyaeva.

Working closely with Anna and the Tilt Brush team, we drew on our inspiration from across the past century of achievements in our

industry. We wanted to match the look and feel of our current art style, videos and more importantly the sense of moving forward with wonder.

Interestingly, it’s when we broach the topic of music that things become infinitely more difficult. Listening through hours of both classical and modern music, the art was beginning to look great but something was still needed for the music to truly reach its potential.

It was only upon meeting the musically gifted, ZHL strings, who often or not can be found playing the lower quarters of Covent Garden with both passion and intensity did the music start to make sense.

Combined with the wondering strokes of a virtual sketchbook and the vehemence of a string quartet, we knew we had a piece that was ready to be performed live on the night of the VR Awards.

**Wonder Woman VR Portrait, Anna Zhilyaeva**

PIXEL PERFECT

ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN OFTHE VR AWARDS

No matter what projectwe are working on,art direction plays a key rolein developing themes andatmosphere for many yearsto come. It is somethingthat conveys a message, atone, something that sets aprecedence. This requires it to be pixel perfect.

Going through the vast array of conceptsthat took their subtle form as a drawing ona sketchpad, the VR Awards developed anart direction that changed in many waysacross the course of a year through planningand preparation. Following low-poly designprinciples that began life as rendered Photoshop elements, it quickly became apparent that theVR Awards needed long term, scalable imagerythat could be utilised across all types of digitaland printed media.

Over time, themes emerged from all corners of the VR Awards. From innovation and the future to the retro 80’s vibes of the past that built upon the technology. Eventually, this all became incorporated in final rendersand drafts. Simple elementsbegan to take on the formthat you now see on the VRAwards night.

LATE NIGHTS POWERED BY THE DEPTHS OF FLAT WHITES SPURRED ON NEW AND CREATIVE ILLUSTRATION TECHNIQUES

However, despite a path being cleared for the futureart direction, one design that was in the pipelinefrom the beginning, and one that was alwaysgoing to take the longest, was the cover artfor the Book of Achievement. This in particularneeded to be unique, independent and had totake into consideration all the themes we’vebeen representing to date.

Inspiration from printed media from across theworld started to take hold, late nights poweredby the depths of flat whites spurred on new andcreative illustration techniques and daily directorfeedback moulded a design that became final.

With all the digital materials within arms length,it was time to pull the trigger and send over3,000 collaterals for print.

ONE DESIGN THAT WASIN THE PIPELINE FROMTHE BEGINNING, ANDONE THAT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO TAKE THELONGEST, WAS THE COVER ART FOR THE

RENDER TO RENDER

THE MAKING OF VR AWARDSINTRODUCTION VIDEO

Crafting an introduction video to both highlight the significance of how far our industry has come and just how far we can take it, took on a form that developed themes far deeper than we ever expected to go.

Research for “A Brief History of VR” showed us just how many significant milestones have been achieved for VR in this century. While those innovations may not be winning awards today, they were the seeds sown that have aided the growth and development into the industry it is today.

In a strange occurrence, the research of this project, including historically accurate facts and sourcing of the hundreds of video clips used within the introduction video took much longer than the actual production and editing process.

For the team it was very important to find clips and segments that explored the many different ways in which VR was displayed in the media from the earliest points possible. This meant from render to render, each iteration became a clearer vision of where it needed to be, much like the progression of VR itself.

PROVING HOW FAR WE’VE COME, THIS VIDEO IS MOTIVATION TO CONTINUE EXPANDING THE INDUSTRY IN THE FUTURE. IF WE HAVE COME THIS FAR, WE CAN GO EVEN FURTHER. TOGETHER.

Music also proved a crucial part to establishing the right message for a progressive and uplifting video. Stumbling across many different genres of music, vaporwave made it to the top of our list until a particularly lucky discovery of unitrΔ_Δudio’s Blacknite was made on Bandcamp. This added the much needed finishing touches to the introduction video you see today.