Big Rock Creative, the creators of BRCvr, an official virtual Burning Man experience that includes an immersive, VR version of Black Rock City, has announced that it will be hosting a new type of experience in the metaverse: a Burning Man inspired film festival.
The first-ever BRCvr Film Festival will take place on February 5th and will be free to attend. The experience will be available in both 2D and 3D formats across VR headsets, desktop, tablet, and mobile devices via AltspaceVR and Zoom.
BRCvr co-founder Doug Jacobson shares that the idea for the film festival came out of last year’s BRCvr event. On the last day of the event, they did an impromptu screening of a Burning Man documentary that Jacobson made a few years ago, ‘Journey to the Flames,’ and also also showed some selects from ‘TV Free Burning Man’ produced by another BRCvr original member, Justin Gunn.
“Without any advertising or notice, we had a full house,” he says. “Burners and Altspace users flooded in. We realized there was an opportunity and demand for more Burning Man related screenings. The more we work on it each day, the more we realize that this film festival is a great way to bridge the gap between what really goes on in the desert and its connection to the virtual community.”
Included in the festival are three major Burning Man themed documentaries: ‘Burning Man: Art on Fire’ by Gerald Fox, ‘Larry, A Burning Man Story’ by Profiles In Dust, and ‘TV Free Burning Man’ by Justin Gunn and Mark Rinehart. Each film screening will be followed by an audience Q&A and a live afterparty, and each will be shown in a unique immersive virtual world designed to capture the art of the film.
Notably, the experience will be visually and aurally connected through a proprietary method — meaning that participants will be able to interact with the artists and audience in real time regardless of how they choose to join — which BRCvr co-founder Athena Demos explains was a priority when building out the film festival.
“In alignment with the Burning Man Principles of Communal Effort and Radical Inclusion, we always look for ways participants can join and feel included,” she says. “Interoperability is the practice of those Principles. From the beginning of BRCvr during the 2020 Virtual Burn, we have tried to devise ways that anyone with a digital connection can join. In fact, we were the reason AltspaceVR has a MAC client. So, when we began to develop the BRCvr Film Festival, we knew we had to find every way possible for people to be involved.”
She notes that another of the Ten Principles of Burning Men is Participation, which means that the experience is not passive. “It exists because we choose to lean-in and make something happen,” she says.
“So, as we picked what films would be featured, we knew we wanted to create an immersive world inspired by the art and artists featured in these films. In short, we believe that by creating a ‘set’ of the documentary in a virtual space, people will be more connected and engaged with the film and each other. It won’t be a passive experience, like Sundance, where you just sit back and watch. These incredible worlds (developed by Doug, by the way) invite the audience to participate.”
The method the BRCvr will be using to connect audio and visual in real time between Zoom and Altspace was developed by Big Rock Creative’s Director of Marketing, Andrew Barrett, and his team while producing a hybrid event between 2020 and 2021 for his Burning Man camp, Celestial Bodies.
“Dan Benge and Jake Greene worked hard over several months to get this to successfully work,” explains Demos. “We felt what they were doing was the right fit. Jake is joining us to bring that methodology to the next level. Zoom participants will be able to see and speak with VR avatars, and vice versa.”
BRCvr is a volunteer-based organization, whose core team has been working together for almost two years and has been produced unique events to connect the Burner community around the world. Demos notes that they have gotten virtual event production down to a science, and that they have seen an increase in participants who are new to both the Burner culture and VR.
“We welcome strangers and are open to all who want to participate,” says Demos. “We are a radically inclusive community where cultural, ethnic, sexual, and gender identities are celebrated and shared. So, this Film Festival was a natural response to our skill set, our passion as Burners, and our commitment to the XR and AltspaceVR community. We hope participants will have an amazing experience immersing themselves with the art, the artists, and the extraordinary global community who will be participating.”
Those interested can find more information and RSVP for the event on BCRvr’s website and can join their Patreon to support more community-building events.