I interviewed Syuhasuu (Frequency) director Ellie Omiya at Venice Immersive 2023. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of ER podcast. It's a podcast that looks at immersive storytelling, experiential design, and the future of special computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash Voices of ER. So continuing on my series of looking at Venice Immersive 2023, this is episode number five out of 35 of that series. And this is the fourth of four of experiences that are in the context of identity and self, Frequency is a biographical piece by Ellie Omiya that is looking at her story and her journey into kind of accidentally becoming a painter and it's got a very unique aesthetic style of taking her 2d paintings and translating them into a spatial context and so they have motion capture where they're having people puppeteer these paper doll characters and going through journey of her life, these different scenes as she's evolving from going from one career into the career of becoming an accidental artist. center of gravity of this piece is really into emotional presence, a linear narrative where it's focusing on the story and her journey, but also different aspects of environmental presence as you have these 2d cutouts and then spatial context and this sense of building up these different worlds through these 2d paintings that she's integrated throughout the course of this piece. So that's what we're covering on today's episode of the voices of yarn podcast. So this interview with Ellie happened on Saturday, September 2 2023 at the Venice immersive in Venice, Italy. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:40.974] Ellie Omiya: My name is Ellie Omiya from Tokyo. I graduated from the pharmacology of the Tokyo University. And after that, I worked for the copywriter and film director and scenario writer and so on for 12 years. Recently, I'm an artist of painting. Yes. And last year, Mr. Machiba from Cinema Leap invited me to join the VRO project. So it's first time to make the VRO film, so very exciting.
[00:02:21.743] Kent Bye: And so the VR piece that you have here that's translated to frequency, you are featuring a character and it seems like that character is reflecting a lot of your life. It's like biographical. It's like telling your story. So it seemed like that character was accidentally becoming an artist. Yeah. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about your, your own journey of accidentally becoming an artist.
[00:02:46.965] Ellie Omiya: My life is like a journey of accident. I don't want to be someone, for example, a film director or artist or something. I just want to live quiet in the forest, but suddenly the client appeared to ask me to join some work. Always the work is very new world for me, so very exciting, but actually I'm very afraid to jump to the new worlds. And VR is very afraid for me at first, because I'm a painter, so I can do everything by myself. In past, I'm a film director and I can do everything to direct to cameraman or lighting director. And write down my scenario. I have a team, but this time no team, first meet. So I'm very afraid and I struggle to communicate with engineer to have a good communication. But the engineer's feeling to read my scenario at first is not good. So he says he can't understand, but I think it's a chance for me to communicate and let him understand me, because the work of Frequency is the same story, to recognize the difference of each other. And the difference is very beautiful and fantastic, so it's okay.
[00:04:41.587] Kent Bye: So you come from the world of painting. And so had you watched any virtual reality experiences that then made you think that you wanted to create your own virtual reality? Or what were some of the inspirations that you had that made you want to move from painting into making these worlds within virtual reality?
[00:05:04.547] Ellie Omiya: Last year in Japan, I was ordered to be jury of the Japan Film Festival of VR. So I watched maybe 30 films of VR. So very new world for me. And especially the Taiwan last year's Grand Prix.
[00:05:27.098] Kent Bye: So the last year's winner was the man who couldn't leave?
[00:05:30.080] Ellie Omiya: Yes, yes. I was concerned about Taiwan because I love Taiwan and I visited several times. So I received a very deep impact and feel real rather than film. So I was very shocked. But I could see the lightning in my heart by myself. So by seeing the works, I really wanted to make the VR works to give light to someone by my way.
[00:06:08.588] Kent Bye: OK, so and then after you watched these 30 VR films when you were in the jury as a festival juror, did then you start to make your own virtual reality experience after that? Like, how did you get into working with the technology of virtual reality?
[00:06:29.023] Ellie Omiya: I'm a very analogue person, so it's difficult for me to do digital works, but to see some works of real, I feel some warm feeling in digital world, not game, not IT. The real world is not different from other films or dramas or sports games. It's very equal because it's up to the creator's choice to what world one wants to create in a digital way. I want to make the very analogue and hand-like and soft taste by digital way.
[00:07:26.874] Kent Bye: And so what's your process of creating these worlds because you do paintings and so then you are able to take the plantings in a flat 2D almost like a paper doll look and then put a lot of these 2D paintings in a big scene but gives this whole sense of a world so you're able to take your 2d paintings but create this whole big immersive experience in this world with them and so talk about that process of painting and then put them into that world and like what each of the steps are that you do that.
[00:08:06.249] Ellie Omiya: When I watch some work of digital art, for example, Munch, or very famous painter Goho, or Dali, or Munch, world made by digital. But I couldn't feel jump to the art world because it's too digital. So I didn't feel the reality. So I wanted to make the world that you can jump into the books or paintings. How can I do that? I hit upon the idea that maybe if I don't take the 3D way, but I take the 2D way of painting in the 3D world, maybe you can feel the paintings by reality.
[00:09:12.429] Katsutoshi Machiba: Production step is she paints the paper and we capturing the digital and so we use some motion capture by some pantomime performer so it's very not only the digital so we focus to the some feel so human like yeah yeah yeah yeah
[00:09:34.601] Ellie Omiya: And I can control the performance because I can direct the action, not engineer. I can direct the action directly.
[00:09:47.051] Katsutoshi Machiba: Our project is digital and so, you know, real performance combines the contents.
[00:09:54.204] Ellie Omiya: I made the fireworks and drama, theatre, because we trained again and again, action, and creates performance, not, shibai janakute ugoki nandayo ne. Mime. The pantomime? Yes, pantomime.
[00:10:15.256] Katsutoshi Machiba: So we asked the Japanese very popular pantomime performer for the motion capture.
[00:10:23.991] Ellie Omiya: He is very famous in Paris, France too. Yes, yes, I think. I think the actor and actress is not suitable to this project. The action, the abstract action is very suitable to this project, I think. Abstract.
[00:10:47.059] Kent Bye: Yeah, I feel like that being able to take the 2D paintings and have them move around in a very fluid and using motion capture, it feels like a very human-like pantomime. But I really appreciated how you're able to take the simple building blocks of those 2D planes, but also create these really vast worlds that you're able to take me on a whole journey.
[00:11:12.966] Ellie Omiya: Being able to use these simple elements, but create a big vast world that I felt It's transporting me into your world in some way Thank you so much, but the only way to make the new worlds nobody see is digital and analog get married so the children is my work so music and pantomime performance and all genre all kind of art drama and digital and some film or something is art painting are joined in my work at VR world yes
[00:11:56.635] Kent Bye: Yeah, and you have a quote from Max Planck talking about frequency and where he's a quantum physicist who's saying that all of reality is just a matter of different frequencies. And so I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that quote from Max Planck and how that was inspiring the title of this piece and also the theme and story of frequency throughout this journey, which was very personal to your own journey.
[00:12:25.187] Ellie Omiya: Yeah, I feel difficulty in my existence in the childhood. But Max Planck and Pascal helped me to feel safety and feel joy in my life. So I want to share the way to think about life. And, you know, the two scenes I make is throughout as a narrow space to the open space. Yes. It's a breakthrough, my disappointing or bad feeling to jump out to the very wide world. Yes. So it's my, exactly it's my life, but not it's my life. Everyone's life. very usual life, I think. Everyone feels loneliness or anxiety because of COVID. COVID gave us the war, war between us. And war of China and Russia gave me the anxiety. to the future. So, actually, I really want to express my life. Yes, it's only example. Yes, yes, and fact. Fact is, I think, very strong to convey something. So, I don't want to express my life because very ashamed and I don't want to tell my life in detail, but It's very easy way, I think.
[00:14:20.206] Kent Bye: And so what do you want people to take away from this experience that you've created? Like, what's the desired experience or feeling or outcome that you want people to feel in watching your piece?
[00:14:34.878] Ellie Omiya: hope and blame and simply you are the star in the world. Yes, you are only existence, very unique person. Yes.
[00:14:48.683] Kent Bye: Awesome, yeah. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of virtual reality might be and what it might be able to enable?
[00:15:02.037] Ellie Omiya: I hope virtual reality world help the world to peace. Yes, peace. Virtual reality is the total art, I think. So the power of virtual reality saves the world, for example, to make the tender world and share the value of thinking and inspire the difference between the countries.
[00:15:33.737] Kent Bye: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I hope certainly has the potential to do that as well. Yeah. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you would like to say to the broader immersive community?
[00:15:48.814] Ellie Omiya: I hear the Olympics is peace festival, peaceful festival. The festival for peace, maybe. But the war is existence. So virtual reality is next the way to the change of world.
[00:16:10.474] Kent Bye: Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast.
[00:16:13.595] Ellie Omiya: So thank you Thank you. I'm sorry my fat English.
[00:16:18.917] Kent Bye: Sorry It's just fine your English is better than my Japanese Yeah, thank you Thanks for listening to this interview from Fitness Immersive 2023. You can go check out the Critics Roundtable in episode 1305 to get more breakdown in each of these different experiences. And I hope to be posting more information on my Patreon at some point. There's a lot to digest here. I'm going to be giving some presentations here over the next couple of months and tune into my Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR, since there's certainly a lot of digest about the structures and patterns of immersive storytelling, some of the different emerging grammar that we're starting to develop, as well as the underlying patterns of experiential design. So that's all I have for today, and thanks for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And again, if you enjoyed the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listen-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
