I interviewed Champ De Bataille director Francois Vautier at Venice Immersive 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
Here’s his artist’s statement:
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.438] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing on my series of looking at different projects from Venice Immersive 2024, today's episode is with a piece called Champ de Batille. So this is a 360 video immersive piece that is looking at the trenches in World War I and Verdun, France, and tracing the story of a soldier trying to create an emotional connection to this character as he is going through some of the horrors of war. So we're covering all that and more in today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Francois happened on Friday, August 30th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:00.649] Francois Vautier: My name is François Wautier. I'm a filmmaker. I'm living in Paris and I work in Paris. Before going to the VR, I was a traditional cinematographer. So in 1917, I met my producer, Jérémie Sahel, and he said to me, you have to go to the VR. The VR, I didn't know it. At this period, I've done my first movie. It was I Saw the Future. It was here at the Musgrave of Venice for the first time. It was a great pleasure to be here because the VR is very special. It allows me to have a new language. It's a white page for me.
[00:01:40.446] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into working with virtual reality.
[00:01:46.109] Francois Vautier: I've done a lot of pieces, short pieces for television, graphic pieces, like title sequence for mini TV shots for movie, et cetera, et cetera. And then I've done two feature film for television. And then I discover VR.
[00:02:05.208] Kent Bye: In the video for this piece that's showing here at Venice Immersive 2024, you had mentioned that you were playing a video game called Battlefield with your son. Maybe you could give a bit more context for how this story came about.
[00:02:16.590] Francois Vautier: Yes, it's incredible because the starting point of Shandbatai was a game, it was Battlefield. Because I have a son, my son Jules has the age of the young people who died during the war. So he's a very good gamer and I spent so many time with him, watching him playing this game and Battlefield is an incredibly realistic game. But then they released a new device, a new one, during the period of the First World War. I was very curious, curious because I studied this period. But when I discovered it, I was very disappointed. I felt no emotion. So I searched something around the world. I searched through... I had at home a stereoscopic plate in 3D of young men in the trenches. I saw them in their life. And that was the starting point of the movie. At this moment, I decided to do a film in VR. Because it's a good way to speak to the young generation, you understand?
[00:03:29.264] Kent Bye: And so maybe you could give a bit more context for where did these stereoscopic 3D plates of the First World War, of the trenches, where did those images come from?
[00:03:37.907] Francois Vautier: It's really in the baggage of my grandfather. At this period, there was a first stereoscopic plate. You can really see in 3D the soldier into the trenches. And it's very, very precise, very detailed. It's like a movie, but it's still images, but it's like a movie. It was a very good point for me from our imagination. I wanted to go through.
[00:04:05.103] Kent Bye: And so you want to try to convey the emotion and the experience of what it's like to be in the World War I, in the trenches, and you have these stereoscopic plates. In the video, I saw that you had graphical simulations of some of the sets. Talk through what was the process of then trying to figure out how to translate this first-person perspective of the soldier to try to put us into the shoes of in the trenches of World War I. How did you begin the process of creating the whole world on which the scenes would take place?
[00:04:36.502] Francois Vautier: It was really a challenge because to do a VR film with cinematographic approach is very difficult. We can't translate in VR the language of the cinema. We have to find a point of view. It was the beginning of my reflection. I have to find a point of view and I use two perspectives. The first one is a point of view of Julien, the hero who is in his mind. And the second one is a traditional point of view, a cinematographic point of view, which helps us to place the hero inside the set. and then with the editing we can go more and more we progress in the editing and we are more and more inside the Julian's mind and it's also a challenge because we have to shoot on location in a field in eastern France Because I wanted the actor in the mood, in the cold, in the rain. I wanted them to feel the trenches. But it's very difficult to shoot inside. So we have to do something very new. We use a speeder cam. And a speeder cam is a camera suspended by cables. and we can go through the trenches, open, inside, and it's controlled by a... It's a... Like a remote controller? Yes, it's a remote controller. I had to test to program this movement months before the shooting, at home, with my own computer, and I have to test if it works or not. And then we shoot in the location.
[00:06:17.535] Kent Bye: So when you're testing it at home, do you have a virtual camera and a simulation? Or how are you actually, when you say you're testing it, you just mean that you're testing the movement? Because there's a difference between being at home and being on set. So I'm just trying to understand how you're able to test it.
[00:06:32.612] Francois Vautier: for that i have to do a digital model of the set so i've done all the set in my computer months before the shooting it's allow me to test my movement and it allow me to test the editing because it's the most important things when you want to do a vr movie with a cinematographer approach
[00:06:56.403] Kent Bye: So you created some animatics or some previews for what it would look like in Blender, or what kind of software did you use to actually create these previews?
[00:07:05.468] Francois Vautier: I used many software. Effectively, I manipulated some puppets to see them into the set, and I tried, and then I edited with a final cut. I used Unreal, I used Cinema 4D, I used many, many things to have a look. I try it directly or not directly. I use my headset. I work like a traditional way, and then I go back to the VR. I try many, many things.
[00:07:37.023] Kent Bye: And so in creating the sets, did you actually have to dig these trenches and actually recreate? Because it looked really photorealistic. It didn't look like it was CGI. It looked like you actually had built all these trenches. So talk about the process of actually building these trenches.
[00:07:52.428] Francois Vautier: Yes, at the beginning there was a field at the Eastern of France and we come with a big machine and we dig, we dig, we dig, we dig and we reproduce my digital model inside. But it was not so long. It was, the set was summit to summit, I don't know. So like from end to end or from like the length of it?
[00:08:13.922] Kent Bye: Yeah.
[00:08:14.702] Francois Vautier: But after the editing, I have to recreate in 3D the entire battlefield scenery in 3D. And then to add to the live action, it was very difficult. And I have also to remove all the cables, the crew, I have to change the sky, I have to change the mood, etc, etc.
[00:08:37.728] Kent Bye: Yeah, it sounds like that when you're saying that you had these two different perspectives, that one is from one of the first person perspective of one of the characters. And when you said the traditional perspective, did you mean like just a normal third person perspective that's not from the viewpoint of any individual? Is that what you meant from like the traditional, the second perspective?
[00:08:55.849] Francois Vautier: The traditional perspective is not subjective, it's a large view. We need to see where is the hero. It's very important to see him. And then you can cut and have the subjective view of him. And then you come back to the traditional view. It's a ping-pong between the two points of view.
[00:09:17.566] Kent Bye: And there ends up being a dog character that seems to be a key role in terms of the relationship to the main protagonist. And so talk about the process of having a dog on set and working with a dog and shooting this 360 video.
[00:09:30.718] Francois Vautier: Yes, there is a dog inside the movie. In the real life, during the war, there was dog inside the trenches. There was only things, there was a friend of everybody. It's very important. It's a reality, it's historic. And it allowed me to give a friend to my hero, because at a moment, after an incredible turn of events, he's alone. Alone in the trenches, alone on the no man's land. And the only person... alive with him, it is this dog. And this dog is very, very important. And this dog goes away because there are so many explosions. He goes away, so my hero, Julian, goes... He searches to... I don't know... So the dog runs away and he's like chasing or searching for the dog? He is searching for the dog and so suddenly he is at the middle of the no man's land and he is caught by the battlefield.
[00:10:37.216] Kent Bye: Yeah, so he kind of leaves himself vulnerable, which kind of leads to the ending sequence. But maybe we could take a step back and talk about this main character. He's laying some telephone lines, and maybe you could just elaborate a little bit about who this character is and how you developed this particular character to be the main protagonist as you're going through and trying to bring back the feeling of visceral emotion with these experiences of being in the trenches in World War I.
[00:11:05.611] Francois Vautier: Sean Bata, it's the story of Julian. Julian is a young man, a fragile man, a little bit deaf. And my grandfather has done the wear on the battlefield. And he has the same problem. There was explosion and suddenly he was deaf. Not totally deaf. But I wanted to have a hero, fragile hero.
[00:11:34.030] Kent Bye: You understand? So there's an explosion that causes a loss of hearing and then you wanted to, it sounds like you have a personal connection to that, but you wanted to elaborate that.
[00:11:43.221] Francois Vautier: And the other thing very important for Julian, it is not really a soldier. He's working as a technician into the trenches. And it's only by the turn of the events that is through to the battlefield. But at the beginning of the film is only a technician who is in charge of the connection between posts, the different people inside. So it's a metaphor of the link between a human into the trench. And my own father, during another war in Indochina, was working as a telegraphist.
[00:12:20.262] Kent Bye: Okay. And it seems like that as the film comes to its climactic point where they're really facing death, where there's two sides of soldiers that are similarly in a bombed out ditch and turns out that these characters don't make it and that it's reflecting on the deaths of these ordinary soldiers and so talk through this climactic moment where there's this face-off of sorts and what were you were trying to communicate in terms of the the overall story that you're telling here because shant batai it's a tribute it's really a tribute about all those men the young men i use a lot of metaphor to do it there are dandelion working on the air
[00:13:04.706] Francois Vautier: And the other thing is, it is a journey into the hell of the war. But there is also a journey into the nature. Because the death is constantly here. And I wanted to show hope. It's a movie about hope and the life who keeps re-burning again.
[00:13:30.242] Kent Bye: Okay. Yeah. And yeah, certainly, you know, there's been a number of different experiences in VR where you're put into the trenches and there's been 2D films that you go into the trenches, but there's something a lot different when you're in VR. And I'm wondering, like coming from a film background, you see 2D representations of that, and now you've been able to realize your vision of what you were trying to create. And so what do you think of the difference of actually feeling like you're in the trenches and For me, I felt like it was a lot more visceral that even though I've seen other war films like this, it definitely felt like a lot more intense, especially with all the sound and the explosions. And I could tell there was like a lot of realism in the trenches. And it just felt really like visceral in a way that was different from watching a 2D film. But I'm just curious to hear about your intentions of what you were trying to create and the people who are watching it, what you wanted them to experience by being on the front lines and in the trenches.
[00:14:26.776] Francois Vautier: For me it was also a challenge to recreate it in VR because in VR we are inside. So it allows the audience to be inside the trench. They can feel even the smell of the mud. And perhaps soon we will have a jacket and we can feel the explosion. It's cinematographic, but it is in VR, and in VR we are inside. Each people can have his own experience of the movie. You can go through, it's very, very different. I have to do that. I have to find a way to speak to the young people, because VR, it is her tool. They can use it.
[00:15:15.811] Kent Bye: Maybe you could talk about the sound design, because you're able to create more of a sound field. And I think the bombs going off and everything, it creates a lot more visceral experience than if you found that it was different than doing the sound in 2D versus now working with VR. And talk about the sound design process that you went through.
[00:15:36.738] Francois Vautier: At the beginning, I worked in a traditional way, the sound. I worked with my musician and sound designer, Pascal Banz, and we have made many movies together. At the beginning, it was linear. It was not VR. We have done a lot of music. We have some sound design. I use it for my editing. But at the moment, when I have... I had my editing, I go through the VR, and at this process I work with another man, it's Pierre-Marie Blind, and he's specialized in binaural. And at this moment we recreate a lot of sound design around, and he plays the action all around, the explosion, and he plays also the sound of the music around us. and it was really a new step of creation. And for me, it was the first time I used binaural and it's absolutely incredible in VR for this kind of experience because we need to know where are the fights, where are the explosions, where are the dangers. You can have the danger beside you. It's absolutely incredible.
[00:17:00.111] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I noticed that there's some special effects. I don't know if there's some real effects of bombs exploding, but did you decide to do everything in CGI and try to make it 2D billboard or try to create volumetric 3D special effects? Because you're working with a stereoscopic film, and so you have two perspectives. But if it's far away, then you can cheat it by just having 2D. And so I'm wondering your process of creating the special effects if you had any practical effects where you actually were exploding things or if it was all just done in post-production with some special effects?
[00:17:35.188] Francois Vautier: The post-production was very difficult because I had to switch between real explosions during the shooting and then I had some 2D elements at the horizon line and then I used a new explosion in 3D Then I had to match all together. So it was a crazy thing to do. Plus, it was in stereoscopic. Plus, it was in a very high definition. So it was a crazy time for me. And I've done it on my own with a studio in Binet in Belgium. But I have done all the 3D decor and all the compositing.
[00:18:22.745] Kent Bye: Yeah, it could detect some anomalies when I was watching it. And I was like, well, it's an explosion. They probably weren't having all of these explosions. But it sounds like you did have some explosions, but you were magnifying them and making them bigger.
[00:18:33.751] Francois Vautier: I have some anomaly in the compositing. I know it, but it's a question of time, of budget. But I assume this perspective because I didn't say it's an ultra-realistic movie. It's a dreamlike movie. So I can use something not very realistic. I can use fake.
[00:19:00.763] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think it works overall. So I guess as you've finished it now and you're showing it, maybe if you have any reflections on what it was like for you to go from more traditional 2D into 3D and exploring what you can do with this kind of more cinematic versions of virtual reality.
[00:19:20.426] Francois Vautier: Here I present the VR version of the film, but other pieces I would like to do a traditional version for the cinema and for immersive plays. For example, I will showcase the film into a dome. so that multi-viewers can see the movie together. But that is also a challenge to do it. Technically, it's very, very difficult because the first goal of the movie is really the VR. And then I try to adapt to another piece, but it's really a challenge. Great. So what's next for this project? I hope we'll have many, many festivals. The Mostra is the place to be for the first time, sure. It's a fantastic place to showcase VR. But after that, as my other movie, I hope the movie will be shown all over the world.
[00:20:27.589] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential, like where things could go in the future with this immersive media, immersive storytelling, what do you think the ultimate potential of where this immersive art could be able to go in the future and be able to enable?
[00:20:46.547] Francois Vautier: Shant Batai is rare because there are very few movies in live action, actually. But I hope it will open new windows. I wanted to tell people it's possible to do a VR movie with a cinematic approach. But VR is very extended. For example, my next experience will be interactive experiences. So I like to try many, many things in VR.
[00:21:25.759] Kent Bye: Great. So anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community? Any final thoughts or anything else that you want to say addressed to the rest of the VR and immersive community?
[00:21:39.548] Francois Vautier: You have to try something. The VR is a white page. We have to try something new. Each time I work on a project, a new project in VR, I have to discover new things. It's really enthusiastic.
[00:21:56.179] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, certainly the Champ de Batille. Oh, just one quick follow on. What's the context of this location for where this was at in the World War I? But what's the Verdun? What happened in the course of the rest of the World War I? Like why this specific location in this place in time? Like what was the significance of that?
[00:22:16.491] Francois Vautier: Battlefield set in Verdun. And in Verdun, it was the climax of the war. There was a place where, a small place in Eastern France, where a lot of men died. And it's really, I don't know the term in English, for a lot of people in France, when you say World War I, the first one, everybody thinks Verdun.
[00:22:46.215] Kent Bye: Okay, okay. So it's like the place that memorializes kind of metaphorically the entirety of the war of this as being the climax. And so just kind of honoring this one story as a representation of all the men who lost their lives. Because you have a really beautiful part at the end where you're just having all these other names that you're surrounded by just to kind of honor all those people who passed away. Yeah. So awesome. Well, thanks again for taking the time to help share a little bit more story of the Champ de Batille. And yeah, thanks again for taking more time to help break it all down.
[00:23:17.851] Francois Vautier: Thanks a lot.
[00:23:19.272] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to these episodes from Venice Immersive 2024. And yeah, I am a crowdfunded independent journalist. And so if you enjoy this coverage and find it valuable, then please do consider joining my Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
