Serbia Film Commission, British Council and the Yugoslav Film Archive within new British film festival “Film and Chips” organized an educational program Industry encounters, with a focus on visual effects, virtual reality and technological innovation in the field of audiovisual arts, marketing and distribution.
Educational program called “Industry encounters” was attended by over 30 professionals from the film industry that arrived from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Israel and many countries in Eastern Europe just to participate in the program. More than 50 domestic visitors had the opportunity to connect with their foreign colleagues, exchange experience and establish a network of potential collaborators.
Industry encounters
The festival started with lecture “Thinking bigger, taking risks,” by Mike McGee, co-founder of Framestore studios, an Oscar winner for special effects for the movie “Gravity”. The topic was based on the presentation of detailed work on a film with a “live twitter commentary” during special screening in Belgrade Youth Centre. The first day of “Industry encounters”program began with special workshop on new platforms that play a key role for future development of the content and technical aspects of different platforms to better attract the audience. The second workshop subject was development of virtual reality in the past 5 years, cross-platform and incorporation kinaesthetic / multi-sensory effects in storytelling. The program was finished with representatives from Macedonian and Serbian studios who discussed about the artistic aspects of international projects on which they collaborated and the potential of this region for VFX studio development.
The biggest impression for the first day program was Recruitment event that was organized in Serbia for the first time. Professionals specialized in visual effects had an opportunity to present their showreels and working experience during individual meetings with Framestore studios HR leader and make themselves an opportunity for potential cooperation with this company.
The second day was devoted to marketing and distribution, and a team of experts from the Event Cinema Association held a conference regarding innovative cinema content, ie cinema broadcasts of theater and cultural events, which was followed by a lecture about Usher innovative application for booking and buying cinema tickets, which improves performance, reduces costs, helps in collecting and analyzing an audience data, as well as in attracting audience.
“The Cube” demonstration was most attractive event for the visitors on the second day. It was one on one interaction with performer Simon Wilkinson, where visitors had an opportunity to realize their own performance in virtual reality.
The second new British film festival “Film and Chips” is successfully completed. British Council and Serbia Film Commission will continue cooperation through educational program, working on film proffessionals skills improvement and building knowledge transfer and networking.