Kinoscope

WithIN Experience

Company
WithIN with Ex Nihilo  images

Software
360 Animation Video from Unity

Timing
10 minutes

Narration
The story is lead by the voice of legendary Oscar-winning production designer Dean Tavoularis. He tells a story about the history of cinema in a personal and emotional manner.

Subtitles
The title is typographic and animated, as well as the credit text is 2d and flat, but animated on kinoscope frames and black background so the focus is clearly on the text. The rest of the story is narrated without subtitles.

Story Arch
A lively and colorful exploration of the history of cinema. From Méliès and Chaplin to Kubrick and Tarantino, Kinoscope takes you on a journey through some of the most famous scenes ever captured on film. Produced by Ex Nihilo and AudioGaming, the team behind acclaimed VR experience, “Notes On Blindness.”

Cinematography
This was a combination of illustrative png environments with a bit of CGI animation. It was highly illustrative in the looks/the scenery had a handmade effect and the color palette was refined as it would be in a beautiful story. The figures we mostly shadow silhouettes and the effect was incredible. (some rain and smoke, so the combination of 3D effects and illustrative bits worked well, it was a bit like Archer) 

Framing
They were all very full shots, you saw the world, the characters were not so much up close, but further away, therefore small and moved about the scenes. It was as if you were standing in a diorama or on set with various views to different scenes. Some of the scenes were recreated from the movie itself, so I could immediately recognize what film we were seeing. This brought immense value to the piece because I already had a relationship with that film and in terms of transmedia storytelling, it worked incredibly well. What was a bit remarkable was that the characters appeared very clearly, despite their small size. This is an issue for VR in general because of the pixel ratio, but because the lighting and illustrative qualities of the materials / like a diorama or shadow theatre, I didn’t realise it.

Color Palette
Full colour, but selective in the illustrative art direction and lighting. 

Composition
It was a full scenography, like a theatre set, designed with 360 environments and also above and below. Sometimes the horizon was directly ahead, but other scenes like from The Big Leboskwi, there was no horizon. It read like a diorama with layers, the action happened all around above and below.

Point of View
The user is a bystander and sometimes in the film themselves (the camera used to record the famous shots).

Looking Around
The story happens mostly in front, but the characters move around the world and with a couple scenes, they had different “windows” so you looked all around. Because it was very illustrative, I found myself looking around to get all the visual content.

Storytelling
It’s a linear story and you don’t have a role in how you experience it, but it was a cinematic experience, so I was content with this. Also, each scene was only a minute or less long, so there was more than enough content to look at to see the story.

Sound
Sound is 3d with a soundtrack and sound effects, the music was composed for the story and works incredibly well because there is a well developed soundtrack.