Baobab Studios has released a new trailer for its upcoming virtual reality experience film “Namoo” right before the film’s Sundance premiere.
The title, “Namoo,” translates to “tree” in Korean, and the film is written and directed by Erick Oh who previously worked on the creation of the “Heart” and “How to Eat Your Apple.” It will be premiering as part of Sundance’s New Frontiers.
The film follows the journey of an upcoming artist from the beginning to the end which is brought to life using virtual reality and it also celebrates a grandfather’s passing.
Oh said, “This story is deeply inspired by the loss of my grandfather a long time ago. It took me a while to finally put this together in an art piece because I wasn’t ready to share this idea with the world yet. He passed away almost 10 years ago, and it was a sudden goodbye. We weren’t really prepared for it, so we were really grieving. That experience led me to think about our life and the meaning of it, and that led me to come up with the core idea of ‘Namoo.’”
Talking about his approach he continued, “poetic one with minimalistic structure with lots of breathing room.” He added, “At the same time, [it is] dense enough to carry detailed emotions and information. I invited Eusong Lee, an incredible artist as well as a very close friend of mine, to explore the art style for the film together. The most important thing was capturing certain sections and stages of life in lighting as well as the weather — sunny, sunset, night, rain, storm or snow. The lighting and weather are the statuses of the main character’s mind.”
Quill, a VR animation software developed by Oculus, has been used to create “Namoo” as a virtual reality experience.
“VR really brings you deeper into the story. You become part of the story on a very personal level. From the first moment I decided to bring this idea out to the world, I wanted this to be a very poetic spiritual experience and VR was the perfect platform for it. I think that the strength of VR is that it encourages filmmakers to tell their stories not only cinematically but also in a more engaging and immersive way,” Oh said about using virtual reality as the medium for storytelling.
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