2017
The Unknown Photographer
A Virtual Reality immersion into the fragmented memories of a World War One photographer
The experience
The Unknown Photographer was an immersive docu-fiction in virtual reality. The interactive film explore damaged memories of a First World War photographer through landscapes of the war, corrupted by the time that has passed.
The experience was an early experimentation of Virtual Reality before it was made available to the public. To this day it travelled across the world from festival to festival including Sundance, IDFA, TIFF, MUTEK, Anny Best of Fest and more.
I was the technical director of the project. I was in charge of programming the systems and interactions as well as the technical supervision of the content creation. Being an experimental project and working in a small team, we all had a hand in every aspect of the project in the end.
Video
Project media
Tour
Power to the Pixel
London, United Kingdom
Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM)
Montreal, Canada
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
Amsterdam, Netherlands
All Access Winnipeg
Winnipeg, Canada
Sundance Film Festival
Park City, USA
Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois
Montreal, Canada
i4C Munich
Munich, Germany
Festival international du court métrage au Saguenay (REGARD)
Chicoutimi, Canada
Montreal Digital Spring
Montreal, Canada
MIPTV
Cannes, France
Virtually There (MIT Open Documentary Lab)
Cambridge, USA
MUTEK, VR Salon
Montreal, Canada
Symposium IX
Montreal, Canada
Montreal Virtual Reality Market
Montreal, Canada
Storytellers’ Institute Festosium
Saratoga Springs, USA
Sunny Side of the Doc
La Rochelle, France
TIFF Summer POP03
Toronto, Canada
Anny Best of Fest
New York City, USA
Astra Film Festival
Sibiu, Romania
Montreal International Game Summit
Montreal, Canada
VR Arles Festival
Arles, France
Bienal de Artes Mediales
Santiago, Chile
Credits
- Direction
- Loïc Suty
- Art direction
- Claudine Matte
- Technical direction
- Osman Zeki
- Production direction
- Alexandre Leduc
- Writing
- Catherine Mavrikakis
- Narrators
- François Papineau (French), Julian Casey (English)
- Screenplay research and collaboration
- Marie-Pierre Chazel, Catherine Hébert
- Military historian, drawings and the Great War
- Guth Des Prez
- History consultant
- Catherine Saouter
- Original soundtrack
- François Lafontaine
- Producers
- Claire Buffet, Turbulent, Louis-Richard Tremblay, NFB
- Executive producers
- Marc Beaudet, Turbulent, Benoit Beauséjour, Turbulent, Hugues Sweeney, NFB
- Turbulent development
- Nicolas Crété
- Acting director and additional writing
- Jean-Michel Théroux
- English translation
- Christina Moxie
- Female voice
- Enrica Boucher
- Director of operations
- Frédéric Lemieux
- Production coordinator
- Sophie Richard
- Project management
- Guillaume Grassiant
- Production assistant and additional 3D modelling
- Julie Coulombe
- Production assistant
- Frédérique Dufort-Plante
- Quality assurance
- Francis Bordeleau, Judith Montplaisir
- Director of finance
- Julie Saint-Pierre
- Accountant
- Mabel Flores
- Administrator
- Élaine Jacques
- NFB head of project and technologies
- Martin Viau
- Editorial manager
- Valérie Darveau
- NFB administrator
- Marie-Andrée Bonneau
- Production coordinators
- Dominique Brunet, Caroline Fournier
- Head of production
- Marie-Pier Gauthier
- Marketing manager
- Tammy Peddle, assisted by Jolène Lessard
- Information technology
- Sergiu Raul Suciu
- Technical coordinators
- Mira Mailhot, Daniel Claveau
- Re-recording mixers
- Geoffrey Mitchell, Luc Léger, Shelley Craig
- Online editing
- Serge Verreault
- Technical resources
- Pierre Dupont, Isabelle Painchaud, Patrick Trahan
- Legal services
- Peter Kallianiotis
- Press relations
- Marie-Claude Lamoureux
- Finding Fletcher Wade Moses short film
- Director: Bertrand Carrière, Director of photography: Bruno Carrière, Editing: Natacha Dufaux, Sound design: Benoît Dame, Music: François Lafontaine, Research and screenplay: Bertrand Carrière, Participants: Philippe Baylaucq, Bertrand Carrière, Guth Des Prez, Joyce Macaskill, Bob Hindle, Bruce Wade
- Images of World War documentary series
- Director: Marie-Pierre Chazel, Participants: Guth des Prez, Catherine Saouter, Directors of photography: Catherine Hébert, François Vincelette, Sound recording and editing: Mélanie Gauthier, Executive producer: Isabelle Repelin, Editing: Vincent Guignard, Sound design: Mélanie Gauthier, Production support: Martin Lévy, Original soundtrack: François Lafontaine, Archivist: Odette DesOrmeaux
Notes
Some images in the videos come from Mr. Guth des Prez’s personal collection.
Special thanks to the collaborators and supporters of the research and preproduction phases: Marie-Pierre Chazel, Catherine Hébert, Isabelle Repelin, Anderson Bordim, Guth Des Prez, Catherine Saouter, Tiffany Assous, Philippe Archontakis, Jean-Olivier Bégin, François Parenteau, Catherine Leroux, Guillaume Sanfaçon, Cécile Chandran, Manuel Gomez, Bjorn Feldmann, Hervé Lange, Mathieu Handfield, Anne-Marie Champoux, Philippe Baylaucq, Jack Lopez, Yves Tremblay, Myriam Picovschi, Joel-Aimé Beauchamp, Nicolas Noël Jodoin, Martin Lizée, Robert Lizée and Louis Brochu.
The NFB wishes to thank Philippe Baylaucq, Franck Desvernes, Marie-Pier Gauthier, Monique Simard and Dominique Willieme. The NFB and Turbulent also wish to thank Arte and its team, Heidelinde Blumers and Marianne Levy-Leblond.