Guest lecture Tuesday January 14th, 2025: Game director at Nøkken VR, Ellen Lande

This talk is part of the course INF-3910 GameLab but it is open to all.

The lecture will be held in person at MH1 Auditorium 3 (MH-building), but for those of you who can’t attend it physically the lecture will also be streamed (see url below).

Professional (academic) contact person is Associate professor André Henriksen.

Target group: Bachelor, master, PhD students and employees at CS department.

Welcome!

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Date: Tuesday January 14th, 2005, at 13:15 - 14:00
Place: MH1 Auditorium 3 (MH-building)
Url stremaing: https://uit.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx?folderID=660e6880-d2d4-43d0-987b-b25f0101cc1e
Title: " Immersive Storytelling "
Lecturer: Game director at Nøkken VR, Ellen Lande

Abstract
The art of crafting an emotional immersive journey. How to go from an idéa, the steps to shape an engaging interactive innovative VR experience.

Molding the concept
Taking a painting, a folktale and how to best interpretate it into an immersive interactive 3D world narrative.

Nøkken VR draws its inspiration from the well known visual universe of the famous Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen and his reknown painting the Nøkk. Further Kittelsens pioneering achievement in being the first to give visual interpretation of the mythological creatures from the Scandinavian fairytales. His empatic brilliant portraits giving insight and new perspective. This leading to build this experience from the point of view of the Nøkk allowing a twist on the Story of man against nature. The urgency of the topic of the climate crisis - the anxiety of the young audience target group is delt with providing an emotional journey filled with impact and agency.

The embodiment, guiding you into being the mythological creature, engaging in a magic lily pond exploring and connecting under and above water, confronting treat and restoring balance.

Insights on character development, crafting of hero assets, narrative development, use of diegetic sound versus narrative sound, how to secure high quality impactfull motion capture for dramatic scenes. Sharing of artistic research and abundant beta testing results. Insights after presentation at a wide range of venues from art museum, GameExpo to filmfestival.

Deconstruct to connect
Additional funding ( Aga Grant/ Ministry of Culture). An upgrade of the experience. Youth participation in further development as school classes and Gameclub teens are invited in to hack, adjust and improve the experience for greater impact.

Bio
Ellen Lande graduated from The Polish Film school, Lodz with a double Artistic Master in Filmd irecting as well as Cinematography.
Director of 960 minutes of Award nominated TV-drama series, Rose D’or, Switzerland, Golden Frame, Norway.
Director of The Digital garden of MunchAR.
On sight Åsgårdstrand at Munchs hus. Actively presented to school chassis by DKS last 3 years.
Director of Nøkken VR, winner of “Best Virtual Production Nordic VR Forum2023”,
Lillehammer kunstmuseum 2023 presentation, BIFF extended 2022. Createch Summit 2024, Sofia Bulgaria, Spillexpo 2024 Lillestrøm.

Nasjonalmuseet video archive, 10 art pieces.
Norwegian Cineclub distribution 10 short films Retrospective Ellen Lande .
Screened at: Sale De Renaissance, Rabat, Morocco 2016 and Cinemateket, Oslo 2016

Director of 23 short& documentaries. Special Prize of the Jury, Drama, Greece- Just a game, shortfilm.
Silver bear, Bilbao Short Filmfestival The Late Night show.
TwinSoul music video, Best Hip hop music video+ Best drama music Video Rome music video festival, Awarded Honorary mentioning, The Norwegian short film festival.
HumanRace, shortfilm, audience of 1 million live at Berlin Underground Shortfilmfestival, 19 International Filmfestivals.

Kortnytt fra Institutt for informatikk

Fuglesteg, Jan jan.fuglesteg@uit.no Studierådgiver