2020 has been a funny old year, but we didn’t let lockdown stop up from moving ahead with our first steps into virtual reality. Collaborating with Kay Media Africa, we have spent the best part of the year learning and adapting to storytelling in VR, with ‘The Idea Bridge‘ project – a collaborative, immersive VR animated short film produced by Zimbabwean and UK digital artists.

For Converge Conference 2020, we joined Eugene and Keith (and the rest of the team) to discuss the origins of the project, the challenges we faced and to show some behind the scenes footage.

making-of The Idea Bridge VR Animated short by Zimbabwe & UK artists

In the second video, watch digital artists Eugene Ramirez Mapondera (Zimbabwe) and Katie Steed (UK) on a panel with Linda Khumalo and Extra-Blessings Kuchera from British Council discussing how The Idea Bridge VR animated film collaboration came about, the objectives, and what the audience can expect when the project is released in 2021.

British Council Sub-Saharan Africa FestivalConnect Panel Discussion

This project has been supported by British Council Sub-Saharan Africa FestivalConnect and was commissioned by Comexposed. The full VR Film will be released in 2021 and is set to premiere at Chichester International Film Festival in the UK as well as at Comexposed Converge 2021 edition in Harare.