MINIMUM MASS
A film experience.
Artists: Raqi Syed (US/NZ)
Areito Echevarria (NZ/US)
Katayoun Dibamehr (FR)
Sunny Teich (US)
Jimi Wilson (NZ)
John Aberdein (NZ)
Enter a gritty, surreal, and cinematic story rooted in the emotional world of miscarriage and family.
MINIMUM MASS is a story about love, loss, and black holes. Set in contemporary Rotorua, New Zealand and the speculative world of black holes, it is a short interactive narrative virtual reality. MINIMUM MASS takes place in a real-time, photorealistic computer generated story world and has been developed as an in headset experience for the Oculus Rift-S.
Raqi Syed is a writer, visual effects designer, and researcher. Her practice and teaching focus on the materiality of light, hybrid forms of non-fiction and genre storytelling, and using media archeology and software studies methodologies to better understand contemporary practices in visual effects. https://www.hydroxandhorlix.com/
Areito Echevarria is an Academy Award winning artist and researcher with over 21 years of Visual Effects experience. His passion is for storytelling and world building approached through the lens of computational design. https://www.areito.net/
Katayoun Dibamehr is co-founder of the Paris-based studio Floréal Films. She is a seasoned curator, working with festivals such as POP Montreal, RIDM and FNC. Katayoun brings an understanding of XR exhibition to the earliest stages of the development process. https://florealfilms.com/
Sunny Teich is a writer and visual effects artist. Over the course of her 12-year career in VFX, she has developed an expertise in simulation, while working on feature films at major international studios including Disney Animation, Sony Imageworks and Weta Digital.
Jimi Wilson is a virtual reality audio specialist based in Wellington, NZ. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, focusing on ecological sound design and nature recording. In addition to his work on Minimum Mass as Lead Sound Designer, he has been a Lead Set Audio for “Turn of the Screw”, “Forgotten Floss”, “Whakakitenga”, and is owner of Glenn Audio.
John Aberdein has worked at Andy Serkis’s Imaginarium in London on AAA game projects such as Star Citizen, and Battlefield. His film credits include Star Wars, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Hobbit, and many more. John is a Senior Tutor in Visual Effects at Victoria University’s Miramar Creative Centre, where he uses his formidable knowledge to help educate the next generation of visual effects storytellers.
Project Credits:
Sundance Institute, NZFilm, Epic Megagrant, Kaleidoscope Dev Lab, CNC, La Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Victoria University of Wellington.
