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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Virtual Production: What’s Real?</span></b><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Call for Abstracts<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">for a proposed edited book collection</span></i><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">.</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Deadline for abstracts: Monday 15<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>May 2023</span></b><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Virtual Production (VP) represents one of the most significant transformations to the way screen content is written, developed and
produced. Its significance to new screen-making processes is clearest in the upending of much of the work in visual effects from post-production to pre-production. These transformations flow through to how creative work is conceptualized and developed allowing
for the meticulous planning of scenes to accommodate the mixture of photorealistic sets, displayed on large LED walls, with physical sets. VP reorientates the way film, television and animation artists work with their stories, offering room for exploration
by way of granting them greater flexibility to visualize shots and mise-en-scene before anyone has stepped foot on set. And yet, a new type of creative and organizational discipline enters screen production, lessening the opportunity for spontaneity and happenchance.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Issues of sustainability and ethical uses of resources are of emerging concern. The computational power and resource hungriness of
VP is of interest: while it lessens the need to ‘travel’ to locations, it draws on minerals that are being severely depleted. Start-ups drive its economies, as do the transnational media conglomerates who invest in its technologies. VP is driven by innovators
and by the demands of entertainment capitalism. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The issues that VP gives rise to are not simply or singularly to do with transformations in production, however. VP challenges conventional
notions of realism and what can be considered a pro-filmic event. Its seamless virtual reality blends with the physical environment, making it difficult to discern the differences between them. Light, colour, texture and definition are given new properties
and intensities. VP dematerializes the ‘grain’ of film and yet can add any amount of weight and texture to the screen image. VP’s ‘Volume’ and 3D engines are the God Particles of screen art: they can bring into existence new worlds and new realities, extending
the very borders and boundaries of what can be filmed, animated and represented.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">While animation and animated visual effects have enabled such approaches for several decades, the seamless, situated and real-time
processes of VP are of increasing significance. Animated actors and visual effects, alongside the gaming cultures that have newly emerged, sees animation and VP connected in new and profound ways.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The very nature of ‘on screen’ acting and performance is also transformed by VP: actors are asked to perform in Volume environments,
enmeshed in the live visualisation, and yet they are also ontologically removed from ‘physical’ interactions in the tangible environment. On the one hand, actors are drawn further from a physical location into a virtual illusion. Their dress, costume and props
can all be created in post-production, leaving them partly in ‘rehearsal’ mode. On the other hand, the immersive power of that illusion brings their performance closer to the environment, creating verisimilitude within the represented reality, a real time
connection difficult to create in previous green screen environments. Their perception of ‘realism’ and of acting is arguably transformed by these processes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Audiences find themselves drenched in these new VP realities: on the one hand, making the spectacular seem ordinary, and on the other,
offering fully immersive and sensorial viewing encounters. VP enacts a new type of virtualised human.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">In VP, questions of representation seem to be equalized, particularly in relation to race and ethnicity. Systems such as Disney Research
Studios and ILM’s <i>Medusa</i> purports to capture ‘true skin pigmentation, colour texture maps, luminosity, and blood flow of the actor’s face’ (Anon, 2020). Virtual film production thus seems to remove light skin tone as its default setting, democratising
the way different coloured bodies are captured. Nonetheless, the virtual nature of such representations may act to remove them from indexical reality/realism, so that these non-white bodies are witnessed or viewed as
<i>passing</i> through the technology - there and not there at the same time. This hyperreal passing would undermine their significance as affective racial registers, inviting a type of ‘toxic empathy’ (Nakamura, 2019) from the viewer.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">In this call for papers, we seek contributions that look at one or more of these six central aspects of VP:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">1. Transformations to the way
</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">screen content is written, developed and produced.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">2. The concerns of entertainment capital, the environment, and soft power.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">3. Questions and issues of realism and performance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">4. Reception: viewing ‘ordinary’ and immersive worlds. The virtualisation of the viewing experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">5. Questions and issues of representation.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">6. The evolving uses, roles and perception of animation (CGI environments, animated actors and animated visual effects) in VP productions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">We take the screen to include film, television, animation, and, more broadly, its expanded dimensions found in installations, gallery
films, and the new modes and modalities of exhibition. We welcome abstracts that take one or more of these forms/technologies/sites as their case study.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Indicative Topics include but are not limited to:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Perceptions of reality and realism in a VP environment </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Cinematography and volumetric performance<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Method and performance in VP<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">VP and the reshaping of the creative process<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">VP and environmental concerns<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">VP and entertainment capitalism<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">The ‘spectacle’ of VP: awe, wonder, plasticity
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Sounding VP<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">The aesthetics of VP: light, colour, grain and scale
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">VP and representations of gender, race and ethnicity<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Photogammetry and place: uncoupling time and space<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Digital assets, simulacra and simulacrums<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">The relationship between, and the impact of, game, animation, and/or live concert industries and technologies in VP<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Audience Interactivity and VP: affects and effects<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Animated worlds and VP: immersion, explosion, hybridity<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">VP and genre: old and new forms of hybridity<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Post-production and VP: computational logic and the end of ‘error’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Abstracts:</span></b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Should include title, 350 words summary, and a brief bio.</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">D</span></b><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">eadline for abstracts: Monday 15<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>May
2023<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Submitted to:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Sian Mitchell:<b>
</b></span><a href="mailto:sian.mitchell@deakin.edu.au"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">sian.mitchell@deakin.edu.au</span></b></a><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">
<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Colin Perry:
</span><a href="mailto:colin.perry@deakin.edu.au"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">colin.perry@deakin.edu.au</span></a><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">Sean Redmond:
</span><a href="mailto:s.redmond@deakin.edu.au"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">s.redmond@deakin.edu.au</span></a><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Lienors Torre:
</span><a href="mailto:lienors.torre@deakin.edu.au"><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">lienors.torre@deakin.edu.au</span></a><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><i><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Members of the Deakin Motion Lab, Deakin University, Australia</span></i><i><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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