NEW YORK CITY - Creative event space Shift Midtown (www.shiftmidtown.com) recently partnered with an international team of filmmakers and immersive storytellers to create an immersive documentary that employs projection mapping. Fillos do Vento: A Rapa made its immersive debut the 78th Festival de Cannes' Immersive Competition. The 28-minute documentary immerses audiences into the heart of Galicia's centuries-old "Rapa das Bestas" ritual, which involves cutting the manes of the wild horses.
Directed by Brais Revaldería (Westworld, Recipe for Change) and creatively directed by María Fernanda Ordóñez Morla, the project combines both traditional an innovative filmmaking techniques. Fillos do Vento: A Rapa is a multi-sensory experience that uses 270-degree projection mapping, 8K visuals, ambisonic sound and interactive storytelling. The film dissolves the boundary between observer and participant, bringing viewers into the misty Galician landscape, where they feel the pounding hooves and hear the breath of wild horses as they step into the Curro, where villagers and horses collide in a test of strength and memory.
The transformation from a traditional 16:9 documentary to an immersive installation was made possible through a collaboration between US and Spanish creatives. Bruno Saavedra and Kim Xrossing of New York's Shift Midtown led the projection mapping and technical integration, working closely with the director and producer to restructure the film’s visual language, from cinematography choices to playback technology. Their work challenges the notion that immersive storytelling is an exclusive, high-tech art form, and instead demonstrates its accessibility and power to convey cultural narratives.
"Projection mapping isn’t just a tool, it’s a storytelling language," says Saavedra. "With Fillos do Vento, we weren’t just projecting a film. Done correctly with technology and cinematography, we transported people into a living tradition."
Saavedra and Xrossing led the technical build of the installation at Cannes, blending high-end technology with artisanal detail to create an emotionally-immersive experience. The video installation incorporated eight projectors across a 99-square-meters of space, generating 100 linear feet of projection-mapped walls that wrapped 270 degrees around the audience. One projector was dedicated to the credits wall, while two additional projectors brought life to patches of grass mapped directly onto the floor. In total, the installation used over 13.2 million pixels to present the detail of the 8K footage.
On the audio front, the team faced the challenge of limiting sound bleed from the intended 7.1.2 surround mix into other exhibits. Their solution was instead to use semi-open spatial audio headsets, allowing up to 16 viewers at a time to experience a dynamic binaural mix that responded to their movements. This ambisonic soundscape was specially mixed in four channels and enabled audiences to hear the environment shift and swirl around them.
Fillos do Vento: A Rapa is the result of seven years of work, with support from Galicia's Xunta, the Diputación de Pontevedra, and the Concello da Estrada, and in collaboration with the Asociación Rapa das Bestas. It was previously showcased in a non-immersive format at Canada's Hot Docs Festival before its immersive debut at Cannes.