S T R O O M E - P Y E D O G__P R O D U C T I O N S - V I R T U A L_P Y E D O G
HUNGER IN LOS ANGELES
By using immersive technologies, the project creates a sense of "being there" as a news story unfolds
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Hunger in Los Angeles - A Sundance Film Festival 2012 Premiere
Synopsis: Former Newsweek correspondent and documentary filmmaker Nonny de la Peña is developing a groundbreaking brand of journalism that offers a fully immersive experience of the news report. Interested in calling attention to the growing issue of hunger in the United States, HUNGER IN LOS ANGELES recreates an eyewitness account of a crisis incident on a food bank line at the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles. De la Peña combined the game development tool Unity 3D, a head mounted display with motion tracking, and live audio she collected from the incident, to construct a simulated world in which audiences can suit up, walk around, and interact with other characters on the scene. The project has been developed at the MxR Lab, a joing lab between USC's Institute for Creative Technologies and the School of Cinematic Arts, with additional support from the Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism where de la Peña was a research fellow for the past two years.
For more information on immersive journalism - www.immersivejournalism.com
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STROOME
Collaborative video remixing - share and edit together with anyone, any place around the globe, all in the cloud
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Co-founder of the Collaborative Video Remix site with users from a 126 countries around the globe and winner of the 2010 Knight News Challenge award.
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GONE GITMO
Virtual Guantanamo Bay prison funded by the MacArthur Foundation, prototyped at BAVC and constructed inside Second Life. The installation brings users through a virtual detention inside the prison camp as an exploration into the loss of habeas corpus rights. Documentary footage from Unconstitutional is embedded to create spatial narrative.
SLURL (Second Life teleport link) | Gone Gitmo blog | New Scientist Magazine
Der Spiegel | Vanity Fair | Chronicle of HIgher Education | ACLU | Seton Hall Law School
What's Making That Awful Racket? Surprisingly, It May Be Fish
New York Times | Science Times | April 8, 2008
Read the Article | Listen to the Sounds | Watch the web video | Colbert Spoofs the Story
Sifting the Garbage for a Green Polymer
New York Times | Science Times | June 19, 2007
Truth and Consequence
An exploration of the use of children in psychology experiments and home economics departments over the past century. Were the rights of children violated for science? An ongoing project.
Nonny de la Peña is a transmedia producer, working across documentary and machinima filmmaking, journalism, writing and virtual world design. Her work also includes two Second Life installations, GONE GITMO, a virtual representation of Guantanamo Bay prison that was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and MAUERKRANKHEIT/WALLSICKENSS, an Annenberg Public Good Merit Award winner. A former correspondent for Newsweek Magazine, she has written for the New York Times, Premiere Magazine, Texas Monthly, Time Magazine and others. She has written multiple episodes of dramatic television, including penning two pilots for CBS. She has also directed and produced four feature length documentary films exploring human rights issues which have been shown on national television and screened at theatres, festivals and special events in more than fifty cities around the globe. The Los Angeles Times wrote that, “de la Peña expertly personalizes the stories” in her films and the New York Times called her work, “a brave and necessary act of truth-telling.” De la Peña is currently exploring how non-fiction storytelling and journalism can be produced using first person immersive experiences in virtual environments.