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Way to Go

Vincent Morisset
2015

Description

Way to Go is an interactive experience for human beings between 5 and 105 years old. Maybe it lasts six minutes; maybe it lasts forever. Way to Go is ready for your web browser and willing to go VR, if you’re Rift-y. It is like a grey squirrel balanced on a branch, fearless. Made by Vincent Morisset, Caroline Robert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit and the studio AATOAA, visionary creators of BLA BLA and Arcade Fire’s award-winning Just A Reflektor. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, co-produced by France Televisions, with a mesmerizing soundtrack by Philippe Lambert, it is a game and a solace and an alarm, a wake-up call to the hazards of today. At a moment when we have access to so much, and see so little, Way to Go will remind you of all that lies before you, within you, in the luscious, sudden pleasure of discovery.

a-way-to-go.com

Shorter Description

Way to Go is a walk in the woods. It is an astonishing interactive experience, a restless panorama, a mixture of hand-made animation, 360˚ video capture, music and dreaming and code; but mostly it is a walk in the woods, c’mon. Created by Vincent Morisset, Philippe Lambert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit & Caroline Robert (AATOAA). Produced by the NFB & France TV.

Press Review

www.scoop.it/u/way-to-go/curated-scoops

Awards

FWA Site of the Month, Adobe Cutting Edge Award, Awwwards Site of the Day, Numix, Kill Screen Playlist, Japan Media Art Festival (Jury Selection, Art Category), Communication Arts – Interactive Annual 2016, Boomerang (Grand Prize).

VR Presentations

IDFA, DocLab Seamless Reality Program (Amsterdam), 19-29 November
Festival Tous écrans (Genève), Territoires virtuels, 6-14 November
SF2015, Gwacheon National Science Museum ( South Korea), 27 Oct – 1 Nov
Festival I Love Transmedia #4 (Paris), 1-4 October
Onedotzero #dotdotdot (London), 22 September
Festival de Cinéma de la ville de Québec, 18-26 September
Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, SF, LA, Denver, Montreal, Toronto, NYC, Austin), 26 August – 14 October
Sensory Stories, Phi Center (Montreal), 10 August – 27 September
ISEA, Virtual Reality Showcase (Vancouver), 19 August
SIGGRAPH, VR Village (Los Angeles), 9 – 13 August
FILE, WebGL exhibition (Sao Paolo), 16 June – 16 August
L’heure d’été, Retrospective Vincent Morisset (Bruxelles), 3 July
Sónar, Realities+D (Barcelona), 18-20 June
Sheffield International Documentary Festival, 5-10 June
Museum of the Moving Image (Queens), 18 April – 26 July
Killscreen Playlist Public Arcade (NYC), 28 April
FITC (Toronto), 12-14 April
Festival Exit (Créteil), 26 March – 5 April
Festival Via (Maubeuge), 12-22 March
White Rabbit (London), 11 March
Gaité Lyrique (Paris), 9 March
Semaine dont vous êtes le héros (Montreal), 2-6 March
Game Developers Conference (San Francisco), Mild Rumpus, 4-6 March
RVCQ (Montreal), 25-27 February
PHI Center (Montreal), 5 February
Sundance Festival (Park City), New Frontier, 22-31 January

Technologies

Javascript, html5, WebGL, THREE.js, Web Audio API

  • Dynamic control of 360° videos
  • 83 custom shaders to change in real time lights, grain and visual effects
  • Infinite amount of 3D worlds rendered from drawings on paper
  • Custom system for integration and synchronization of 360° video mappings, 3D environments and 2.5D elements
  • Management and live mixing of thousands of sounds
  • Generative and interactive music score
  • Enveloppes, ADSR, filters and dynamic spacialisation
  • Sound granulation
  • Convolution and reverb
  • Unique techniques for video stiching of 360° shooting in narrow environments
  • Video analysis and tracking system for dynamic integration and creation of heightmaps and 3D scenes
  • Live video stabilization
  • WebVR – Adaptation for the Oculus Rift on a web browser
  • Gamepad API – Game console controllers connection to web browser

Platforms

Way to Go runs in a web browser. No installation is required.
Chrome, Mac OS, Windows, Linux, Oculus Rift friendly
Fast computer recommended

# Walking Simulator, Exploration, Music, 360 Video, VR, Hand-drawn animation, Casual, Single player, Free to play, Short

Preface

YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY.

Yes, you are on your way.

It is not your first journey but Way to Go is the next journey before you. A walk through strange country – strange, familiar, remembered, forgotten. It is a restless panorama, a disappearing path, a game and a feeling. Way to Go is a small experience that gets bigger as you uncover it.

And the trees will change their shape, and the sky will widen.

And you will fly.

We go away every day. We plunge through the city, skate down roads, tunneling toward a destination without remembering the quests we are on. A journey is a collection of moments – we are here, we are here, we are here, and yet we miss these moments. A journey is a collection of choices – turn here, stop here, choose here, and yet we surrender these choices.

What if we quit surrendering? What if we didn’t miss?

Here is a world enclosed in a screen. Here is an adventure. A landscape of leaves and wildflowers, teeming with hidden life. A garden and a wilderness, a wistful blink of dream. You are Jean Painlevé, Marco Polo, Maria Merian. You are Alice, Sonic, Osvaldo Cavandoli. You are a visitor, a cartoon of face and limbs, and you are going on a walk.

Using hand-made animation, music, 360° capture technology and webGL sorcery, Way to Go imagines a dream-world of journeys. Walk, run, fly; crouch in the grass and remember what’s hidden all around. Slip like a rumour from one place into another; chase your shadow; listen to the slow pulse of the metronome, black-clad, following in your wake.

Are you alone? Are you not alone? Are you dreaming or awake? Can you ever reach the mountains?

Can you see what’s here before you?

Set out through woods and fields, sunlight and aurora, grey and colours.

Set out, in deliberate lucid looking

and you’ll find,

perhaps,

the present.

 

(Preface by Sean Michaels)

Team

From left to right: Caroline Robert, Philippe Lambert,  Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit, Vincent Morisset

Biographies

Vincent Morisset

Vincent Morisset is a director and the founder of AATOAA studio. During the last decade, he pioneered interactive videos for Arcade Fire (Neon Bible, Sprawl II, Just a Reflektor). He also directed two feature films, MIROIR NOIR and INNI, a documentary on Sigur Rós. With the support of the NFB, in collaboration with Philippe Lambert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit and Caroline Robert, Vincent Morisset directed the award-winning film for computer BLA BLA. His work has been presented at the Museum of the Moving Image, MoMA, Gaîté lyrique, the National Taiwan Museum and at many festivals including Venice, Rotterdam, SXSW and IDFA. Vincent is also the instigator of the Digital Storytelling Manifesto. Way to Go is his latest project.
vincentmorisset.com

Philippe Lambert

Born in Montreal, Philippe Lambert is an experimental vocalist and electronic music composer. His recordings have been published on Alien8Recordings, Robosapien Record and Los Discos Enfantasmes. Way to Go is his 3rd interactive project for the National Film Board of Canada, after BLA BLA (2011) and A Journal Of Insomnia (2013). These projects have been presented as interactive installations or musical performances at La Gaîté lyrique (Paris), Mutek (Montréal), IDFA (Amsterdam), Tribeca Film Festival (New York) and DOK Leipzig (Leipzig).
black-mantra.com

Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit

Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit is a creative developer and a technical director specialized in interactive vidéos and installations. He started his career at Moment Factory in Montréal where he worked on various large-scale installations. Since 5 years, he is part of Vincent Morisset’s team at AATOAA, for whom he collaborated to the development and the creation of interactive videos produced, amongst others, by the NFB (BLA BLA, 2011), Arcade Fire (Sprawl II, 2012) and the Google Creative Lab (Just A Reflektor, 2014). His work has been rewarded with prestigious prizes such as the Emmy Awards, Cannes Cyber Lions, South By Southwest and the Webby Awards.
edouardlb.com

Caroline Robert

Caroline Robert is an art director and a crafter. For the past eight years, she has been working on all the projects of the studio AATOAA (including BLA BLA, Just a Reflektor and Sprawl II). Also, Caroline has been creating the visual identity for Arcade Fire. She designed the album artwork for Reflektor and « The Suburbs », which won a Grammy award for Best recording package of the year. Her work has been presented at the Museum of the Moving Image, Gaîté lyrique, the National Taiwan Museum and at many festivals including Rotterdam, SXSW, Japan Media Arts Festival and IDFA.
caroline-robert.com

Images


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From left to right: Caroline Robert, Philippe Lambert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit, Vincent Morisset

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Vincent Morisset

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Trailer


Credits

Creation AATOAA
Directed and shot by Vincent Morisset
Music and sounds Philippe Lambert
Creative coding and technology Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit
Animations, drawings, macro videos and costumes Caroline Robert
Rotoscopy and tracking Brandon Blommaert
Additional masking Gregory Kaufman
Texts Sean Michaels
The characters in the video are Philippe Lambert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit, Vincent Morisset & Caroline Robert
Shot in Mauricie, Eastern Townships, the Laurentians and on the Mount Royal.
Made in Montreal in 2014.

Production NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA
Executive Producer Hugues Sweeney
Head of Production Marie-Pier Gauthier
Head of Technologies Martin Viau
Editorial Manager Valérie Darveau
Administrator Marie-Andrée Bonneau
Production Coordinators Dominique Brunet, Caroline Fournier & Perrine Bral
Clerk, Interactive Productions Angel Carpio
Marketing Manager Jenny Thibault
Assisted by Karine Sévigny
Information Technology Sergiu Raul Suciu
Press Relations Nadine Viau
Technical Coordinator Mira Mailhot
Sound Recording Geoff Mitchell
Legal Services Christian Pitchen

Coproduction FRANCE TÉLÉVISIONS NOUVELLES ÉCRITURES
Boris Razon, Voyelle Acker & Cécile Deyon
Production Administrator Sandrine Miguirian
Communication Officer Antoine Allard
Technical Advisor Emmanuel Souillat

Special thanks to Antoine Avril, Sach Baylin-Stern, Marc Bell, Andre Bendahan, Henri Bernadet, Matthieu Beaumont, Mario Bouchard, Monique Bourdon, Marie-Ève Brisson, Isabelle Brouillette, Frederic Chamberland, Victoria Catherine Chan, Marc-André Chaput, Chloé Fortin, Piero Frescobaldi, Aaron Koblin, Catherine Leduc, Jean-Guy Morisset, Jérémie Morisset, Paul Morisset, Ravenne Portail, Claudette Raymond, Yves Renaud, Chris Robertson, Dominic St-Amant, Laurence Simard, Monique Simard, Serge Simard, François Turcotte, Unit9, David Valiquette.


Press Relations

  • Nadine Viau
    NFB Publicist – Montreal
    C.: 514-458-9745
    n.viau@nfb.ca

  • About AATOAA

    AATOAA (pronounced “à toi”, meaning “yours” but also “your turn” in French) is a Montreal-based studio dedicated to original productions. For over a decade, the small team — an internationally acclaimed dream squad — has been recasting how we experience the Internet, music videos, virtual reality, video games, album artwork and films. They’ve worked with Arcade Fire, Google, Sigur Ros, Red Bull and Skrillex. The studio has been awarded with an Emmy, the Art Directors Club Tomorrow Award, six Webbys and the FWA People’s Choice Award.

  • About the NFB

    The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is one of the world’s leading digital content hubs, creating groundbreaking interactive documentaries and animation, mobile content, installations and participatory experiences. NFB interactive productions and digital platforms have won over 100 awards, including 21 Webbys. To access this unique content, visit NFB.ca.

  • About France Télévisions Nouvelles écritures

    Three years after its creation, the direction of new writing and transmedia of France Télévisions opens a new chapter in its history.
    With 90 online programs, 45 ongoing projects, almost 100 hours of available video, more than 400,000 dedicated players, and 27 awards, its strategy is now divided into three areas:
    1- Develop large collective narratives or public service campaigns with France Télévisions channels.
    2- Introduce original audio-visual works by uncovering new and unknown paths, including fiction through “Studio 4”, documentaries through “Infracourts”, or rerouted news on social networks.
    3- Push narrative researchever further by integrating game and its inner workings into narration, by extending creation to networks and encouraging participation, and, especially, by grounding more and more programs in real life—outside and on the streets. Binaural recording and Oculus head-mounted displays have made it possible for new forms of immersive experiences and installations to take place. Spaces can now be reinvented through apps and augmented reality. Why? To ultimately change our perception of the world and to endow it with additional senses or dimensions, which, in turn, can change us. There are infinite creative horizons opening on the fringes of life and its representations. We scan these horizons with great exhilaration.
    nouvelles-ecritures.francetv.fr