Distant Space
A man three hundred million kilometres away from his humanity is visited by his seven-year-old daughter.
Cast
Robbie Scott – Rohan Jones
Aurora – Arcadia Jones
Marko – Patch Cotton
Celeste – Charlotte Petitt
Tien – Lotte Papson
Production
Writer and Director – Rohan Jones.
Cinematographer – Warwick Field
Production Design – Lina Zachariya
3D Environments and Virtual Production Supervisor – Simeon Taylor
Music by – Leahannah Ceff
Editors – Azzad Azman & Rohan Jones
Sound Design – Simon Wilmot
Producer – Simon Wilmot
Production Manager – Natalie Cicciarelli
First Assistant Director – Austin Ross
Camera Department – 1st AC Hannah Jennings, 2nd AC Courtney Palser
Sound Recordist – Nathan Lucas
Boom Swinger – Darci Hugh-Clink
Continuity and Data Wrangler – Azzad Azman
Costume Supervisor – Kimberley Potts
Standby Costume – Ely Roufos
Makeup – Ely Roufos
Virtual production Engineering – Laurie Meade, Adi Ringma
Virtual Production System Operation -, Simeon Taylor, Subeen Lee, Douglas Bicker, Jasmine Lo
Technical Co-ordinator – Matthew Skarajew
Description
Distant Space is the first project produced in Deakin University’s new virtual production (VP) studio on the Burwood Campus. The studio is the start of a multi-million dollar investment by Deakin in VP. The project is support by the Deakin Motion Lab and the School of Communications and Creative Arts.
Distant Space is a creative‐research project that seeks to explore new questions and perspectives on the generative and critical aspects of film making that virtual production offers. It has been created and crewed by academics and students from the School of Communications and Creative Arts. It was written and directed by lecturer Rohan Jones and produced by Dr Simon Wilmot.
Dr Simon Wilmot teaches film production in Deakin University’s School of Communication and Creative Arts. He is a documentary film maker and has recently published on TV Sports broadcasting, directed Crescent Under the Southern Cross a documentary on Muslim soldiers in the Australian defence forces for the Department of Veteran Affairs.
Rohan Jones is a filmmaker and actor best known for developing and co-writing Venezuelan feature film Hermano(2010). Hermano won twelve international film festival awards including Best Film, Critics Award, and Audience Award at the Moscow International Film Festival, was released in cinemas in countries such as the USA, Italy, Spain, and Venezuela, and made the first shortlist for Best Foreign Language Academy Award in 2011. Jones is an auteur interested in telling stories using different genres. He has produced twelve short films that he has written, directed and edited. Jones has also performed in films such as Muriel’s Wedding (1994) and Johnny Ghost (2011), and on stage in plays like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Sydney’s Wharf theatre, and a modernist adaptation of Racine’s Phaedra at Melbourne’s Playbox Theatre. Jones helmed his own screen production business “Adventures in Genre” and screen acting school “Screen Acting Melbourne” from 2011 to 2020. He currently teaches screen and performance subjects at Melbourne universities in Australia, is writing a vampire feature film, and plans to begin a PhD investigating acting and directing in Virtual Production.
Synopsis
Robbie Scott is working for a commercial mining company on Mars. The vicissitudes of the alien Martian world and the commercial space base have dissolved his sense of humanity. He is morally and physically lost. Through an apparition of his daughter, his sense of humanity is restored and he can be hopeful of rescue and redemption.
In developing the project, Rohan and Simon wanted to involve as many staff and students as possible and to tackle the major challenges and opportunities that VP involves.
The project was entirely shot in the studio with 3D environments created by a team of students lead by Animation Lecturer Simeon Taylor. But it also involved building a large corridor set that was to be matched to a virtual version. The aim was to learn how to seamlessly mix physical sets with virtual sets.
Set Installation timelapse: https://youtu.be/dE9yTcxPaXA
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieU2JtvsbDM
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/distantspacefilm