Overview
Taking the brief from Hawthorn Arts Centre, also known as Hawthorn Town Hall, we have created this production blog to introduce and explain our take on Town Hall 360 Virtual Tour.
Production roles
Crystal Zenghis: Director, Cameraperson, Editor
Mavis Tran: Producer, Designer, Soundperson
Our story canvas
Photo of the Hawthorn Town Hall exterior
Logline
A 360 experience for Boroondara's youth exploring the beauty of Hawthorn Arts Centre & on-going events within the community. A VR documentary exploring the space within Hawthorn Arts Centre, a cultural landmark of Boroondara, also known as Hawthorn Town Hall. The 360 video mixes the old and the new elements of the well-preserved exterior yet new installations in between programs & current events to create a unique experience for the local community. The documentary will give you the freedom of VR nature to explore and interact with the space, taking you on a journey from the past to vivid present in the Hawthorn Town Hall.
Synopsis
Hawthorn Town Hall was first created in the early 1850s, the Town Hall 360 video is an immersive VR experience which provides audience to take into different paths of their choice through the space of Hawthorn Town Hall. Choosing from checking about the Town Hall’s Art Galleries and Exhibitions, to the Town Hall’s History path to get to know even more about the spaces of Town Hall. The Art Galleries will provide with numerous information of the current and upcoming exhibition to be held in the Town Hall Art Gallery. Whereas the Town Hall spaces will provide with alluring stories about the history of how the Town Hall started, where it all started from and how it was built. To learn about Town Hall, their growth and development, each engagement with each space will be special to each of their unique interactive styles introducing spots which are interactable and when triggered, they will inform the audience more about interesting fun facts, images, sounds or even videos to accommodate a more entrancing experience while being in the space of Town Hall at every inch.
Photos of the Town Hall interior
Target audience
After doing our research, we have found interesting aspects of the programs and current events organised by Hawthorn Arts Centre. We can tell that Boroondara Council is investing effort into growing the community for the local young generation.
On-going events at Hawthorn Arts Centre that are suitable for our target audience
Design considerations
The inspiration came from a lot of movies tied to the theme of fantasy and folk tales such as The Wizard of Oz, Peculiar Children, The Grand Budapest Hotel, & Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We want to bring the colourful, characteristic palette of beloved movies, as the Town Hall appears to be somewhat old and “scary”. When in fact, on the inside, there are plenty of space to enjoy and explore. The main point is we want to combine different elements of old and new in the Town Hall to bring out the antique beauty intertwining with fresh, cutting-edge facilities within.
Moodboard
Colour scheme
Soundscape considerations
We are planning to record the actuality of the space to deliver the realistic feel, combining with ambisonic sound from the RØDE Sound Library for the full 360 experience.
However, as the project went on, we decided to make it more of an intuitive experience by putting voiceover and relevant sound effects in each hotspot, making it into a tour guide style interactive.
Assembled Images from Boroondara Library
A quick glance of the material we used in our 360 Virtual Tour, exploring the history of the Hawthorn Town Hall.
Navigation flow plan
Online & physical distribution
Augmented Reality QR Code (Prototype)
Personal Reflection
Throughout all three production phases of our project – Town Hall 360 Virtual Tour, I have been learning and improving through each stage as we step by step achieved the initial plan. My contribution to the team as the Producer, Designer and Soundperson has been quite a journey. We were able to create an engaging interactive experience through a different approach compared to what we have done with 360 videos before, using the 3D Vista Virtual Tour application, along with Adobe Aero for augmented reality experience.
My teammate - Crystal, and I shared the role of Producer, Cameraperson and Editor. In the pre-production phase, we worked together to prepare the documentation needed. We both shot on-location and edited the 360 videos in Premiere Pro, as Crystal took over the editing job in the 3D Vista Virtual Tour, while I assembled external photos, footage, and sounds.
Initially, we followed our roles as designated. My part as the Designer was to create the mood board, put together the colour scheme, and AR experience. However, based on the workflow as Crystal was editing in the 3D Vista Virtual Tour, she worked as the Designer in the post-production phase of the project.
My main duties as the Soundperson were to transform the sound design into a lively experience and make it flow naturally when attached to the visual. This included finding relevant sound effects, writing content, editing and sequencing the voiceover to match each video.
The first problem we had was one member of our team dropped out. At that point, we were offered to join another group, yet we have planned out our vision for the project, and we accepted to work with 2 people. We did not strictly stick to the role we have chosen in the first place. I believe it allowed us to share the workload as well as the creative direction in each phase. The main issue we had was exporting the 3D Vista Virtual Tour, as the 360 video quality was extremely large. It took us quite some time and effort to make sure everything we put in the application was correct before exporting the interactive.
My greatest achievement in this project was being able to work with a real client, producing an interactive documentary at a professional level; overcoming technical issues, and team-working to meet deadlines and demands from the client.
