3 Key Takeaways from Venice Film Festival 2022

3 Key Takeaways from Venice Film Festival

Singer Studios has recently returned from Venice Film Festival where we premiered our latest interactive story-driven VR experience, Mrs. Benz. The exhibition was located in the VR immersive island, and thankfully we used the opportunity to meet and talk with some fantastic VR innovators. 

Mrs. Benz is an interactive retelling of the story of Bertha Benz, wife of Karl Benz. Bertha’s story is not widely known, and yet she is largely credited with making the automobile industry what it is today. 

Believing in her husband, Bertha invested her inheritance into the development of his invention: the internal combustion engine. Moreover, she was also the first person to prove the true value of the creation. In 1888, 39-year-old Bertha drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim without telling her husband and without permission of the authorities. This was at a time when women were deemed to have no authority. Bertha broke all of the rules, and while doing so managed to solve several problems with the vehicle during her journey. 

As you can imagine, the reaction to this little-known story is often one of amazement. However, at Venice Film Festival, we were able to give people the opportunity to not just learn about Bertha Benz, but to experience much of her remarkable effort firsthand. Users explore Karl Benz’ workshop, assemble the car and embark on Bertha’s journey for themselves. There’s much more to come from Mrs. Benz, but even to this small demo the reaction was truly heartwarming.

In order to make this work the team at Singer Studios went to great lengths, and I’m truly proud of what we managed to accomplish. Here are three lessons we learnt from our time at Venice.

1. Have your team on speed dial

Always have your programmer at the end of the phone and ready to kick out a new build when bugs pop up.

2. It takes a village

You may think two people running a booth is plenty, but when it comes to busy periods in your schedule, you’ll be thankful for an extra pair of hands! Bring a few members of your team to help out. 

3. Share your knowledge

Take the time to talk with other creators and try their work, its a great opportunity to see whats being developed and share knowledge. The VR industry is very nascent, and as such you can quickly learn about the problems others have faced and share ideas on possible solutions. Maybe someone has an idea for how to solve your problem?

The latter point proved to be hugely important to our team. The VR industry remains a welcoming space for innovators and this years selection at Venice was a fantastic curation. I couldn’t be more proud to be a small part of the wonderful VR space, and of Singer Studios for investing in the evolution of a brand new storytelling medium.