Presented by
Co-produced with
Funded by
Acorn Den Studio
BoxLight Infinity
Kaohsiung Film Archive
VR FILM LAB Talent Workshop
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Project Overview
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PROJECT OVERVIEW
Length: 15 ~ 20 min (Ep.1)、15 ~ 20 min (Ep.2)
Language: Mandarine, English
Director: WEI Shiue-ying, KO Chia-Wen
Co-Producer: Sebox HONG
Genre: #Cyberpunk #Apocalypse #Feminism #SciFi
#VR #Animation #Interactive #SelfHealing #Taiwan
Tech Specs: Single Player, 6 DoF, Free Roaming, PCVR / APK
Production Company: Acorn Den Studio
Co-Production: BoxLight Infinity
Minimum Scale: 5 square meters
International Sales: Sandman Studio
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Project Concept
Overall Story
Logline
After the apocalypse, the surface of the earth becomes uninhabitable. All surviving humans lived in a giant underground city.
A female researcher who works in an underground lab accidentally finds a flower that can adapt to the surface climate and decides to go on her adventure.
Project Concept
When the Flowers Bloom is a narrative VR experience discussing the recovery from catastrophe and trauma. Diving down, the audience will join the adventure of the female scientist, and try to help her with going back to the ground with the plant of hope.
During the adventure, the audience needs to take action to assist the protagonist with her goal - to plant the seeding of the plant that she accidentally found which might be able to bring the whole human race back to normal again.
Through this journey, we hope to heal those hurt souls of pandemics, war, and any kind of catastrophe, and lead our audience back to the balance between humans and the world.
Origin
“Recovering starts with memories, condolences, and the establishment of safety, and the last step is to reconnect with reality.”
- Yellow Ribbon by JU Hyunsook (2019)
When Covid-19 made a giant impact on the whole world in 2019, the world has changed and a new way of living has replaced the norm we were used to. Following the invention of the vaccination, society seems to go back to normal, but we still sense its differences after the pandemic.
When the lockdown is dismissed, airports become busy, and everything seems to blow over for now. It’s the same when the campus that’s been destroyed by an earthquake becomes a museum, and when the jail prisoned countless political prisoners become a monument. Where should those broken souls go when everything seems to be over?
Trauma freezes those broken parts of us and put them in the corner of our hearts to make us stay alive. However, there’s one day we should learn to untie the knots and let them go so that we can really move forward.
Overall Story
In the near future when human beings can no longer live on the surface of the earth due to the pollution caused by nuclear wastes, people must move to the underground city, and try to continue the civilization with deficient resources.
Scientists try their best to cultivate new species of plants that can adapt to the weather and living conditions on the earth and hope it could be the hope to bring humans back again. Unfortunately, the lab sees no progress and gradually lost hope. More and more people decide to be locked in the freezer and wait for redemption. Our main protagonist is an exception. While her son and husband are frozen safely, she keeps searching for any possibilities that can bring her life back to normal. Day by day, however, she became the last one in the lab.
An earthquake happens suddenly, and that causes damage to the experiment equipment. Most plants that were being cultivated died, and the main protagonist passed out due to the strike of the clutter falling from the shelf. When she woke up, she started to estimate the loss of the damage and accidentally found that one of the plants is still vital without the special condition provided by the equipment. The hope in her heart was lit, and she decided to give it a try. She grabbed the plant in her arm, and step on the adventure of going back to the surface.
Overall Story
When she was a little girl, her parents used to bring her to the suburb on the weekend. The floral sea is probably the most beautiful scenery in her memory, and it’s also the image she would like her son to see. The purpose of going back to the surface was not only to revive human life on the earth but also mixed with her desire to reunite with her family.
Through her adventure, she witnessed abandoned markets, broken metro, and different human footprints in the underground city. Bearing her loneliness and uncertainty, she needed to overcome her fear and kept looking for a way up.
Finally, she reached the surface and saw lots of ruins of human civilization. The oxygen is low, she’s almost out of energy, and the last she needed to do is make sure the flower she brought is well-planted. The morning is bright but blurry, and all she can do is lie down.
The wind blows kissed her face and blow off all the flowers in the air. While the flowers flew everywhere, she saw her husband and son standing in the floral sea with her smiling.
Direcotrs’ Statement
Can we really rely on hope and restart our lives in the post-pandemic era?
When the Flowers Bloom was inspired by the impact of Covid-19. During the lockdown, my friends and I have to use the internet connection to feel that we are still alive on the same planet. We often grab some beer and snacks to chat online, or even watch movies together. The connection is at the same time real and virtual, warm and lonely.
Using VR as the narrative approach brings the opportunity for us to experience the emotion and memory of others. The interaction helps us to really step into other’s shoes, to try to empathize with the scientist, and finally, to digest one’s own sorrow.
By going through the journey of the protagonist, I hope the audience will also be recovered from the trauma, and understand that letting go is the only way for us to move forward.
Producer’s Statement
In the past years, I've seen a lot of potential projects from all over the world that fascinates me so much, and When the Flowers Bloom is one of them. As an alternative to narration, VR content could be a way for the audience to recognize the world from a totally different perspective, and it has the potential to heal the crowd from the trauma of collective encountering. Even though the world seems to go back to normal for now, we all understand there's something different with our lives before.
On the other hand, I believe this project has so much potential to adapt different cultural elements from different countries to express its universal story because post-pandemic recovery has been the most important issue all over the world. The story is designed to happen in the near future when the world comes to an end. With this setting, we are able to combine different street scenes, monuments, iconic buildings, and so on, into experiences, which can enhance the experience for the audience to get more immersed in the narratives.
When the Flowers Bloom is not only an approach to exploring the possibility of integrating different cultures but also to try out the use of mental therapy with XR contents. While most of the popular VR experiences are about violent gun shootings, I hope this experience could be the first Taiwanese VR narrative experience that can help the audience to find out the way to self-recovery and heal those broken souls all over the world.
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Visual Approach
VISUAL APPROACH
Unlike the classical cyber-punk style, which often uses Tokyo and Hong Kong as the main theme, When the Flowers Bloom focuses on the changes caused by the catastrophe. The under city would be depicted with the elements of the heavy industry representing Kaoshiung city, infusing the Asian-style street scenery of the abandoned city.
Also, the idea of Liminal Space will be adapted to create a lonely and ambient atmosphere beneath the ground. We hope to build up a futuristic but quiet space for the audience to explore within VR. At the same time, we expect to calm the audience when they experience getting more involved in the story of the main protagonist.
VISUAL APPROACH
In an underground city without power, a plant researcher needs to find life support and restart the power. All plants in the facility withered because the machine stopped supplying fresh air.
The researcher found a plant that was still alive under this severe circumstance so she decided to take this plant to the surface.
Plant Laboratory
VISUAL APPROACH
Researcher crosses through damaged urban streets in the aftershocks.
This scene is a sci-fi city filled with Taiwan-style details. The audience can see night markets and temples, which are full of memorably regular life illustrations.
Walking through the post-disaster city, haunting the scenes of the past" is a life experience shared by many people who live in the earthquake zone. The audience will also reflect on the relationship between people and society after the disaster.
Taiwan-style Underground City
VISUAL APPROACH
Researcher travels through no-man's-land and cryo chambers and searches alternative path under dangerous situation.
She begins to hallucinate with her stamina dropping. And she must muster the willpower to stick to original goal and keep heading to the surface.
Industrial Factory of Seaport & Cryo Chamber
Other Reference
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User Experience
Interactive Experience Design
User Experience
Most of the experience will be in the third person’s perspective watching the protagonist going through different obstacles with the flashlight that can show the audience what happened before
In addition, the audience needs to take action to help the scientist complete different tasks including completing puzzles, charge the battery and so on.
We believe the interaction within a VR experience should be a tool to move the storyline forward. By helping the scientist finish those tasks, the audience will be more embodied and would be easier to empathize with the protagonist.
Interactive Experience Design
The audience uses the VR handle to illuminate the scene. By revealing hidden clues, they can find these illustrations about the researcher's memories.
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Creative Team Biography
CREATIVE TEAM：DIRECTOR
Shiue-Ying WEI, Director
Shiue-Ying WEI is a creator mainly focusing on virtual reality and interdisciplinary art. She co-founded Acorn Studio with friends after graduating from Tainan University of the Arts with a master's degree. Acorn Den Studio has presented VR artwork - "When the Flowers Bloom” at the 2022 Kaoshiung Film Festival and has been awarded with VR FILM LAB prize. She is also an illustrator and a picture book artist.
WEI focuses on the connection between digital art and mental therapy and keeps digging out the possibilities of virtual warmth, trauma, and recovery with the tool of immersive narration. Using the uncertainty of digital natives as the theme, WEI joined many immersive experiences production including dome projection and drone shows.
As the co-director, her XR experience ISLAND OF SHELLS was selected by NewImages Festival XR Development Market, Annecy Animation Film Festival, and Sunny Side of the Doc in 2023.
CREATIVE TEAM：DIRECTOR
KO Chia-Wen, director
Chia-Wen Ko is an Interactive programmer and founder of Acorn Den Studio and has participated in and independently developed several projects such as virtual reality, immersive interactive performances, mobile games, and web games. She is very interested in computer graphics and generative art and is dedicated to exploring the possibilities of interactive media.
She’s been awarded by numerous international festivals and exhibitions. As the co-director, her XR experience ISLAND OF SHELLS was selected by NewImages Festival XR Development Market, Annecy Animation Film Festival, and Sunny Side of the DOC in 2023.
The Island of Shells (Co-Director)
The Island of Shells is a 6-DoF interactive animation documentary based on Fred Him-San Chin’s testimony of Taiwan’s White Terror era.
In 1971, CHIN, a Malaysian student, was wrongly charged with being a bombing suspect and a communist member and had been separated from his family for a decade since then.
The experience is an adventurous folktale that tells a son’s journey of leaving and returning home in the form of shadow play, where the audience plays both the role of a puppeteer and a witness.
CREATIVE TEAM：Portfolio
Sebox Hong, Producer
Sebox Hong joined the Kaohsiung Film Archive’s VR FILM LAB back in 2020 as the Originals Production Coordinator, and got promoted one year later to Brand and Business Development Manager. At the same time, he was in charge of the special events for XR Dreamland from 2020-2022, leading the team to organize XR-related immersive events for the film festival.
As the Project Leader at the VR FILM LAB in 2022, he was also the curator of XR Dreamland, with tasks including local and international XR production, routinecuration of the VR FILM LAB theater, annual curation of XR Dreamland and any possible collaboration of immersive experiences.
At the end of 2022, he left the VR FILM LAB to become a freelance XR adventurer seeking newer and wider possibilities toward full immersion.
He goes by the motto: “I immerse, therefore I am.”
CREATIVE TEAM：PRODUCER
SEBOX HONG
Production Coordinator for
Kaohsiung Film Archive VR FILM LAB
"In the Mist" - Tung Yen CHOU
"Samsara" - Hsin Chien HUANG
"Speak to Awaken - Ep.1 Diving into Siraya" - Kuan Yuan LAI (International Co-production)
"The Eye and I" - Hsin Chien HUANG
“Where is Noddy?” - Chih-Yen HSU
"Red Tail" - Fish WANG
CREATIVE TEAM：PRODUCER
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Production Company’s Profile
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Acorn Den Studio mainly produces games focusing on healing.We have launched mobile games,virtual reality experiences and picture books,hoping to warm the hearts of players.
BoxLight Infinity digs out the possibilities of XR content in multiple ways, such as content production, exhibition curation, international showcase, dedicates to immerse more audience like the oreo soaked in milk.
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Budget Outline
Financing Plan
Budget Outline
No. | ITEM | Expense Amount in Euros € |
1 | Concept Development | 5,000 |
2 | VR Production | 200,000 |
3 | Staff and Consultancy | 50,000 |
4 | Administration Cost | 10,000 |
5 | Distribution (including festivals) | 10,000 |
6 | Marketing (including stills and video recording) | 10,000 |
7 | Reserve Fund (for emergency) | 5,000 |
8 | Tax, insurance, and others | 10,000 |
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| Total Expense | 300,000 |
Funding Plan
With the support of Kaohsiung Film Archive VR talent workshop, we’ve reached the 30% of the total budget of 300,000 Euros. We are looking for the rest of the funding through possible international co-production.
Obtained
Seeking
Demand to apply
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Contract and Agreement
Contract and Agreement
LOI of producer, Sebox HONG
LOI of distribution, JImmy CHENG
Funding certification from KFA
Contract with KFA
Contract and Agreement
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Contact Information
Production Company
Acorn Den Studio
BoxLight Infinity Studio
Producer
Sebox HONG
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Hope to see you up there.