Local Revelstoke creator Agathe Bernard wins $40,000 grant from STORYHIVE

Local photographer and filmmaker Agathe Bernard’s is part of a team that has received a $40,000 grant from STORYHIVE to produce an immersive 360^o experience and companion digital short as part of a new Immersive Edition.

Carving Landscape and Resilience is a documentary celebrating Canada’s history by looking at a rock Mary Vaux marked with tar in 1888 to measure the melting of the Illecillewaet Glacier. The project pays homage to a rebellious female pioneer and the important contributions of her early glacial research.

Carving Landscape and Resilience has been selected as one of 13 winners from B.C. and Alberta out of more than 165 entries. Each winning team will create two pieces of content: a 360 VR film (the “Immersive Project”) and a linear digital short (the “Linear Project”). Both pieces are to be packaged to complement each other and must share the same or similar story and subject matter. The final projects will be available in Fall 2018 on TELUS Optik™ TV On Demand and on STORYHIVE.com.

The team will now begin work on developing their immersive and digital short projects. In addition to the funding, STORYHIVE will also provide the team with script, production and virtual reality mentorship throughout the duration of their project and will host a dedicated Creators Workshop for the winners in March.

The Immersive Edition marks a milestone for STORYHIVE as it begins funding VR storytelling for the first time. For this edition, the STORYHIVE team were looking for immersive projects that are rich in story and could utilize 360^o technology to enrich their narrative. Each pitch needed to provide a reason for a viewer to “be in” the environment of the creator’s story, exposing them to interesting characters and engaging worlds.

VR and immersive technology is available to big time filmmakers, it is often a medium not traditionally supported by funding programs. STORYHIVE is changing this and providing opportunities to support new ways to tell engaging stories and create an immersive experience.

Since 2014, STORYHIVE has proudly provided a safe space for content creators and screen-based storytellers to hone their skills, take risks and bring the projects they care about to life.