We are thrilled to announce that our groundbreaking project “XR-IT – Non-Local Virtual Production “Cat Content”” has been honoured with the International Production Award at this year’s Next Reality Festival in Hamburg.
The nextReality.Contest, established in 2017, has evolved into one of the most prestigious XR awards, recognizing Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality projects that demonstrate exceptional innovation, creative excellence, and technological sophistication.
This ninth edition of the festival provided the perfect platform to showcase “Cat Content”, which represents a significant milestone in virtual production methodology.
Our project stands as the first film produced entirely in the Metaverse using Distributed Virtual Production, an approach we developed to fundamentally reimagine real-time content creation. Through this methodology, actors, cinematographers, directors, artists, and production staff can collaborate virtually across different geographic locations, working together as seamlessly as if they were on a physical film set. This breakthrough was made possible through our XR-IT research and development programme, which has been a cornerstone of our Lab’s innovation efforts.
Professor Dr. Ian Biscoe reflects on the achievement:
“It is a fantastic acknowledgement of all the long hours and creativity put into the project by the team in making the first live animated film shot across multiple locations simultaneously”
“The production was enabled by the revolutionary XR-IT platform which has been developed in the Trans Realities Lab. XR-IT provides a software and systems framework for high-quality, distributed immersive collaboration, working in conjunction with games engines such as Unreal and Unity. It allows real-time creative collaboration across multiple physical locations using XR.”
The success of “Cat Content” was truly a collaborative effort. Our technical visual artist Thibaud Henique, an alumnus of DAE’s Digital Focus Module, brought exceptional artistry to the production. Assistant Technical Artist Zak Lennard, also a DAE alumnus and current member of our team, provided crucial creative and technical support. Technical infrastructure was expertly managed by Bart van Nes and Kasia Łukaszuk, both DAE alumni now working within our Lab, alongside our extended team of dedicated staff and freelancers who made this ambitious project possible.
We extend our sincere gratitude to the EMIL Project of Horizon Europe and Aalto University for their support and collaboration. Special recognition goes to Andreas Dahn for his visionary direction and script writing that brought Cat Content to life.
This award validates our approach to pushing the boundaries of what is possible by networking virtual worlds and enabling truly distributed creative collaboration. As we continue developing the XR-IT platform and exploring new applications for Distributed Virtual Production, we remain committed to advancing the field of immersive media and opening new possibilities for creative professionals worldwide.