Briege Whitehead shoots for the stars with new VR film ‘Beyond the Milky Way’
'Beyond the Milky Way' is now screening at WA Museum Boola Bardip in Perth.
Western Australian rising producer/director/entrepreneur, Briege Whitehead’s 360-degree Virtual Reality (VR) documentary, Beyond the Milky Way, is now screening at WA Museum Boola Bardip.
Beyond the Milky Way is Briege’s second VR film, following the success of 2018’s groundbreaking The Antarctica Experience, which played to sell-out audiences in major venues including Canberra’s National Museum of Australia and Sydney’s Australian Maritime Museum.
Moving from the glaciers of the South Pole to the stars, Beyond the Milky Way is a 25-minute immersive experience exploring one of the biggest-ever scientific endeavours in human history – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – the world’s largest radio telescope. Beyond the Milky Way was filmed with specialised 360-degree cameras capable of extreme resolution and is narrated by internationally-acclaimed physicist, Professor Brian Cox (Universe).
Briege founded WA production company, White Spark Pictures, in 2017 after writing and producing on several documentary series for National Geographic and Netflix including 72 Dangerous Places to Live and 72 Cutest Animals. Under the White Spark banner, she has produced true-crime series Poisonous Liaisons for C&I Network & History Channel and natural history series Impossible Planet for Animal Planet & Discovery+.
In 2016, she was selected for Screen Producers Australia’s coveted ‘Ones to Watch’ program, and won the 2019 Channel 7 Western Australian Young Achiever for the Year Award for Innovation and a 2020 TBI’s Content Innovation Award for her work on The Antarctica Experience. Also in 2020 Briege won a Business News 40under40 award, which recognises and celebrates Western Australia’s top 40 leading business professionals under the age of 40, and was named winner of Edith Cowan University’s International Alumni Award.
“Storytelling through VR is an incredibly exciting and challenging medium to create within – and it is one that we are constantly innovating new technology and capture methods to better immerse audiences. Compared to other documentary formats, VR enables the director to create a deeper level of engagement and connection by bringing the audience into the story, providing them with a completely unique and powerful experience in a way they would otherwise never get.” said Briege Whitehead, White Spark Pictures Founder and Creative Director.
“The VR format has developed into an exciting and innovative way to tell screen stories in WA. We’re pleased to be supporting White Spark’s second VR documentary, following on from the success of The Antarctica Experience,” says Paul Williams, Screenwest Documentary Manager.
Beyond the Milky Way received principal production investment from Screen Australia in association with Screenwest and Lotterywest. It is financed with support from Australia’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), CSIRO – Australia’s national science agency, the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, Scitech and Inspiring Australia, SKA Observatory (SKAO), ASTRO 3D – the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions and Western Australian Museum. The film is being represented internationally by Wild Thring Media.
Following its premiere season at Boola Bardip, which runs from 11 December 2021 to 14 February 2022, the film is expected to play in a wide range of museums and theatrical venues in Australia ahead of launching internationally in 2022.
Tickets for Beyond the Milky Way are on sale now at https://visit.museum.wa.gov.au/boolabardip/beyond-milky-way
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