IST student hosts film festival’s first virtual-reality immersive experience

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For her second internship with Centre Film Festival, Penn State student Diane Akpovwa introduced a different way for festival attendees to watch films: via virtual reality (VR). The Virtual Reality Immersive Experience debuted on Nov. 13 at the Palmer Museum of Art.

Akpovwa is a fourth-year student majoring in human-centered design and development (HCDD) in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). She is minoring in art history and pursuing a museum studies certificate in the College of Arts and Architecture. She combined her technical skills with her art knowledge to create the experience, curating six VR films from around the world. 

“I am the first VR intern for the Centre Film Festival,” she said. “Through virtual reality, I’m taking people from their seats in State College, Pennsylvania, to South Africa, to Germany, to England and providing them with these multicultural, enriching perspectives.”

During her first internship with the film festival last year, Akpovwa pitched her immersive experience idea to Pearl Gluck, Donald P. Bellisario Career Advancement Professor in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. Gluck cofounded the Centre Film Festival in 2019 and serves as artistic director of the annual event. 

“Diane came up to me and said, ‘I really love virtual reality, what can you teach me about that?’” Gluck said. “I told her I couldn’t teach her anything about it, so she should look into it and come back and teach me about it. She did just that, working for months to secure the venue, curate the films, figure out the tech details — I credit her for being a self-starter and for believing in her vision.”

The immersive experience featured six stations, each with a VR headset showing a different film ranging from 10 to 20 minutes long. Akpovwa called on her IST skills to ensure each headset was working properly and her art background to ensure the seating, lighting and overall vibe of the space met her vision.

“In one of my IST courses we talk about augmented reality and designing for spaces beyond the computer screen,” she said. “I’m thinking about the user experience, making sure the headsets are accessible for the audience and laying out universal instructions that can be understood by everyone from children to the elderly.”

Attendees were encouraged to select the film they wanted to experience and afterward join one another at nearby tables for a facilitated dialog. 

“With traditional films, you can have a theater of 100 people experiencing the exact same thing at the same time,” Akpovwa said. “VR films are an individualized experience, and we want to get people talking about and comparing their unique experiences.”

According to Gluck, the main mission of the festival has always been to work with students. For the first few years, interns were selected only from the College of Communications. But, with the collaborative nature of the entertainment industry, festival organizers began to engage students who were interested in hospitality, entrepreneurship and, most recently, information technology.

“Working with IST interns has proven to be such a great move,” Gluck said. “For students who are often focused on the ones and the zeroes of how things work behind the scenes, the festival provides a human element. Some of our interns do come to us because they’re film lovers, while others just enjoy working in this environment but don’t watch one movie — and that is totally fine because we’d be lost without them.”