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Designed to take full-dome content “to the next level,” the organizers of  “Dome Fest West” have announced their slate of featured, 360-degree Media Shows and Full-Dome Films, as well as the three keynote speakers for their Second Annual/2022 event, which will begin on Thursday, October 6, 6-9pm/PT at the Orange Coast College Community Planetarium in Costa Mesa, CA - “the City of the Arts.”  Dome Fest West 2022 will continue on Oct. 7 and Oct. 8, from 9am to 8pm, and on October 9, from 9am to 6pm. On Oct 9 at 7pm, a final award ceremony will take place. Tickets for Dome Fest West are available here: https://domefestwest2022.eventbrite.com

Dome Fest West (DFW) is an annual, 360-degree film festival and conference that brings together the filmmaking community, Hollywood filmmakers and up-and-coming immersive content creators from around the world. This year’s festival will screen numerous, fully-immersive, full-dome, 360-degree media shows, chosen as the best productions of 2021-22. The festival will also include new technology presentations, industry panels, interactive workshops, industry gatherings and parties. Event organizers expect up to 300 immersive filmmakers from around the globe to attend this year’s festival in-person as well as virtually.

The keynote speakers for Dome Fest West 2022 will be Ed Lantz, Carolyn Collins Petersen and Nanea Reeves:

On Friday, Oct. 7 at 3pm, Ed Lantz, a Co-Founder of Dome Fest West, will address the topic: "The Metaverse, Domes, and XR Stages: A Grand Convergence?” He will discuss how convergence will create new opportunities for immersive storytelling and experiences, with the dome format being well suited for large-scale events, while the XR Stage offers a more intimate and personal experience. According to Lantz, the Metaverse provides a platform for both dome-based and XR Stage-based experiences. An immersive media entrepreneur, engineer, producer and experience designer, Ed Lantz left aerospace engineering in 1990 to transform traditional planetariums into immersive visualization environments. As such, he designed over a dozen dome theaters worldwide, including Egypt’s Library of Alexandria Planetarium, Domodigital at Papalote Museo del Niño in Mexico City, and the National Space Centre in Leicester, UK. 

On Saturday, Oct. 8 at 11am, Carolyn Collins Petersen, CEO of Loch Ness Productions, will present her talk: It All Began in a Cave: The Immersive Experience. The discussion will cover how, from the earliest cave paintings in Lascaux, France, to today's worlds in Metaspace and out-of-home entertainment venues, people have used immer-sive environments to cross space and time, explore new worlds, and be exposed to new viewpoints. Collins Petersen, a member of the IMERSA Board of Directors, will talk about the future of immersion by way of past experiences with the medium, and will also touch upon IMERSA's role at the crossroads of immersive theater, AR, VR, and XR experiences. A science writer and content producer, Collins Petersen has written numerous documentary and entertainment scripts, as well as seven books about astronomy and space exploration. She has also written for a number of major exhibit projects, including Los Angeles's Griffith Observatory, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Shanghai Astronomical Museum. Collins Petersen’s company, Loch Ness Productions, is a major distributor of full-dome content to theaters around the world.

And DFW’s final keynote speech on Sunday, Oct. 9 at 11am, will be delivered by Nanea Reeves, the founder and CEO of TRIPP. TRIPP is the category-leading global XR Wellness company, pioneering innovative technologies that deepen connection to self, facilitate mental well-being, and enable personal and collective transformation. Under Reeves’ leadership, TRIPP has grown to become the fastest-growing XR wellness platform, with nearly 6 million wellness sessions served in virtual reality. The company’s offerings now extend beyond VR to include AR and mobile, making TRIPP the only cross-platform wellness application.

Among DFW 2022’s Highlighted Media Shows and Full-Dome Films:

• Lands of the Americas: Produced by Pascal Pelletier and directed by Patrick Bossé, this film presents the powerful life story of multidisciplinary artist René Derouin, who, in 2016, celebrated his 80th birthday and 60 years of artistic practice. Taking the form of a “road movie,” the film’s plot revolves around Derouin’s artistic creations in connection with the key places of his journey: life in his native land in Quebec; the trips back and forth to his host land in Mexico; his exiles all over the world, including Japan; and especially in America, with a crossing of the United States and a passage in the Far North. For more than information: http://territoiresdesameriques.ca/en/
• Bébé Symphonique: Produced by Nicolas Lemieux (GSI Musique,) and directed by Marcella Grimaux (Noisy Head Studio,) this fun project combines 2D, 3D and frame-by-frame animation into a family-friendly, multimedia show that transports children from birth to 18 months – along with their parents - into a marvelous universe of shapes, colors and textures designed to capture their attention. The film is set to music performed by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. More information: https://www.bebesymphonique.com
•  Last Whispers: Produced and directed by Lena Herzog, wife of renowned German filmmaker Werner Herzog, this moving film depicts the extinction of various indigenous languages. Today, out of the 7,000 languages remaining on Earth, only 30 are spoken by the majority of the world’s population. It is estimated that at least half of the planet’s currently spoken languages will have died out by the end of this century. Last Whispers addresses this rapid, mass extinction of many languages. More info: https://www.lastwhispers.org/
• Star Dreaming: A magical odyssey through time and space, Star Dreaming presents two children as they explore the mysteries of the Universe by observing the world’s oldest living culture and the world’s largest radio telescope, both located deep in the arid heartland of the Murchison region of Western Australia – the Australian Outback. There, Max and Lucia are led on a magical odyssey, during which they learn about the beginnings of time and space; the life cycle of stars; and the ancient land of the Yamaji people, who share with them stories that have been passed on from generation to generation. More info: www.stardreaming.com.au
• -22.7°C:  Produced by Pascal Pelletier (Zorba, Production 21,) and directed by Dirty Monitor, Société des arts technologiques, this film takes the viewer on a musical journey to sources of creative inspiration on the world’s largest Island, Greenland. There, electronic music producer Molécule has captured the sounds of the Arctic, where he has composed his latest work. More info: https://hubblo.ca/en/

Interesting Side Note
Dome Fest West 2022 is one of four qualifying full-dome festivals for the #BestOfEarth Awards, which will take place on March 25, 2023. In addition to Dome Fest West, those four festivals include the Full Dome Festival, Jena, Germany; Full Dome UK in Plymouth, UK; and the Dome Under Festival in Melborne, Australia. 

Films selected for exhibit at any of the four festivals are automatically qualified to possibly receive a #BestOfEarth award, the highest honor a full-dome film can receive within the global immersive cinema community. DFW Executive Director Ryan Moore, and co-founders Ed Lantz and Kate McCallum, worked with Micky Remann to produce #BestOfEarth as a response to the COVID crisis, which compromised many of the traditional festival outlets for artists’ work to be recognized.

About DOME FEST WEST FOUNDERS
Ryan Moore  Dome Fest West Executive Director/Founder Ryan Moore is also the founder of Experience 360°, a Burbank-based Virtual Experience Design Studio that has been creating branded and narrative immersive content since 2015. Moore’s diverse career within the film production arena includes experimental branded content (for clients Disney, Toyota and GoPro;) TV commercials (for clients Pepsi and Jack In The Box;) music festival coverage (for client Fuse Media;) and Reality TV projects (including the series The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.

Ed Lantz  DFW Co-Founder Ed Lantz is an immersive media entrepreneur, engineer, producer and experience designer. Lantz left aerospace engineering in 1990 to transform traditional planetariums into immersive visualization environments, designing over a dozen dome theaters worldwide including Egypt’s Library of Alexandria Planetarium, Domodigital at Papalote Museo del Niño in Mexico City, and the National Space Centre in Leicester, UK.  He sees modern digital domes as “digital temples of transformation” for their ability to combine art and science to create compelling immersive journeys, performances and experiences with positive impact. His company Vortex Immersion Media develops immersive media venues and experiences for clients and audiences worldwide.

Kate McCallum  DFW Co-Founder Kate McCallum is an award-winning multi-media producer/writer, with 20 years background at NBCUniversal and Paramount Studios. She is also the founder of c3: Center for Conscious Creativity, a 501c3 whose mission is to “Create a better future through the power of arts, media and storytelling,” and Bridge Arts Media, a media development and production company. McCallum produces full-dome and immersive content, served six years on the Producers Guild of America New Media Council, is a member of the TV Academy, and recently co-authored Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media.

About DOME FEST WEST
Launched in Fall 2021, Dome Fest West is an immersive Dome film festival and conference designed to introduce the global immersive Dome filmmaking community to Hollywood’s new, up-and-coming content creators.

Presenting “The World’s Best Dome Media that Exists Today,” Dome Fest West annually showcases full-dome film screenings, new technology presentations, industry panels, interactive workshops and exclusive parties. Immersive filmmakers from around the globe attend the festival each year – an event which has been designed to take immersive Dome content “to the next level.”

Check out Dome Fest West on social media:

•  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DomeFestWest/
•  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/domefestwest/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/domefestwest
•  Website: https://www.domefestwest.com