Farm 2 Fork 2 VR
Page 2 have had a successful working relationship with Rabobank since 2012, during which we have covered and produced much of the video content from the Rabobank Global Farmers Master Class program. Accordingly, Rabobank felt confident in approaching Page 2 to produce an immersive 360 movie to be screened at their Farm 2 Fork conference, held on Cockatoo Island, Sydney.
The objective was to tell a story supporting the conference themes of banking for food, sustainability and innovation, all set against a backdrop of Australian farm and urban life. Utilising Virtual Reality worked very well with the innovation theme, with the immersion giving Rabobank the cut through and emotional engagement they were after.
Page 2 developed the script collaborating with Rabobank HQ (The Netherlands) and after sign off, work began in earnest. From Page 2’s engagement on the project all the way through to the finished product, took two months. The extensive amount of post-production time and subsequent render time (often using an off shore render farm) meant that this was a tight timeframe indeed.
The Farm 2 Fork movie includes a combination of CG environments and 360 video shot on location, all complemented by rich storytelling, documentary style narration and a cinematic score.
The virtual journey highlights the precarious position the world is in with a rapidly increasing population, decreasing arable land and the challenge of producing more with less. Each scene reveals something new, like the feeling of watching a huge IMAX movie to simply sitting at a farmer’s kitchen table.
The Farm 2 Fork VR movie was screened in a VR theatre space at the conference on Cockatoo Island with more than 1,300 people in attendance. The distressed industrial feel of the space somehow complemented the 40 seat VR theatre with viewers silently swivelling in their chairs to see what was around them.
The reaction? There was always a healthy queue waiting to attend the next session, with many people coming back a second or third time and quite a few excited to talk about their experience. Suffice it to say, Rabobank were thrilled with the result.
Rabobank’s Edwin Van Raalte summed up their experience with Page 2, “We wanted to take our clients on a journey from around the world literally from farm to fork and showing a traditional movie is not the way forward. The work Page 2 has been doing for us in this way, it’s not only that they have made a great Virtual Reality movie but they have actually included our emotion, the emotion of our clients and the passion for food and agri”.
Thanks for trusting such a meaningful and enjoyable project with us Rabobank!