Look Again. Jan 19 – 29, 2012 Park City, Utah

Former Newsweek correspondent Nonny de la Peña is developing a groundbreaking brand of journalism that offers a fully immersive experience into news reporting. Focused on calling attention to the growing issue of hunger in the United States, Hunger in Los Angeles recreates an eyewitness account of a crisis on line at the First Unitarian Church food bank. De la Peña uses game-development tools, a body-tracking system, and a head-mounted goggle display, along with live audio she collected during the incident, to construct a fully immersive, simulated world where audience members can suit up, walk around, and interact with other characters in the scene.

Commissioned by the Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism in conjunction with MxR Lab, which is part of USC's Institute for Creative Technologies and the School of Cinematic Arts.

Additional Credits:
Virtual Human Characters: aXYZ Design
Prototype Programmer: Juliana Griffo
MxR Creative Producer: Mark Bolas
Motion Capture equipment provided by PhaseSpace and Tracy McSheery

Nonny de la Peña is a pioneer in the area of immersive journalism, a novel way to utilize gaming platforms and virtual environments to convey first-person experience and presence in news and documentaries. A graduate of Harvard University, she is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with 20 years of journalism experience. De la Peña is also behind Stroome.com, an award-winning, online, collaborative, video-editing platform with users in 126 countries. www.immersivejournalism.com