Newham-based Hyperactive Developments has collaborated with Rendezvous Projects, to produce a 360° film that features the shop’s founders, Mike De Underground and Uncle 22, as well as academic and writer, Julia Toppin. Director Peter Collis, filmed part of the production at the Target 3D Virtual Production Stage on both digital video and 360 video. This footage along with a digital reconstruction of the interior to De Underground Records built within Unreal software will be cut with archive footage to recreate a feeling of returning to the shop – at one of the key origination moments of jungle music. Young people will be able to try out DJ’ing virtually, mixing tracks from De Underground’s labels using Tribe XR – a virtual world for DJs.
When and where: This first version of the immersive experience is available part of the Open House London Festival on Saturday 10 September 2022 at Theatre Square (former Stratford Circus building), London E15 1BX, 12-6pm, drop-in. See more info: https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/11007
The experience will then play at selected national and international film and cultural festivals over the next year. A version of the film will also be available on YouTube 360 for those who have a VR headset.
Audio trail: To coincide with this launch, the original audio trail about the shop and studio produced by Rendezvous Projects in 2021, will be available to listen to around the Sebert Road area is Forest Gate from 10 September and throughout the month. See posters in the area for details.
Producer Atif Ghani notes: “Our Crate Digging VR Experience aspires to allow people to “step-back into time” back into De Underground Records in 1992. We want to give a new generation an insight into what a space like this was like (as well as the previous generation space for reflection and nostalgia) – and particularly, the opportunity to revisit a place which was so key in the formation of a distinctly East London urban sound which would then become global.”
The project, funded by Arts Council England, builds on Rendezvous Project’s Crate Digging: The Influence of De Underground Records.
