

Sandman Studios & Digital Rise's
Mandala,
A Brief Moment In Time
SYNOPSIS
By entering an ancient Buddhist temple, the spectators are offered the opportunity to create altogether a shape of light, a bright and colorful mandala. Depending on their movements, choices and collaboration, each drawing will be unique. The energy instilled in their mandala will awaken fantastic creatures, heroes from a Chinese folktale: WuKong the monkey king and ErLang Shen, the heaven’s soldier. They will guide the audience into the mandala, putting them to test and pushing them to reflect on their own life in the process.
The fantastic characters are played by an actor in live motion-capture, delivering a unique, tailor-made and extremely immersive experience, using Buddhist mythology as a background.
This is a 1-hour free-roaming VR creative adventure with a live actor in France for 3 to 6 users.
HIGHLIGHTS
"Mandala, A Brief Moment In Time" is a self-exploration experience. Spectators are first offered the opportunity to fill an empty place by creating a unique drawing, by interacting with each other. Then, adding to the creative pleasure of this “collaborative tilt brush”, the experience turns into an immersive theater experience. With its physical set design and a live motion-capture actor, the experience aims to be an absolute immersion.
The creative act will be the root of the spectator's emotional involvement. They will have to protect their creation, accept to let it grow and then learn to let it go. Confronted with humor to a moral dilemma, the experience gives them the opportunity to discover a little more about themselves.
ATMOSPHERE AND THEME
"Mandala, A Brief Moment In Time" takes inspiration from a traditional Chinese story : Journey to the West, and from the Mandala techniques used by Buddhist Monks. In contrast to most VR experiences which seek strong emotions, "Mandala, A Brief Moment In Time" develops a quiet and introspective atmosphere. The experience deals with people’s relationship with the physical world based on the Buddhist philosophical concept of impermanence, which considers that all phenomena and objects of the physical world are in a state of perpetual change.
Director - Thomas Villepoux
Writers - Thomas Villepoux and Yang Huang
Producers - Eddie Lou, Eason Chow, Ivy Huang, François Klein
Cast - Elliot Delage and Thomas Alden
Production Manager - Bingbing Wang
Production Assistants - Mudi Zhou, Junha Huang
Technical Director - Zhang Meng
Art Directors - Eason Chow, Hongzhou Guo, Zhenjia Yu
Technical Coordinators - Anastasiia Ternova, Haichen Zhang, Xu Liu
Engine Artist - Zhuolin Li
Animation - Xing Liu, Ke Wang
Rigging - Xing Liu
Visual Effects - Hanqing Zhao
3D Artists - Gery Wang, Yiyuan Sun, Metalcat Studio
Sound Effects - G4F
Hosting - Film Gate Miami
Production Teams - Sandman Studio and Digital Rise, in association with Sandbox Immersive Film Festival
Additional Support - Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), Pictanovo, 104 Factory