"My eyes zero in on a red door, its frame one of the few surviving remnants of a home. I pull it closer to me, and in moments I see a fraction of the house as it once was - now I'm in a cozy kitchen with blurred but welcoming pictures in the background and a grandfather celebrating a birthday. A voice-over tells me that it was Alexander, a grandfather, who painted the door red."
"It's as if a memory has sprung to life and exists solely in the ether in front of me. But in seconds it's gone, and I see only rubble - scattered bricks and tiles, tree branches and wooden boards. I shed a tear, but it's obscured by the virtual reality headset I'm wearing. I am experiencing a work-in-progress segment of the multimedia documentary "Out of the Ashes," which will be previewed Friday evening at a Music Center event."
"Nonny de la Peña secured media access to the burn zones for her and a small team via her role as the program director of narrative and emerging media at Arizona State University, which she operates out of offices in downtown Los Angeles. "I knew that this was going to be transitory type of situation, that it was going to change quickly," says De la Peña, co-director on the film with Rory Mitchell. "I've covered enough disaster stories to know how huge this was.""
A virtual reality documentary reconstructs fire-ravaged Altadena scenes, overlaying vivid domestic memories such as a red door and a grandfather's birthday onto present rubble. The project, Out of the Ashes, yields immersive moments that shift instantly between memory and destruction, eliciting strong emotional reactions. Filming began days after the fires and continues, with media access to burn zones secured through Arizona State University's narrative and emerging media program. Nonny de la Peña co-directs the film with Rory Mitchell, drawing on a history of pioneering immersive journalism. The project will be previewed at a Music Center event demonstrating how emerging technologies can help process collective traumatic experiences.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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