- Writer / Director / Producer
Victoria Mapplebeck - Producers
Shehani Fernando
Darren Emerson - 360 Camera Operator
Darren Emerson - Creative Technologist
Luca Biada - Sound
John Wakefield
Henrik Oppermann - Advisors
Mandy Rose
May Abdalla - Editors and After Effects
Conan Roberts
Jack Howard
Anton Yavorsky - Grade
Conan Roberts - Executive Producers
Catherine Allen
Darren Emerson - Virtual Realities
Documentary Encounters Team
Kirsten Cater
Danaë Stanton Fraser
Mandy Rose
Hannah Brady
Chris Bevan
Dave Green
Harry Farmer
Helen Brown
Jo Gildersleve - The Waiting Room VR was commissioned as part of the Virtual Realities – Immersive Documentary Encounters. It was funded by the EPSRC, The University of Bristol, University of Bath, and the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), in partnership with Watershed.
Health & Well-being
The Waiting Room VR
The Waiting Room is a VR journey that tells the story of Victoria Mapplebeck’s breast cancer (as patient and artist), from diagnosis through treatment to recovery. The Waiting Room uses film and audio recorded by Victoria over 18 months of treatment, documenting her time in waiting rooms, surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and at home with her teenage son. The Waiting Room VR provides an intimate and visceral portrait of cancer treatment and its transformative impact on the body and family life.
The linchpin of the VR piece is one nine-minute 360-degree take, a reconstruction of Victoria’s last session of radiotherapy, which marked the end of nine months of breast cancer treatment. This experience is counterbalanced by a CGI journey inside her body. Working with 3D artists, Victoria brought to life the medical imaging she had collected throughout treatment. Cancer cells, CT scans, mammograms and ultrasound provide a 3D portrait of her body from the inside out. "
The Waiting Room begins with a personal journey, but as cancer affects one in two of us over the course of a lifetime, it also tells a very universal story. Moving beyond sentimentality and survivor/victim binaries, the project disrupts the objectification of the medical gaze and reminds the audience of the person behind the diagnosis.
The Waiting Room VR project won The IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling and was selected for Forbes’s Top 50 XR experiences of 2019.
