White Spark Pictures Slates The Great Kimberley Wilderness Debut

White Spark Pictures’ new VR documentary experience The Great Kimberley Wilderness has been set to debut at the Western Australian Museum in Perth, Australia, on November 23.

Narrated by Luke Hemsworth (Gunner, Westworld, Land of Bad), the 35-minute program takes viewers into one of the most pristine and ancient landscapes in the world. Filmed in 360-degree 3D VR, the film will take audiences flying over the edge of King George Falls, up close with saltwater crocodiles, into the domes and gorges of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Purnululu National Park and down into the Devonian Reef.

The Great Kimberley Wilderness is the first completed VR documentary film from a content funding partnership between the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, the Western Australian Museum in Perth and the Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum in New Zealand that was announced last year. Each of the three saw a significant uplift in visitor numbers around showings of White Spark Pictures’ earlier films, The Antarctica Experience and Beyond the Milky Way, and thus came together to create a A$1 million fund to invest in three new VR films over three years.

The next two films, currently in development, are Journey of the Giants, a deep dive into the world of whales, and The Kermadec Islands, exploring the remote and pristine marine wonderland deep in the South Pacific Ocean.

Screenwest and Lotterywest provided significant funding to assist in the making of The Great Kimberley Wilderness.

The Great Kimberley Wilderness will run from November 23, 2024, to April 28, 2025, at the Western Australia Museum. It will premiere at the National Museum of Australia in December and at the Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum in April 2025. It will also roll out to venues overseas in 2025.

“As with our two earlier VR films, The Great Kimberley Wilderness transports audiences to places that they would otherwise struggle to visit and provides a uniquely immersive and memorable experience in a breathtaking landscape,” said Briege Whitehead, founder and creative director of White Spark Pictures. “We are excited to deliver the first film from this game-changing, world-first content partnership and are delighted that our work together is increasingly generating interest from other venues and attractions keen to find cost-effective and scalable new experiences for their visitors. In addition, with the recent budget cuts and commissioning slowdown for factual, we are experiencing an upturn in approaches from mainstream documentary producers looking to understand the growing opportunities for VR and how they can adapt their skills. As a result, we are now in the process of exploring several interesting new potential partnerships with TV and film producers.”

Rikki Lea Bestall, CEO of Screenwest, added, “Congratulations to Briege and the White Spark Pictures team for achieving new ground in the world of VR, this time showcasing our beautiful Kimberley. Screenwest is proud to support the creativity, ingenuity and tenacity of Western Australian filmmakers and crew who produce such captivating content within our home state.”