The Application of Cross-Cultural Context Fusion Virtual Reality Technology in the Course of Film Art Creation

Abstract

Objectives: Since the 21st century, with the rapid development of science and technology, China’s education level and educational technology have been continuously improved, and the classroom model has been developed and upgraded in innovation, but in the case that digital technology has not been fully covered and China’s educational resources are relatively scarce, there are still many practical courses that cannot be taught in the traditional classroom to obtain good educational effects.

The development of cinematography knows no borders, but the education of cinematography is limited by the different educational environments of different countries. As an international art, the education of cinematography can achieve better quality development through cross-cultural communication. The use of virtual reality technology in the art of filmmaking can break the time and space limitations between countries and enhance the degree of integration and innovation in education in a cross-cultural context. The study of film and television creation often requires students to have a lot of practical experience, but the equipment and venue funds required for its practical courses are more expensive and cannot meet the needs of most schools to create specialized teaching equipment and venues. The teaching equipment of film creation plus the course venue are two aspects that require later management and maintenance expenses, therefore, most of the film creation courses in domestic universities are still stuck in the traditional teaching mode.

In addition, the continuous updating of film creation technology makes teaching resources, teaching materials and teacher training lag behind, which affects teaching quality. The special nature of the film creation course makes it difficult to effectively restore the filming process by traditional graphic, visual and audio transmission methods, and the out-of-home practice is limited in terms of coordination, time and space. In the global epidemic environment, online learning is gaining more and more attention, but the film and television industry is in a “winter”, which makes most film and television students lack of practice places where they can establish cooperation. Virtual reality technology in the film creation program for the restoration of the film set, that is, to build a virtual practice scene, is a way to break the limits of time and space to provide students with experience.

Virtual reality technology, as a more important technology in various industries in recent years, is widely used in many fields, such as medical, construction, fashion, military, etc. At present, the teaching advantages of virtual reality technology have gradually come into playing in the field of education. Using virtual reality technology to build experimental apparatus, scenarios and equipment, students are less constrained by equipment as well as scenarios, more able to stimulate interest in the midst of an immersive classroom, enhance practical perceptions through virtual reality technology instead of hardware facilities, immersive learning, and enhanced learning efficiency.

On the other hand, it will also reduce the pressure of teachers in teaching, and can view student dynamics through virtual experiments, timely adjustment of teaching programs. The virtual scene practice is complemented by the teacher’s classroom lecture, combining practice and theory, transforming the teacher-led classroom into students’ spontaneous experiential learning, showing the abstract concepts through virtual reality, restoring the real scene of the film set placed in the plane in front of their eyes, allowing students’ audio-visual senses to have a more realistic experience, crossing time and space in the virtual reality situation, kinetic interaction, allowing the theoretical learning in the construction of The “imaginary film set” built in the theoretical learning can be immediately shown in front of the eyes.

Methods: A sample of 32 students from a film creation course in a Chinese university was selected and divided into two groups: the experimental group and the control group, with 16 students in each group (8 male and 8 female students in each group), to confirm their knowledge of virtual reality technology and familiarity with its operation before the experiment. The 16 students in the control group will be taught in a traditional film creation course, mainly by a multimedia teacher who will show the process of film creation in graphic form; the 16 students in the experimental group will be led by the teacher and will be taught in the first half of the course, while in the second half they will enter an immersive virtual reality scenario using VR technology to experience the process of filming on a real film set and become familiar with the operation of each position. A questionnaire will be used at the end of the experiment to investigate students’ engagement, interest, initiative, classroom satisfaction and learning outcomes.

Results: Through the experiments of both groups, it was found that students in the experimental group would be more engaged and interested in the course, have a higher understanding of the structure and operation of the set than students in the control group, and have significantly better satisfaction and knowledge absorption in the course than students in the control group. More than half of the students in the control group were inattentive and uninterested in the course content, and the data on the learning effect in the post-test were also poor.

Conclusions: It is clear from this study that virtual reality technology can provide a greater degree of convenience to the teaching of film creation practice by restoring the actual scenes on the film set, and that the traditional teaching mode may make the teaching effect “superficial” and prevent students from understanding and experiencing the real scene. The integration of virtual reality technology and traditional teaching methods produces a 1 + 1 > 2 effect, stimulating students’ interest in learning, improving their learning efficiency, reducing lab construction costs, deepening students’ understanding of realistic scenarios, and cultivating their innovative thinking and abilities.

Using the advantages of virtual reality technology to reform the classroom of film art creation in colleges and universities can improve students’ intercultural communication skills while effectively supplementing the teaching content of international film creation, which helps promote the cultivation of intercultural excellent film talents. However, virtual reality technology can only be an “affordable substitute” for film creation practice courses. The unexpected events and responses that may occur in actual scenes cannot be restored yet, and students cannot learn to react and respond to unpredictable events in film creation in virtual reality scenes, so it should be combined with reality to make up for its shortcomings.

W. Wu and Y. L. Chen—Authors contributed equally to this study.