In Depth
For four terrifying nights in Spring 1941, the Second World War arrived on the streets of Belfast.
Carnage, chaos - death and destruction beyond imagination was delivered by the German Luftwaffe - as Belfast discovered that it was not beyond the reach or plans of the German High Command.
The bombs dropped as part of the aerial campaign against the UK did not discriminate between Protestant or Catholic.
Most of those killed were working class citizens of Belfast and surrounding areas.
Though each of these 4 nights had casualties, the worst by far was the Easter Raid carried out over the night of the 15th April, 1941.
Over 700 people died that night - most of them civilians - most in their homes - some cruelly, in bomb shelters that were supposed to keep them safe. It was the greatest loss of life in a single air raid in the UK outside of London.
This project will take you to the location of two of the worst and most tragic incidents of that night; York Street Mill and Percy Street.
For this piece, viewers will wear a VR headset to access the experience and find themselves inside of a 3D immersive environment, one that puts them on the ground, in the streets of Belfast. This piece will allow audiences to explore the devastation of conflict from a safe environment, while also giving them the power to empathise with those who have found themselves displaced due to their homes and towns being bombed by a powerful enemy.
Completing the project will involve high end virtual production techniques; environments will be a combination of handmade 3D models, marketplace assets - other 3D assets will be acquired by scanning real world locations and utilising some AI tools, to digitally represent the bombing locations as they looked back in 1941 (both pre-bombing and post-bombing) - finally transitioning to how they look today.
An immersive audio soundscape will be combined with audio retellings of first-hand accounts and eye-witness testimonies. This will all be assembled within Unreal Engine and built out as a standalone app.
The end result will be an deeply engaging and immersive interpretation of a historical event, presented as a 3D 360 virtual environment that places the viewer in Belfast at the heart of the attacks. This project will tell the story of the Belfast Blitz in a way that hasn’t been seen before and bring new audiences to this sometimes overlooked part of Belfast history.