Future of Film Podcast · 3.6 Volumetric Filmmaking and the New Documentary

“The Process Itself is the Innovation.” Yasmin Elayat

Yasmin Elayat is an Emmy-award winning storyteller and entrepreneur whose work pushes the boundaries of immersive narrative and participatory experiences.

Yasmin began her career in computer science but, as she describes in this interview, pivoted to become a storyteller and then co-founder of the tech-production company Scatter.

At Scatter, Yasmin is now pioneering the emerging language of Volumetric Filmmaking, a process that can transform 2D capture of the real world into hologram like imagery which can be viewed from any angle and is being used in immersive storytelling, documentaries and films.

In 2017 Yasmin used Scatter’s Volumetric filmmaking techniques to make ZERO DAYS VR which won the Emmy for Outstanding New Approach to Documentary.

About Yasmin Elayat

Yasmin Elayat is an Emmy-award winning immersive director whose work pushes the boundaries of immersive narrative and participatory experiences. Yasmin is Co-Founder at Scatter, where she heads content, production and marketing initiatives. Scatter is recognized for pioneering the emerging language of Volumetric Filmmaking through its original volumetric film productions and its AR/VR creativity tools. Scatter’s first product Depthkit is the most widely used toolkit for accessible volumetric video capture.

Yasmin directed the award-winning Zero Days VR (Sundance 2017) a documentary about cyber warfare and the Stuxnet virus, which won the Emmy for Original Approaches: Documentary. Zero Days VR was called “revolutionary” (VRScout) and “one of the most powerful VR documentaries” (Voices of VR).

Yasmin co-directed Blackout: an immersive documentary inviting New Yorkers to share their stories in their own voice which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2017 and Engadget called “a VR love letter to NYC’s subway riders.” She is the co-creator of 18DaysInEgypt, an interactive documentary about the Egyptian Revolution that was lauded as one the Moments of Innovation in Participatory Documentary. Upcoming projects include Changing Same, a magical-realist, afro-futurist virtual reality film which explores the cyclical history of racial injustice in America. Changing Same is a co-production between RADA Film Group and Scatter.

Yasmin’s work has won multiple awards and exhibited at various festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, SIGGRAPH, Festival de Cannes, and the World Economic Forum.