MDC Prato inaugurates new spaces and launches the project of the Theater in VR & Real Time, the Campus and the Render Farm

Manifatture Digitali Cinema Prato expands its spaces and launches the project of a center of advanced training and audiovisual services available to Tuscany and the whole Country/Countries. We talked about this and other issues at the press conference that was the 25th of February 2021, at the new Multifunctional Hall of MDC Prato, with the interventions of the President of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Giani, Matteo Biffoni, Mayor of the Municipality of Prato, Iacopo Di Passio and Paolo Chiappini, President and Director of Fondazione Sistema Toscana (FST), and the Cinema Area Manager of FST Stefania Ippoliti to do the honors.

The new spaces of MDC Prato

MDC Prato, which since 2017 has offered support to those who choose Tuscany as a set, with the inauguration of the 25th of Feabruary 2021 reaches 1800 m2 of equipped spaces and 950 m2 of outdoor areas available. A growth that corresponds to the implementation of the activities, started with the cineport services, integrated in 2018 with the opening of the training rooms and the tailoring workshop, in 2019 with the preparation of the space dedicated to animation, and now, in 2021, with the opening of a Multifunctional Hall dedicated to cinema education (already home, even before its official inauguration, of 2 live streaming), a second technologically advanced tailoring laboratory, the exhibition gallery of costumes and accessories made in our Workshops and the large outdoor courtyard.

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But the news does not stop at the new spaces: Manifatture Digitali Cinema Prato, in collaboration with the Municipality of Prato and the consortium of public administrations Consiag, is working on the project to create, in the former “Banci Area”, a Theater in VR & Real Time, a Campus and a Render Farm: structures that will make Prato – already a 5G city – a place of innovation in the field of cinema and audiovisuals. The project, which intends to seize the opportunities offered by the digital transition, aims to create in Prato a center of advanced training and audiovisual services, available to the whole Country/Countries, for creating new collaborations with the cultural industry, the public administration and businesses.

It was during the first months of the Covid-lockdown that the vision of the VR & Real Time Theater, the Campus and the Render Farm was born, an unprecedented project unit, to be located in the former “Banci Area” of ​​Prato.

The Theater in VR & Real Time

The Theater in Virtual Reality & Real Time aims to be the infrastructure that allows a profound change in the production process, with benefits on production times and costs, offering indispensable solutions to compete internationally. The Theater in Virtual Reality & Real Time aims to be a center for the production of audiovisual, multimedia and virtual reality content. Real Time allows you to recreate hyper-realistic scenarios with 3D animation techniques.

The Campus

The Campus attracts international skills and prepares new professionals. It will be a training center of excellence capable of hosting specialized courses, with service areas, meeting room and spaces set up for lessons, co-working and events. It aims to host 250 people, of which 200 students are committed to attending courses and masters that will last six months, one year and several years, based on the characteristics and programs provided by the extensive training offer.

The Render Farm

The Render Farm will act as a computational center for the sophisticated processing necessary for production.

To complete the investment, functional spaces for the development of a 24-hour program, which on the one hand provides for highly specialized production, technical and training activities and on the other supports them, with areas intended for hospitality, catering and leisure, also with initiatives intended for public use.

MDC Pistoia and MDC Siena: Manifatture Digitali Cinema become an increasingly Tuscan network of infrastructures at the service of cinema and audiovisuals

Manifatture Digitali Cinema is a project of the Apq Sensi Contemporanei Toscana for Cinema, an experimental program born from the collaboration between the State (Agency for Territorial Cohesion – Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Mibact) and Regione Toscana, implemented Fondazione Sistema Toscana – Tuscany Film Commission. Among its numerous aims, it has these:

• Increase the attractiveness of Tuscany for national and international productions – which can find new spaces and services in the structure – thus strengthening the role of Toscana Film Commission;
• Offer highly specialized opportunities to those who want to work in the audiovisual sector, repositioning old crafts and craftsmanship in an industry that requires increasingly qualified and specialized professionals;
• Use the audiovisual product as a flywheel for innovation and economic development, thanks to the enhancement of territorial productive vocations, in collaboration with local businesses.

The Prato headquarters of Manifatture Digitali Cinema, which updates the great textile tradition of the city, with innovative projects linked to tailoring (see the High Specialization Workshops: Renaissance Costumes, Renaissance Costumes 2 – Leonardo’s Times and the Master The Fabric of Dreams, to name just a few of the activities carried out) is an essential and primitive hub of the Tuscan infrastructural network in support of cinema and audiovisuals; network of which the Pisa office is also part, whose vocation is that of research and development in the field of digital technologies (in Pisa, for example, the interactive doc “L’Invenzione dello Spazio” was created and the first edition of First Playable was hosted).

But the MDC network is destined to expand: in Pistoia, thanks to the collaboration with the municipal administration, the Pistoiese Theater Association and the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia and Pescia Foundation, will soon find space projects related to reuse and production of scenographies, including the “natural scenographies”, in collaboration with the local horticultural companies, in addition to the realization of sets with 3D printers for animation; while the MDCs of Siena, in the near future, will enhance the excellence of the Accademia Chigiana, with which projects related to the music and sound supply chain can be developed (specialized laboratories to compose and perform music for the cinema)!