Secret Location has won the inaugural Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Award for its project Ebola Outbreak: A 360 Virtual Journey, created in partnership with PBS investigative series Frontline.
The project, directed by filmmaker Dan Edge, was one of five to win the award for excellence and innovation in digital storytelling. The other winning projects were Sweet 180 Productions’ Halal in the Family, Dontnod Entertainment’s Life is Strange, St. Louis Public Radio’s One Year in Ferguson and Inheritance, also produced through PBS’ Frontline.
Ebola Outbreak, also created with Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, is a 360-video doc that takes users first to a hollow tree in the village of Meliandou in Guinea, where it is believed the outbreak may have originated. From there, viewers are also taken to two other scenes, including one in Sierra Leone.
The news comes one week after it was announced that Secret Location had won two Webby Awards. The first, Highrise: Universe Within, made in partnership with the National Film Board, won the Online Film & Video/ Best Use of Interactive Video award, while the Toronto company also picked up the Online Film & Video/ VR: Cinematic or Pre-Rendered award for Orchestra VR.