In our increasingly digital society where people regularly engage on multiple devices at the same time, a near future of layered realities is not a far-off concept. But what effect does this media overload have on the human psyche? Are we hardwired to cope with simultaneous interpersonal and digital relationships? A new interactive virtual reality film, “The Surrogate,” probes these questions with a cautionary tale of a woman whose screen-induced anxiety hits a breaking point and forces her to retreat from her own physical existence and hire a surrogate to assume her physical presence.
“The Surrogate,” directed by Peter Flaherty and produced by VR Playhouse, is a narrative VR experience that fuses 360 video and a CG explorable environment using an innovative technique called Immersive Hemispheres.
The contemporary story is set in the near future but reflects present cultural fears and afflictions of the digital age. When the viewer puts on the VR headset, they are immersed in the consciousness of a female protagonist, Juliana Bach, controlling her POV as they explore the passageways that snake behind the walls of a modern house. The viewer can navigate through passageways, peering into the rooms of the house through a series of portals in which live-action hemispherical videos offer an immersive vantage point. The viewer is able to choose how they experience the narrative by moving through the passageway autonomously, deciding how they follow the action, and which rooms they look into at any given time.
“I wanted to take a different approach to how we are dealing with this kind of immersive technology as a storytelling tool,” notes Flaherty. “The technology inspired me to tell this story looking ahead at what our shared cultural future will hold in the coming years. I wanted to communicate how extreme and overwhelming it’d be to live in a world proliferated with layered media and technology could feel.”
About VR Playhouse
VR Playhouse is a Los Angeles-based creative studio and full-service production company specializing in virtual and augmented reality. With a fervent passion for transporting viewers through meaningful experiences in immersive media, founders Christina Heller and Ian Forester have amassed a specialized team with diverse backgrounds ranging from production to animation, journalism, VFX, theater and live events. From creative to production and distribution, VR Playhouse delivers complete projects through its cohesive VR pipeline.
Boasting a broad range of projects in the commercial, live sports, cinematic narrative and high-end real estate industries, VR Playhouse’s original VR content transports viewers into unexplored times and locations, allowing audiences to transcend their daily lives and experience new perspectives and emotions.