By: Jordan Blakeman
Virtual Reality used to be something we’d fantasize about, much like the flying cars and robot maids of The Jetsons in our youth. But as time goes on, slowly the visions of what the future would be pervade our every day. We can instantly chat with somebody face-to-face nearly anywhere on the globe, survive on meal replacement supplements (though we’re still not ready to try you just yet, Soylent), and self-driving cars will be on the market before we know it. When Oculus Rift raised a record $2.5 million during their Kickstarter campaign in 2012, the entertainment industry felt a shift unlike any before.
Now with Facebook and YouTube majorly invested in the tech, the current push is to bring the new medium to the consumer market.
One of the first VR stories to catch attention was Specular Theory’s Perspective; Chapter 1: The Party at last year’s Sundance film festival. Set at a college party, viewers watched the story unfold from two different character’s eyes as it goes from a seemingly innocent party to a campus assault. “It’s the most impactful medium we’ve ever seen,” Specular Theory CEO and Perspective co-creator Morris May shares. “ I got bored with just traditional film. I’m just bored of looking at a flat screen. I think this is completely immersive. You’re inside the content. It’s really the ultimate empathy machine. You feel like you’re witnessing an event versus watching a tiny screen.” The two-part series quickly became the talk of Park City and was brought to college campuses nationwide after being approached by organizations IndieFlix, an indie film distribution company, and It’s On Us, a non-profit organization against on-campus sexual assault.
“It was almost a year ago now and we get calls every day from people wanting to see it,” adds Specular Theory’s Ryan Pulliam. “Kids from colleges are reaching out on LinkedIn wanting to see if they can show it on campus. It’s been amazing to see how powerful of an impact it’s been. Sometimes it’s hard for us to watch because it was filmed so long ago in such a different technology from where we’re at today.” The film was shot in 220-degrees versus today’s full 360 technology. “You get nervous as the creator thinking about the technology but really no one ever comments on the technology; it’s all about the story. I think that says a lot for storytelling particularly in that piece.”
“Right now, what’s great about everything in VR: it’s a wild, wild west. Everybody’s right and everybody’s wrong,” Chuck Peil, one of the founders of Reel FX, tells me as we discuss the future of VR at their Santa Monica offices, “And that’s okay, number one. Number two, all the advancements are being measured in dog years. It’s progressing so quickly, we’re measuring it in seven years not one year, so fast that we had some creative proposals out that are only two months old with some studio partners and we went back and looked at them and we’re like that sucks. Can we do that over again?”
Reel FX got involved in VR right at the forefront with the announcement of Oculus Rift and has been involved with theme parks, dome rides, and IMAX experiences. It can be easy to dismiss VR as the latest gimmick after the heavy push 3D had only a few years ago to a nauseating degree where every film was converted into it after so they could add an extra charge at the box office for the effects.
“3D is just a feature,” May argues. “You’re just looking at a TV and it just feels like it has more depth. That’s not a new medium. This is really a new medium. You are now not looking at a screen, you’re in the content. You feel like you’re a character there.”
Whereas most typical content has a divide between the content and the viewer, the VR platform erases that gap entirely. Creatively, this presents its own set of challenges. Unlike typical filmmaking, there aren’t cuts. A director can’t choose between a close up and a wide shot and an actor can’t rely on multiple takes to ensure the best performance. “You’re asking a person that is a non-filmmaker and non-director to participate in choices and decisions of where to look and how to experience something,” Peil explains. “So how do you guide them, as a director, to optimize your vision knowing that your balsamic reduction of a vision, that awesome vision you have for a story, you’ve just given a user a bucket of water to pour in and dilute it?”
May’s company approaches the process with the theater in mind. “Someone who’s a real actor, someone to me who’s theater trained, absolutely loves virtual reality. This is really an actor’s medium in that it’s all about the acting in my mind,” he shares. As he isn’t able to stand behind the camera and guide the performers, he has to give a lot of trust into their ability. “An actor is really in character at all times and the way the move through the space, the way they convey the character, you get what you get.”
The trouble facing the industry most is access to and lack of content. “I want to see a viral video. Where do you go?” Peil questions. The answer is obvious: YouTube. “Done. That’s a simple equation. Viral video equals youtube. There isn’t any minus, plus. It’s one equation. Right now in the industry, it’s multiplication, division, to get to the math and at the end and you don’t even know if you’ve got the answer right per say.” He did an experiment on his teenage son, leaving a VR headset with no instruction for him to figure out. Although typically technologically savvy, he had difficulty figuring out how to access content. “Remember when blu-ray players were coming out, they were sending it with discs to play content. They were aggregating it from anywhere they could. They were out to every major studio going, do you have anything that you can play in hi-res? And that’s where the industry is.”
When Perspective: Chapter 1 screened at Sundance, it was one of less than a half-dozen VR experiences available. This year, over thirty presentations will take place. The New York Times has their own app where viewers can stream video content viewable in VR devices. While consumer headsets are now available in big box retailers, Google offers cheap cardboard viewers as a stepping stone to introduce audiences into the world of VR. The wait is over: The future is now.
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