{"id":6882,"date":"2016-03-14T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/hollywood-learns-a-new-storytelling-language-for-vr\/"},"modified":"2016-03-14T08:00:33","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:00:33","slug":"hollywood-learns-a-new-storytelling-language-for-vr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/hollywood-learns-a-new-storytelling-language-for-vr\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood learns a new storytelling language for VR"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2014 What happens to a film\u2019s story when blades of grass are more interesting than the plot? When you can lean in so close to an actor you ought to feel their breath? When a few simple steps around a room can make you dizzy?<\/p>\n

Virtual reality filmmakers are grappling with these challenges as they explore a medium that hasn\u2019t had a century to develop the way movies have. Much the way early cinematographers had to discover cuts, wide shots and perspective, VR filmmakers find themselves making things up as they go along, often mashing up traditional movies and video-game techniques along the way.<\/p>\n

Consider for a second how we\u2019ve all internalized the visual language of film. Quick cuts skip over time and space to get to a story\u2019s point. Wide shots give us a godlike perspective. Zooms and tight focus naturally draw our attention to specific points. Audiences have been trained to stitch it all together into a fluid narrative.<\/p>\n

Now picture yourself in the middle of the action. With a headset strapped over your eyes and ears, sometimes with a controller in your hand, you are completely immersed in the virtual world. Things can happen behind you. There are characters and places to explore from different angles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all a work in progress, one that more consumers will see when the long awaited Oculus Rift VR headset ships later in March. It\u2019s crucial for VR filmmakers to get storytelling right, or the whole virtual reality boom could turn out to be just another sandbox for hardcore video gamers .<\/p>\n

\n

Just let go<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was one of the first lessons for Oculus Story Studio, a hub for digital animators and experimental filmmakers in San Francisco\u2019s trendy South of Market district.<\/p>\n

In an early version of the Oculus short \u201cLost,\u201d audiences got distracted by looking at foliage or the moon and didn\u2019t pay attention to a giant, disembodied hand that\u2019s the subject of the piece, says creative director Saschka Unseld. So creators added a full 40 seconds to let viewers get oriented, and then just let go.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you have the audience interested, they will look wherever the story happens,\u201d Unseld says. \u201cBut losing that control of focus of the audience is something that took a while to get over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Subtle clues drive the action<\/strong><\/p>\n

In \u201cHenry,\u201d another Oculus short, you find yourself standing inside a lonely hedgehog\u2019s computer-generated house. You\u2019re free to look around at anything, but it\u2019s not until you set eyes on the kitchen door that Henry shows up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a triggered moment that makes you feel like you discovered Henry in a very natural way,\u201d says director Ramiro Lopez Dau. Some viewers try to hug Henry, Dau says \u2014 but he doesn\u2019t hug back.<\/p>\n

\n

Let the viewer discover who they are<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Montreal-based Felix & Paul Studios, filmmakers have exploded the traditional separation between film and filmgoer by making \u201cWho am I?\u201d a central question \u2014 sometimes even a mystery \u2014 for VR participants.<\/p>\n

In the short film \u201cStrangers with Patrick Watson,\u201d for example, a man riffs on a piano and sings. From a seat in the player\u2019s cluttered apartment, you can look at his wall art, peruse his collectibles and even watch his dog.<\/p>\n

In Felix & Paul\u2019s \u201cJurassic World: Apatosaurus,\u201d you start off in a forest next to a jeep; a coffee mug and two-way radio lay within arm\u2019s reach. Turns out you\u2019re a park ranger visiting a sleeping diplodocid. That helps explain why the dinosaur just sniffs you in a familiar way and goes back to its daily routine chewing leaves.<\/p>\n

A short based on the movie \u201cWild\u201d takes things to a surreal new level. As her omniscient voice narrates, actress Reese Witherspoon hikes up and sits on a rock beside you. Then she looks right through you, and suddenly Laura Dern, playing Witherspoon\u2019s deceased mother, makes you turn to the right. Dern then talks through you to her daughter as if you\u2019re the ghost. Later, a curious fox comes up to sniff you, a reminder that you that you do, in fact, exist \u2014 virtually, at least.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t ask people to come out of those things and say, \u2018I completely figured it out\u2019,\u201d says Felix Lajeunesse, the studio\u2019s creative director.<\/p>\n

\n

Sudden movement = nausea<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vrse, a Los Angeles-based virtual reality studio that has worked with The New York Times, Vice News and others, has a signature documentary style involving a voice-over and stationary VR camera placement right in the middle of the action.<\/p>\n

But it unhooked the camera in \u201cMillions March NYC ,\u201d an 8-minute VR documentary on racial-profiling protests that Vrse produced with Vice News. Creative director Chris Milk acknowledged the hand-held camera and bouncing, shaky movements make the viewer \u201ca little queasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It still proved a point. Turns out it\u2019s not motion so much as the acceleration and deceleration that makes people feel sick \u2014 the same way taking off and landing in a plane feel a lot worse than just cruising at 30,000 feet.<\/p>\n

Many virtual reality filmmakers avoid motion because it induces nausea, but Milk says injecting a touch of acceleration is a new way for directors to provoke an emotional response. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t do this in a traditional, rectangular film,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n

What is narrative, anyway?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can a story be an exploration of a space? Can it be just a moment in time and a way to understand a situation\u2019s context?<\/p>\n

Creator Mac Cauley wrestled with these questions in \u201cThe Night Cafe,\u201d a scene painted in the impressionist style of Vincent Van Gogh. A trackpad lets you move around. Turn a corner and there\u2019s Van Gogh, listening to a piano player. A future version may include characters that react to your movement and talk back.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach person\u2019s going to have their own experience of it,\u201d Cauley said. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes the interactive medium of virtual reality so personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Video journalist Haven Daley in San Francisco contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima at https:\/\/twitter.com\/rnakashi . His work can be found at http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/content\/ryan-nakashima<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 What happens to a film\u2019s story when blades of grass are more interesting than the plot? When you can lean in so close to an actor you ought to feel their breath? When a few simple steps around a room can make you dizzy? Virtual reality filmmakers are grappling with these challenges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6882"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}