VRR #VR film format and the future of cinema moritzfelipe Follow Sep 8, 2015 · Unlisted

The cinema is an invention without any future.

Louis Lumière, 1895

With the development of the Oculus Rift we are hopefully witnessing the final revival of Virtual Reality, the birth of a new medium. There are now a growing number of different devices similar to the Oculus Rift. They all offer a an experience which we call VR. VR “..replicates an environment that simulates physical presence in places in the real world or imagined worlds and lets the user interact in that world.”(1) The hardware is almost good enough for a satisfying user experience, but it is still unclear what kind of content will drive the masses to buy the hardware.

TV for example can be used for a lot of different things. One can play video games, watch DVDs or television. VR has probably even more technical possibilities for new entertainment formats.

I’m experimenting with a VR format I call virtual recorded reality or VRR. What I mean by virtual recorded reality is that there are real world recorded 3D subjects with motion and a real world recorded 3D environment, like in the video above, placed in a virtual space. Technically, the 3D video is filmed with a kinect and the bed is built with a tool, 123D catch, which can create 3D models from photographs. Both files are imported into unity, thanks to Davy Loots for his tool, and built into an experience where the user can put on his Oculus Rift to walk around the virtual space with the 3D recorded objects. It’s like walking on a film set or a theater stage without any restrictions. It resembles a computer game but all you see is recorded from reality and not built, in different to games, by 3D modellers. Right now when you say VR video what most people think about, if they think anything at all, are omnidirectional movies; these are videos which are filmed with a 360 degree camera. The audience can move their head and see the footage from any angle they choose, but they can’t change positions as they could with VRR.

So why is this interesting?

We are at the beginning of the next entertainment revolution. Mankind has always tried to capture and recreate the world around them, from cave paintings to photographs to film. Now comes the next evolution. We can capture our 3D dimensional world and recreate the experience really immersively. I’ve never been so excited about a new medium as with VR. Today we almost can’t imagine that people jumped out of their chairs, scared that a the train will hit them, when they first saw “L’arrrive d’un train en gare de la ciotat” by the Lumiere Brothers in 1895. People have a similar experience when they first try on the Oculus Rift. They feel presence. This new medium is the most immersive yet.

Like with any new medium we have to search for a new language for it. We are already experiencing a new trend in cinematography. Movies, like birdman or the berlin based film victoria, are made without cuts. Because they don’t cut, they don’t jump in time and throw the audience into this more natural rhythm alternative world, making it more immersive. Without cuts the audience has more freedom, the director can’t guide their attention in the same way. Andre Bazin one of the first film theorists in 20th Century already preferred what he referred to as “true continuity” through mise-en-scène over experiments in editing and visual effects. Mise en scene may be the magic phrase for VR.

Since there are no cuts in VR, at least for now, the timeframe of the stories will be a lot shorter. Telling Stories like the Godfather which continue over long time periods will be difficult to show. VR films will tell different kind of stories, rather situations. The situations will be more complex and the audience can explore in greater depth and from different angles. VR will add space to movies. We will finally be able to explore time and space in stories.

Imagine for example two people are cooking in the kitchen and another person is crying in the bedroom. An audience in VR could choose where they want to be and what to experience. You could watch a VR film a couple of times, explore different viewpoints and will always learn a bit more about the causes that lead to a certain climax. In this example scene, in a conventional film, the director would have had to cut back and forth between the crying person and the kitchen, putting a lot of his own interpretation into the scene. With VR the director will be almost removed, you don’t see the story through his eyes anymore. VR kills the cameraman. The audience will be a lot more independent.

Even more than in contemporary films, the actors’ charisma and their interactions will play a very important role. Since the audience can watch the scene from any point they choose and can get as close to the actors as they want, cinema will get more intimate. If the audience feels presence, their emotions will be much stronger. Imagine the difference of something you see in television and something you experience in real life. In real life a much smaller reason is enough to feel compassion as if something happens on TV. VR might be in the middle between TV and real life. VR film will be a great tool to tell stories and educate people about others situations and feelings to create understanding and empathy.

In VR the set design will become of central importance.

If the audience feels physically present in this virtual world, the environment will control a lot more of the atmosphere and emotions than it can do in movies. It’s not just the background for the protagonists anymore. Big halls, mountains, the sea or different lightning have big effects on our emotions. Architecture will become very important for VR. Especially interesting, is the theory of the psychology of architecture.

Inspiration for what can be done with VRR might be found in contemporary theatre. The British Theatre group Punchdrunk explores immersive theatre, also called promenade theatre or site-sympathetic, in which the audience is free to choose what to watch and where to go. Sleep No More, probably their most known work, adapted the story of Macbeth on five floors in a New York warehouse. The Audience could choose if they want to follow one character or discover different side stories.

I think VRR is The most interesting format for VR film because it’s a combination of movie and game. VRR provides the autonomous exploring element of a game combined with the realistic look and motions of movies. It will take a while until we can computer generate content on the same level as we can record content. Of course being in an interactive movie where your actions change the plot might be the ultimate experience, but with our limited technical possibilities, it’s still lies in the future. People also like to be passive, just watching and not necessarily be the protagonist. This can be seen with phenomenons like twitch; there the audience prefers to watch someone else play a game over playing it themselves.

Another argument for the development of VRR films is that it’s pretty easy to do. To scan an object or environment and import it, you just need a phone. You can also use free scans of other people from sketchfab.com or similar services. 3D scanning objects instead of modelling them, might be a similar advancement as it was to take pictures of an object over painting them. Recording 3D video is a bit limited right now but accessible; you can buy the newest kinect and an adapter for around 110€. Unity is free and that’s all you need to start doing your own VRR films. Conversely, making films with a 360 degree camera is a lot more expensive and difficult to edit.

These arguments may lead to another conclusion. Like with VHS, erotica could be the breakthrough content type. Nowhere else might the audience appreciate exploring a situation or body of the actors anonymously, so close and from any angle they want and feel like as if they were physically with them. I’m pretty sure in the coming years we will see a technical evolution of the camgirls space, where the audience will not only see the performer in 3D, maybe even live, but can autonomously move around them. Until now, the kinect setup is a bit tricky but I’m sure there will be easy to use 3D cameras in the coming years. VR will be a huge improvement over video. VR takes you to places and situation you couldn’t or wouldn’t be comfortable to experience otherwise. It’s not to only see but to also BE there.

In The Myth of Total Cinema, Andre Bazin also talks about the future of cinema:

The guiding myth, then, inspiring the invention of cinema, is the accomplishment of that which dominated in a more or less vague fashion all the techniques of the mechanical reproduction of reality in the nineteenth century, from photography to the phonograph, namely an integral realism, a recreation of the world in its own image, an image unburdened by the freedom of interpretation of the artist or the irreversibility of time.

VRR might not be the imagined total cinema, but we are getting there. VR is an invention with a bright future.

If you have any thoughts on this topic please contact me @moritzfelipe