Feature The potential of VR
Guy Gadney outlines the evolution of
virtual realit and shares five tips his firm swears by to create fulfilling 360
W
E NEED TO talk about virtual realit. Billions of dollars have already been spent producing VR glasses, VR app stores and VR content, but indus- try investment does not guarantee success—as the echoes of 3D TV, fading into the distance, remind us. The fascination of this new tech-
Virtually limitless
It’s behind you!
VR is a 360-degree environ- ment, but humans only have a field of vision of 114 degrees maximum. If there is action
going on all around, the audi- ence will miss the majority of it. Video-games makers are used to free-range 3D worlds and are well versed in how
to guide a player’s attention towards the key action.
TIP Have a games company on your team.
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...This is the approach that we are taking. Not all of these tips will suit all projects, and undoubtedly they will be refined as the market evolves. Mainstream VR is very much in its infancy, and feels like the birth of the AppStore. At that time, there was skepticism around the medium and the scale of the addressable market, however those who got in while there were only 500 apps in the store were able to
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nology for storytellers is that virtual realit can immerse the audience in a way that no other medium can. A well-craſted virtual realit experi- ence suspends our disbelief to the point where we not only believe the story, but we believe we are in it. It has taken virtual realit a while
to get this point. The first devices appeared in the 1830s: two photo- graphs that tricked the brain into thinking it was a 3D image. The invention cycle accelerated through the 1960s, with the first head-
Go slowly
Enough roller-coasters. When I am on a roller-coaster, or a BMX bike, I’m focused on what’s in front of me and do not look around. I look around slowly when I am on a relaxing walk, when I am sitting down, or when environmental details are very important, like at a crime scene.
TIP Start the story slowly, and match the action to the medium.
mounted displays and then, in the 1980s and ’90s, the first mainstream consumer VR headsets appeared. However, movies such as “The Lawnmower Man” and “The Matrix” promised a qualit of experience that real-world technology could not match, and VR disappeared from the market. Now, technology has caught up and VR experiences are believable for the mainstream, not just those who want to believe. Importantly, we have also become used to experimentation with video formats with the growth of YouTube, YouTube 360, GoPros and cameras in our phones. With tech- nology now working and audiences primed to experience it, the stage is set for VR to prove itself. The only missing piece now is for the creative industry to deliver the experiences that the technology can deliver and that audiences are expecting. Creative experimentation in
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virtual realit is like a Burgess Shale of film, with games, TV and adver- tising companies testing 360 video, audio and interactivit. Experiments are very useful for the companies experimenting, but should not be considered a sustainable publishing strategy. Audiences can be turned off from new technologies rapidly, and if they judge virtual realit content on a series of hyped experi- ments, then the industry will take
Choose genre carefully VR is a very immersive
environment in which you can create powerful emotional
experiences. The lessons of tip two suggest genres such as horror, ghosts, crime,
romance and character-driven stories will work well. Action games will work; action videos will not.
TIP Match the genre to the medium. What works in video probably doesn’t work in VR.
build a fanbase in a way that is now impossible, with over two million apps to compete against. VR app stores still have small numbers of titles—the Playstation VR store launched with 230—and many companies are seeing the opportu- nities and mid-term economies of geting in early.
As with apps, the successful VR projects will be those that treat it as a unique medium, not just film with
a sharp step backwards. When Netflix started commis- sioning its original series, it learned from its experiences with “Lilyham- mer”, and then commited to the series of “House of Cards”. This is the approach that needs to be taken with VR content funding: that is, not to commit to a bunch of experi- ments, but rather one or two experi- ments, and then a full VR series that is allowed to grow over time with a strong narrative and characters, and all the elements that audiences expect in a story. It is this strategy that we at To
Play For believe in. We announced at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair that we have acquired the VR rights to the exciting new trilogy from Amy Lankester-Owen, focusing on the first book, Neuromod. The stories, aimed at the Young Adult market and set in a tense dystopian world (pictured), features mind-fusion techniques that enable characters to see inside other characters’ minds. From a production standpoint, we are using our experience in both 360 video production and 3D interactivit to create the Neuromod world. While innovation is occurring at an eye-watering pace, we using the following five points to define our approach to VR and ensure that the story is prioritised over the technology...
; Signposts are vital
Audio is usually underrated alongside video, but in VR it is part of the interface, just as important as a bright button on a website. Audio is the prompt that you should turn your head to look at something.
TIP Audio design is the new UX. A sound designer should contribute as much as a director of photography.
Story length
At Power to the Pixel’s confer- ence last year, VR outfit Oculus’ Saschka Unseld said it was
yet to create a VR project that engaged audiences longer than four minutes. VR games have more longevity than video games but have yet to match the 30 hours that is expected from a standard game. TIP Plan the experience in
short episodes until audiences are ready.
added 360. It will likely take only one title to make VR as a medium. It is our belief that building a project natively, rather than replicating previous media in this platform, will increase the chances of that project being the standout hit. History will tell, but if the projections are even close to being right, VR will impact storytelling across TV, film, games and books in ways we can only begin to imagine. ×
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Guy Gadney is the founder and director of To Play For, a digital storytelling company. He will be speaking as part of the Virtual Realities: The Market for Interactive Storytelling panel at the FutureBook Conference on 2nd December in London.
FutureBook | 2nd December 2016
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