I spent the day consuming virtual reality movies and here's the good and bad i've learned.
First the good
Scale
With VR you would never meet an actor and say "Wow you're shorter in real life" because you can actually look at people and tell how tall they are. There was a great tom cruise video featuring his zero gravity plane crash stunt in the mummy and with VR it felt like i was in the room to scale with him. Something like LOTR beginning with a giant sized sauron swatting everyone in the battle would feel much more epic and intimidating in VR.
Sports
Yes sports! Speaking of scale.. you can really appreciate a volleyball match.
And have you ever sat right next to the mat for gymnastics at the olympics?
I just did and it's impressive
Dance competitions are great too - it's all talent and no camera moves or edits.
Speaking of which it also made zoolander look stupidly out of place when he was strutting next to actual runway models.. an effect I didn't experience watching the films.
Stand out!
There's not much competition in this field if you wanted to make a VR film, it would be easier to stand out.
You probably wouldn't make much money but we all know how difficult it is to find any audience in the regular youtube crowd. People are hungry for good VR experiences and there is no massive requirement for a 90 minute script.
Now the bad
When a narrator talks you spin around to see if you're missing someone. And if the movie changes viewpoints it feels like a burden having to constantly readjust your screen to turn where the action is. I'd rather just watch a movie ya know? Not micromanage the pov, that's the directors job.
An action movie where dude points a gun and you have to turn your head to see the victim getting shot is awful
Nothing about that is enjoyable for the audience member
Apparently it's hard to focus. A lot of content is soft focus.
The resolution is really bad.. it's far below 4k tv
Content
Cross fade works great for editing in VR
There's also hardly any content and most of it is very short.
The only good stuff i've found is bonus content from famous productions.
IT has a reenactment of that opening boat down the sewer drain scene with andy skarsgard and holy shit that dude is scary.
Lego Batman has many of the famous voices and will arnett fires off a lot of great jokes
It's Always Sunny has a really enjoyable 3-4 minute clip involving something that may or may not be a snuff film.
Oculus studios did some short films to promote the vr but they might as well be watched without a headset. There was no point to putting them in VR.
Until the resolution dramatically increases the only media people will be consuming in VR is the sort of media that greatly benefits from the medium.
First the good
Scale
With VR you would never meet an actor and say "Wow you're shorter in real life" because you can actually look at people and tell how tall they are. There was a great tom cruise video featuring his zero gravity plane crash stunt in the mummy and with VR it felt like i was in the room to scale with him. Something like LOTR beginning with a giant sized sauron swatting everyone in the battle would feel much more epic and intimidating in VR.
Sports
Yes sports! Speaking of scale.. you can really appreciate a volleyball match.
And have you ever sat right next to the mat for gymnastics at the olympics?
I just did and it's impressive
Dance competitions are great too - it's all talent and no camera moves or edits.
Speaking of which it also made zoolander look stupidly out of place when he was strutting next to actual runway models.. an effect I didn't experience watching the films.
Stand out!
There's not much competition in this field if you wanted to make a VR film, it would be easier to stand out.
You probably wouldn't make much money but we all know how difficult it is to find any audience in the regular youtube crowd. People are hungry for good VR experiences and there is no massive requirement for a 90 minute script.
Now the bad
When a narrator talks you spin around to see if you're missing someone. And if the movie changes viewpoints it feels like a burden having to constantly readjust your screen to turn where the action is. I'd rather just watch a movie ya know? Not micromanage the pov, that's the directors job.
An action movie where dude points a gun and you have to turn your head to see the victim getting shot is awful
Nothing about that is enjoyable for the audience member
Apparently it's hard to focus. A lot of content is soft focus.
The resolution is really bad.. it's far below 4k tv
Content
Cross fade works great for editing in VR
There's also hardly any content and most of it is very short.
The only good stuff i've found is bonus content from famous productions.
IT has a reenactment of that opening boat down the sewer drain scene with andy skarsgard and holy shit that dude is scary.
Lego Batman has many of the famous voices and will arnett fires off a lot of great jokes
It's Always Sunny has a really enjoyable 3-4 minute clip involving something that may or may not be a snuff film.
Oculus studios did some short films to promote the vr but they might as well be watched without a headset. There was no point to putting them in VR.
Until the resolution dramatically increases the only media people will be consuming in VR is the sort of media that greatly benefits from the medium.
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