I believe it was during a session called “Shooting VR for Post” that I found myself identifying heavily with one of the panelists who said something to the effect of “Before VR, my work was a bit mundane. We’d take a look at a shot we needed to do in a meeting, and we wouldn’t even have to talk, we’d instantly know what our roles were and break to get down to work. With VR now, it’s not that easy, we need to knock our heads against the wall and really come up with ways to get the job done.”
As a web developer, I share this sentiment completely. The speaker expounded, giving an example like when Houdini comes out with a new node (I can only vaguely guess what this means), there’s a level of excitement, but it’s short lived. I feel similarly when a new Web API or Node.js based front-end workflow enhancement comes out, or a new framework is released. It changes our workflow in a nifty way, but it doesn’t necessarily change the work we create in a meaningful way.
It’s a big sentiment, and I feel it’s absolutely monumental that I happen to share this sentiment about the same new technology with a cinematographer…someone whom I might never even speak to in a professional capacity. I also seem to share this sentiment with sound engineers, game developers, VFX artists, hardware manufacturers, and more. I even had a fascinating conversation about depth being registered in your hypothalamus vs your visual cortex with a Game Developer/Designer/Cognitive Psychologist.
I’m silo-ing people a bit here because the more curious amongst us (including myself) have always enjoyed exploring the fringes of our craft. It’s not necessarily true that I wouldn’t talk to a cinematographer as a web developer, but it’s also not necessarily normal.
The point is that VR is bringing the best minds from all disciplines together and dissolving the fringes between these disciplines. Conferences like VRLA allow the stories of these boundaries breaking down to be told.
This is incredibly important, not only for getting acquainted with what skills are being injected into this new medium and why, but also because nobody knows the right way to do things. When there’s no right way to do things, there’s no book you can buy, nothing to Google, nothing we can do except hear about fleeting experiences from people that got their hands dirty. We need to hear about their pain and about their opinions formed from creating something new and unique. When we hear lots of such perspectives, we can assemble a big picture, which I’m sure will be shattered by the next VRLA. I’ll be waiting to learn about the hypothetical magician a panelist cited as a great collaborator for focusing attention in a 360-degree world.
Also interesting is the regionality of VR creators. I feel like I hear an entirely different story in San Francisco versus what I heard at VRLA. When I attend the (admittedly low number of, so far) meetups around the Bay Area, it’s mostly about hardware, platforms, new app ideas, prototypes, social experiences. In LA, I feel that it was overwhelmingly VFX, cinematography, sound design…a very heavy focus on well-produced content. I’m still uncertain about the regionality around game development, perhaps because it’s relatively regionless. Though, one memorable paraphrased line on that subject was “Game devs are now sitting in the same room as VFX artists and directors.”
Perhaps one of the more interesting things I picked up was the different stories from different creators on immersive video. Immersive or 360 video seems like a mainstay in VR. The cries of it not really being VR have been sufficiently drowned out with most, if not all, presenters acknowledging the sentiment but disagreeing with it. Andrew Schwarz of Radiant Images, for example, called immersive video the “killer app” of VR. I expected this sentiment, especially in a city with so much film talent.
Andrew Schwarz of Radiant Images showing the new completely modular camera mount (AXA 360 Camera System) for immersive media
What I did not expect was the nuance verging on disagreement from Dario Raciti of OMD Zero Code. His point of view seemed to be that the novelty of immersive video has waned. His interest lies in creating marketing campaigns that make brands like Nissan and Gatorade stand out from the rest. Answering my question of what kinds of projects he tries to sell to clients, he flat out says he tries to discourage pure 360 video. Instead, he prefers a more immersive experience mixed with 360 video.
An excellent example of this was his “Let Hawaii Happen” piece. The user begins on a parachute they can steer and navigate to various islands in Hawaii. Once they’ve landed, it switches to a non-interactive 360 video tour.
I think Dario’s take on advertising with VR is very much worth listening to. His team also created a car-shopping VR experience for Nissan in which the user is seated to get a feel for the interior of the car, much like what you would do car shopping in reality. Outside the windows, however, a much different scene plays out: the viewer is also part of a battle in the Star Wars universe.
That exemplifies Dario’s notion of mixing real-time 3D content with immersive video, but it also touches on his point about advertising in general. To liberally paraphrase, Dario feels you should never beat the user over the head with branding. No logos, no mentioning of the brand unless its subtle and integrated into the experience. The experience always comes first, and if it’s memorable, it will sell the brand.
To me, this speaks to the larger issue of taking concepts we already employ en masse in traditional media and shoe-horning them into VR. Advertisers, I know you’re already thinking of this. You want to cut to commercial, put your logo on the bottom third of the screen, and include voice overs about how your brand is the best. Dario is saying to create good marketing experiences, let the content flow freely and be subtle about your brand. Consumers will respond better. He even cited “Pearl,” an Oscar-nominated VR short, as an example of something that could be a commercial with extremely limited changes.
The notion of shoe-horning brings another memorable notion to mind. To date, I’ve been thinking about VR like the jump from desktop to mobile. But the better analogy from one panelist was that “VR is like the jump from print to digital.” While stubbornness to hold on to the old ways can be detrimental, years of experience coupled with open-mindedness can be a huge asset.
In the Cinematographers’ panel, it was mentioned that old 3D tricks, because of limited processing power, are now coming back into fashion. The reason being that game engines like Unreal are coming into favor for doing real-time previews of scenes. Even traditional film equipment is being recreated in VR to help production. To hear a cinematographer talk about replicating a camera crane in VR and then shrinking it down, scaling it up, putting it on a mountain-top…. all within a day’s shoot was incredibly interesting.
Shooting VR for Post Panel
The panelists and presenters at VRLA shared so much of their recent, and super fascinating, experiences based on their experimentation. This was a bit unfortunate, because I found myself glued to the presentation rooms and out of the expo floor. I saved my 2-hour lap through the expo hall until the very end. As expected, the lines for the more interesting experiences were either too long or closed. I can’t fault VRLA or their exhibitors for this; it seems a standard downside of VR conferences. I would wager that the most popular experience was the Augmented Reality (Hololens) Easter Egg hunt. As I didn’t experience it, I’ll just leave you with a photo because it looks awesome.
Microsoft Hololens Augmented Reality Easter Egg Hunt[/caption]
Of course, like Microsoft, a bunch of big vendors were there: Facebook, HTC, Intel. Although I don’t own a Vive, their talk of the multi-platform subscription service and their wireless headset was exciting. So was hearing how dedicated Intel, HTC, and HP are to VR developers. Yes, Facebook and MS are dedicated to Mixed Reality as well, but for me, that message was well received a while ago, so it’s awesome to see the pile on.
Being that there were around 170 exhibitors at VRLA, there were tons of smaller ones showing games, hardware, new experiences, and new creative tools. One notable company, Mindshow (http://mindshow.com), offers creative tools for recording animated characters with your body and voice in real-time. Watching from the expo floor, I was a bit disappointed as it felt too scripted. However, a booth attendant assured me it was that way for the 10-minute, quick demo for conference go-ers. It makes sense that you’d probably not want to start users with a blank slate if you only have a short window to impress them. So, if Mindshow is what I think it is, I can imagine having so much fun myself, and I can see many people creating awesome animated content extremely easily….but I’ve been known to overhype things in my own head.
Though it was my first time, VRLA has been going on for 3 years now and they’ve grown exponentially. The conference-going experience was not as seamless as others I’ve been to. The Friday keynote was delayed by at least 30 minutes because the speaker had no slide notes, which set off a cascade of presentation time pushbacks. There were constant audio issues, and the light field talk I was really looking forward to was cancelled with no explanation. This is all forgivable and probably par for the course given how many people from different disciplines are coming in and bringing their passions and experiences. There’s an amazing energy in VR. Organizations and conferences like VRLA focus it. It might not be laserlike as VR grows exponentially, but with a medium so young and with so many stories still to be told from creators about their experimentation, everything is appreciated.