immersive Archives - VR Playhouse Immersive Content for VR and AR

Apr 13

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What It’s Like to Work in Virtual Reality

By jordanh | Storytelling, Technology | No Comments

Let’s be real. Virtual reality is having a moment. Headsets are shipping, people are talking and VR is popping up all over pop culture in weird, interesting ways. It feels sweepingly omnipresent all of a sudden, like there was this plan in place to make VR a part of all of our lives and now that plan is in motion. And so people ask me what it’s like to work in the virtual reality industry. This is a hard question to answer in an interesting way. It’s difficult? It’s exciting? It’s crazysexycool? Yes. But also: Working in virtual reality is like being a first year resident on a primetime medical drama Not that I ever watched “Grey’s Anatomy” because for sure I never did but somehow I know that the pilot episode covered the first 48 hours in the residency of Meredith Grey and friends, just like the pilot episode…

Feb 04

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VR Playhouse is going to SXSW!

By jordanh | Festivals Conferences MeetUps, News | No Comments

Here’s a piece of news that we’re very excited to share: “The Surrogate,” a narrative, virtual reality experience VR Playhouse co-produced with Peter Flaherty and Logan Brown, is a finalist in the VR/AR category at SXSW’s Interactive Innovation Awards. Melding 360-video with a computer-generated explorable environment, The Surrogate immerses viewers in the consciousness of a female protagonist whose point of view they control as they explore the photorealistic passageways snaking behind the walls of a modern house. The viewer can see into the rooms of the house through a series of portals in which live action, hemispherical videos offer an immersive vantage point. The viewer is able to choose how they experience the narrative by moving through the passageways autonomously, deciding how they follow the action, and which rooms they look into at any given time. As the story begins, we learn that our protagonist suffers from an anxiety…

Jan 31

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VR Playhouse is at Sundance – Days 6 & 7: New Frontiers

By jordanh | Festivals Conferences MeetUps, Technology | 2 Comments

Our last two days at Sundance were probably my favorite, and not just because we were all kinda exhausted and spent more time than usual lounging around in sweatpants in front of our condo’s fireplace, which is, let’s face it, why anyone is drawn to a wintery vacation environ like the one Park City offers in the first place. Also though, I went through my two favorite VR/AR experiences of the festival on Wednesday. The first was from ILMxLAB and used 3D projections and motion tracking to create an immersive Star Wars Holo Cinema scene for its audience to enter into. The second was called Real Virtuality. You play this with a friend, each of you wearing a whole litany of sensors to track your actual movement as you work together to complete tasks and advance through a virtual world composed of familiar, genre settings like a deserted spaceship or…

Jan 19

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Journeys Into And Out Of The Remarkable VR POV

By jordanh | Storytelling | One Comment

I saw “Death Of A Salesman” for the first time at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1997. I was 16 years old and just starting to stumble into what it meant to be an adult and as I watched Willy Loman, crumbling under the weight of so many different familial and societal pressures, miraculously, I started to recognize myself. I saw myself in that 63 year old salesman and in that 50 year old play. And so even though the play is a tragedy, I didn’t walk away sad. I was instead reassured because I knew that the same fears I was just then facing lived in everyone else too. I knew I wasn’t alone. One of the great joys of interacting with art of any kind is the journey you take to find yourself in it, to uncover your own reflection there, as hidden as it may be, and…

Sep 22

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The Value of Virtual Tragedy

By jordanh | Storytelling | No Comments

The concept of presence, of being virtually and magically transported to a place, real or imagined, and having the feeling of truly being there, has always been and will continue to be, one of the chief selling points of virtual reality. But that concept of presence, and the value that VR gives to it, becomes much more complex when we’re talking about a place and an experience that no one would want to be present for. Such is the case when it comes to “[08:46]”, a new VR piece that recreates the events of September 11, 2001 from the point of view of an office worker in the World Trade Center’s North Tower. I can only guess as to the motives behind the creation of “[08:46]”. Whatever they may be, it is ultimately the prerogative of its makers. It’s a free country and, as with so many controversial works of art, if…

Jun 02

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Adventures in VR Storytelling, Part III

By jordanh | Storytelling | No Comments

PART III: SWAG, OR SCIENTIFIC, WILDLY AIMED GUESSES There’s always been a kind of implied power dynamic that exists in visual storytelling, a power that the storyteller is meant to have over his or her audience. And it’s more or less defined by the frame in which the story plays out. Because there’s always a frame. And the existence of that frame means that the storyteller has the ability to locate the components of his or her story in the space that the frame prescribes. He can compose a shot or a moment on stage and he can then juxtapose that with other shots, other moments. However you may or may not interpret the things you see, what, in fact, you are seeing is always up to the storyteller. Except not in VR. With immersive, 360 content, the frame is the entirety of the user’s field of vision which means, at any given moment, they’re creating their own frame…

Apr 16

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Adventures in VR Storytelling, Part II

By jordanh | Storytelling | No Comments

Part II: There Is No Third Person We’ve already discussed the distinct, dreamlike presence one feels inside a VR narrative; that feeling of being intimately present up until a point and then definitively detached. It’s a very special kind of presence and it can potentially lead to some very special kinds of stories. But frankly, the quality of the presence one feels in VR is secondary to the simple fact that you clearly have presence and that this presence is unavoidable. “Clouds Over Sidra” is a virtual reality short film that takes us to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. We meet a young girl who describes for us both the harsh difficulties and small joys inside Sidra as we immerse ourselves in scenes of daily life there; school, soccer games, family dinners. It’s one of the more emotionally arresting VR films to have come out, mainly because of the subject matter (a homesick little girl quietly crying in…

Apr 07

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Adventures in VR Storytelling, Part I

By jordanh | Storytelling | No Comments

The emergence of a new means of narrative happens, on average, about once every twenty-five years or so. This is a very inexact estimation, about as inexact as my definition of “narrative means.” Let’s just say that the means is the way in which a person receives their stories. So, for instance, in the 20th century, there were three big ones that emerged. First, there was film. Then came television. And then came video games. You could maybe also argue that comic books constitutes its own system but there have been serialized adventure stories with illustrations for quite awhile so is that really its own narrative conveyance? You can see what I mean about inexact. But so anyway, the point is that each of these systems came with their own rules and parameters and ways in which they function in partnership with the human brain and it took awhile for everyone to figure it all out. We’re…

Jul 18

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Immersive Experience vs. Screen Watching

By jordanh | Storytelling | No Comments

I love movies, and probably watch 3-4 per week via the usual portals: Netflix, Hulu, VUDU, and Amazon Prime. Don’t even get me started on the TV shows. I don’t anticipate that immersive VR experiences will ever change the appeal of watching a movie play out in front of me, especially since I can watch while also doing work on my computer. Much of the work I do involves tedious laptop editing, etc., and having something playing on the TV is pretty much the go-to for getting it done. But obviously, we over the Playhouse have fallen head over heels for VR. So let’s not say that VR and Oculus are going to make movies obsolete (we still listen to radio, right?), but what you get from the VR experience is different and deeply satisfying. The first thing I feel inside the Oculus is privacy. I feel like I’m in my own little…