I saw a demo the other day of the Occulus Rift VR system. It was pretty cool. Combined with a handset (in this case it was a thing that looked sort of like a gun), it was pretty immersible. You could move around, knock over barrels, even sort of pick stuff up. I figure by the time it’s ready for prime time it’s going to be the break through VR system that gamers have been dreaming of for years now (well, this gamer has).
That got me thinking though. Could you produce a movie set in a VR environment and would people enjoy it? To me, you could do something similar to the demo I watched, which had a script but you could still look around or view the action at any angle. Everyone would have a subtly different perspective on the movie since no two people would be watching it exactly the same way. It would be radically different than any movie experience ever, since you could, in theory, walk around behind the actor talking, or maybe watch the reactions of someone the main character is talking too…or just look around the scenery (imagine being able to do this in something like Avatar…wow!).
But would this work? And would people enjoy it? Or would you have a problem with people getting sick due to VR induced motion sickness? And could a film maker be able to even pull it off?
(My assumption for the purposes of this thread is every movie goer would have an individual VR headset, complete with VR sound surround sound system, adjustable to the individuals preferences)
It’d have to be a completely computer-animated movie. There’s no way you’d be able to capture all of the angles needed from a real live set and actors.
I think it’d be kinda hard to tell a story if you don’t know what your audience is looking at or listening to. It would suck to never find out what “Rosebud” was because you were looking at the architecture of Xanadu and not at the fireplace.
That option was available in the holodecks from Star Trek. Instead of pretending to be one of the characters you could select non-interactive mode and just walk around the room watching a scenario being played out. It would be a very weird experience.
I think the first movies of this type will probably avoid trying to have a narrative. They’ll probably go for something more like a sightseeing experience where you can “visit” a circus or “explore” a haunted house or something like that. That way individuals can wander at their own pace and have a personalized experience without the filmmakers having to worry about trying to get everyone at the right point to see the next element of the story.
If it was made and performed in a manner similar to theatre in the round it could work. You’d enjoy it from any angle and varying distances from the actors.
Filmed however in a manner similar to many movies I don’t think so. Too many characters whispering their lines and the director relying on subtle facial reaction shots of actors to tell the story.
You could work it like a tabletop role playing game. Theoretically the player-characters have complete freedom, but the storyteller/gamemaster (if they’re good) has ways, from the imperceptible nudge to downright forcing players into the situations to move the story in the desired direction. Plot elements can be reworked on the fly and wherever the player goes, they still meet the NPC needed to move on, etc.
Sandbox video games have more limited improv abilities compared to human gamemasters, but it still limits movement in certain areas until the story can play out. If there’s nothing else to do but follow the intended plot, the VR viewer will go along. As long as the story is compelling, it would work. Not like a movie today, but it would work.
Sure you could; Disney used what would be basically the same process with The Timekeeper in Disney World. Granted, it wasn’t feature-film length, and I’m sure it was a bitch, but it could be done. With that said, CG would be a far more ideal environment.
And with all that said, no, this would be a terrible idea for movies. Who wants to crane their neck around to see what should be simply shown to them?
A few years ago, someone did a theater production with this idea. The play was a detective story set in an old mansion. Members of the audience would follow the actors around, and, after the end of the play, the viewers would get together and compare notes, to try to figure out whodunit.
I think it could work for the home-video market. You follow one character around, then rewind and follow another character. The writer would be tasked with juggling multiple plotlines, and making sure that every plotline always had interesting stuff going on.
Timecode used four cameras to capture four scenes simultaneously, and then projected them at the same time (in quadrants). I found the idea interesting, but as a film, it wan’t very successful - it was always hard to determine where you should be looking at any moment (maybe that was the point…). Imagine doing this in 3-D, with essentially unlimited “scenes” you could watch.
Recently, the play Sleep No More is something of an avante garde take on this idea. The whole thing takes place in a large, fully set-dressed space, and the audience freely wanders through, following actors or exploring on their own.
To the OP: I could imagine it working. I would imagine it more like, say, a fairly short movie set in an enclosed space (say, a motel or a space station) and requiring multiple viewings to have a chance to experience everything.
This would probably have to be built on videogame tech to work, so I’d imagine most early examples would probably be seen as games or machinima, probably with some interactive elements.
The day will come! They’ll release, not just the movie, but the full 3-D rendering data, so you can watch any scene from any angle.
Just as one example, wouldn’t it be nifty to watch the Chariot Race in Ben-Hur from above, so you get the full tactical sense of exactly where everyone is with respect to everyone else. You’d know exactly how long the clean-up guys had to drag away the wreckage of the chariots that didn’t make it.