Virtual Reality - looks pretty uninteresting

Phil Rhodes · May 10, 2016

I hate to be the voice of doom, here, but isn't there an awful lot of meaningless management-speak going on about VR at the moment? The popular press and internet mouthpieces are full of long sentences about cutting-edge story development tools and emerging opportunities within these new spaces and innovative story-architecting audience interest-enablement. There's no real discussion of what concrete things might actually be done with any of these new technologies, presumably because nobody has bothered to think very hard about it yet. There's just a lot of largely-meaningless elevator pitching because someone thinks they can make some money out of it.

Gah.

P

Landon D. Parks · May 10, 2016

Frankly, I think VR is more of a novelty than 3D. Not discounting that at some point in the future it may well be a reality, but not for a LONG while will it ever become mainstream. The technology is still too finicky. I have a Samsung phone and invested in the VR headset. I can tell you that what it offers is - well - less than stellar. I have an Oculus rift for a while now for PC gaming, and that is really neat and works pretty well in the right sort of game (first person).

VR for movies, though, is a long way off. I attempted to watch some of the "gone" vr series on Samsung and found it terrible quality, dull, and uninspired.

Phil Rhodes · May 10, 2016

I tend to agree.

Using a VR headset in a virtual world is pretty much the same experience as computer games have been for a decade or more, just with a slightly different display device.

Spherical video is just... well... a bad film full of stitching errors you can only see a small part of at once.

It's really surprising that this is receiving as much attention as it is. Well, no, I guess it isn't. Because, as I say, someone thinks there's money to be made, so someone's going to talk it up. In meaningless management-speak. Just like happened for 3D.

P

Matthew W. Phillips · May 10, 2016

Well, Oculus Rift was brought to you by the same fellow who thought Facebook was a good idea. What did you expect?

Max Field · May 10, 2016

.... Facebook wasn't a good idea? lol

Landon D. Parks · May 10, 2016

Don't get me wrong, I love the rift - for games - or a few games, really... I just think VR has no place in movies.

Matthew W. Phillips · May 10, 2016

.... Facebook wasn't a good idea? lol

It was a great idea for Zuckerberg and the smart money who got in on the IPO. It wont be such a good idea for the long term buy and hold types who are banking on it. I mean, what really makes it any better than any other social media outlet? With recent reports of news filtering by insiders, it is getting bad press. That and people are always hungry for the latest and greatest and Facebook isnt aging well.

Sorry for the off-topic though.

Rakesh Malik · May 11, 2016

Phil, right now I would tend to agree. There's some cool stuff going on in the VR industry. It's pretty cool, and GoPro had a demo that showed some storytelling, but most of them were just showing "vr is cool" demos. The most frustrating part is that most of the HMDs didn't make allowances for glasses or focusing.

I think there's potential for it to be useful, but at the same time, I think you nailed regarding the sensationalist claims about how amazing it is. The idea that it might replace traditional filmmaking seems a bit silly; I think it's going to shine in interactive entertainment, but I don't see it replacing cinema. It's a different style of storytelling, but IMO the two can coexist just fine.

Kenny N Suleimanagich · May 11, 2016

I've seen some great documentary work done in 360 video, produced by BBC in the Calais "jungle" of migrants. But very very few things about it make sense beyond the "wow" factor.

Nathan Walters · May 11, 2016

I think virtual reality has huge potential. Obviously right now, it's used primarily for gimmick purposes. But people said the same thing about film. It will take a long time, possibly even decades, but I think it could be a viable new technology for story telling. Starting out, it will probably be used heavily in the gaming world. But upon maturation, I think it could be much more. Though the scariest implication for cinematography, I feel, is the lack of being able to frame an object, since the main point of VR is for the viewer to be able to look anywhere they choose. Will take some experimentation, I'm sure.