John Cusack and Christina Ricci have their VR debut with the Distorted Experience.

To complement the theatrical film release of Distorted on June 22nd, Minds Eye Entertainment and SkyVR have partnered to produce “Distorted Reality,” a scripted, live-action cinematic VR distributed through OneTouchVR on Google Daydream, Oculus Go, Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and iOs. The content will also be available in stereo 3D through the Littlstar app on Sony’s Playstation VR, Google Daydream, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR and more.

The story stars John Cusack, Christina Ricci and Brendan Fletcher in their virtual reality debuts. It was written & directed by Rob King, and produced by Josh Courtney, Travis Cloyd, Kevin DeWalt, Danielle Masters and  Rob Bryanton.

The story stars John Cusack, Christina Ricci and Brendan Fletcher in their virtual reality debuts
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In the experience, you follow a woman (Ricci) suffering from bipolar disorder as she comes to suspect the proprietor of the state-of-the-art ”smart apartment” she and her husband just moved into is using the building’s residents as unwitting guinea pigs for a ”synthetic telepathy” brainwashing plot with dire global ramifications.

Watching it in the new Oculus Go I really enjoyed the intimacy of the scenes, where you felt really up-close and personal with the actors. It also cleverly uses spatial audio to mimic the effect of having maniacal voices whispering all around, and even inside your head.

Watching it in the Oculus Go I enjoyed the intimate feel of the scenes
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“We are a throwback to the star-driven days of the movie business in this new hyperactive medium. In order to drive audience engagement and increase awareness, we believe we must bring together compelling narratives with marketable stars in order to bring VR to the masses,” said VR Producer Travis Cloyd who also worked in John Travolta’s VR debut Speed Kills. “We are excited to be one of the only groups facilitating A-list film star debuts in virtual reality, and we hope that others will follow our lead.”

Cloyd also explains that getting the right crew on board was crucial to delivering the VR experience without interfering with the filming of the actual feature.

“I love the team we assembled and the feeling when everything comes together. There was a lot of chemistry working with the producers at MindsEye and investors at Bridgegate and Invico Capital for my third project with all of them. The main highlight was working with Director Rob W. King. This was my second film where I got the chance to collaborate again with him on both the main feature and also the VR segment. He owned this new format and really took charge. Having a director on board who controls all aspects of both the main format and the 360 experience makes for not only a better all around product, but a smoother process. We adjusted the script, coordinated schedules as a team, and knew exactly and efficiently when we had the most time to shine. Never once was the main feature affected, which is the most important asset. More importantly, having one central voice who communicated with the cast made it easier on talent to participate and excel in both formats.”

Using 16 synchronized GoPro Hero4 cameras the experience was filmed with the GoPro Odyssey under Jump which is Google’s professional VR video solution making 3D-360 video production scalable and built for automated stitching and seamless VR video production.

I look at VR like gaming and not like the average filmmaking
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The experience was filmed using 16 synchronized Hero4 cameras with GoPro Odyssey under Jump - Google’s professional VR video solution
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Working in VR, according to Cloyd, presented a set of very unique challenges, not only in making the experience but in actually getting people to watch it as the medium is not universally pervasive yet:

“I look at VR like gaming and not like the average filmmaking. We go from inception to market delivery. Unlike film where you finish a final product and then it’s halftime. The real hard work begins when you have to distribute, market, and sell a movie. I like to say with VR, we conceptualize, write, create, produce, edit, and build custom environments for the film to be viewed on all VR applications, then drive market awareness through all platforms. It’s a full spectrum of services all the way through delivery to consumer.”

This article was originally published on VRScout

John Cusack & Christina Ricci Make Their VR Debut In ‘Distorted Reality’ via @alicebonasio https://t.co/BQiQRD1Mm4 pic.twitter.com/RR4p8UOtfT

— VRScout (@VRScout) June 19, 2018

For companies looking to leverage Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR Tech Trends offers a comprehensive range of Virtual Reality Consultancy Services.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Distorting Virtual Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.

Speed Kills is an epic experience that sets the bar high for cinematic VR.

Hannibal Pictures’ upcoming feature film Speed Kills will have one of the longest accompanying VR experiences ever brought to market, delivering over an hour of cinematic VR content. Produced by TopDogVR and Richard Del Castro, Guy Griffithe and Travis Cloyd, it will be cut into eight parts and delivered to VR platforms in episodic format as a free downloadable app in late 2017.

Speed Kills is John Travolta's first VR project
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The film will be cut into eight parts and delivered to VR platforms in episodic format
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Based on the book by Arthur J. Harris Speed Kills is inspired by the life of a speedboat racing champion who also created some of the most enduring boat brands in the industry, including Donzi Marine, Blue Thunder, and the legendary Cigarette. It’s currently in post production and will premiere Spring 2018.

This will be John Travolta’s VR debut, alongside a cast that also includes Katheryn Winnick (Vikings), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) and Kellan Lutz (Twilight).

When I direct VR I’m also directing our crews and solving these issues on the fly
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Director Travis Cloyd hopes this will set the bar for celebrity-driven cinematic virtual reality:

“How often can you stand next to a legend going 60 mph in a speedboat? Thanks to VR, this is finally a possibility, and we are excited to be crafting compelling, action-packed content for this medium.

Lutz, who plays Robbie Reemer, a speedboat racing, drug-running kingpin, described the filming process as “remarkable.” In one scene, you watch Lutz sling drug deals out at sea and get chased by the DEA while trying to offload his haul. With the use of VR drones and VR cameras strapped to speed boats racing on the open water.

“It’s definitely different than filming a standard format feature; less time, smaller crew, and really innovative technology,” he says.

Cinematographer Andrzej Sekula, who was the DP in Pulp Fiction, says he found building and plotting out the camera direction for a full 360 stage very interesting:

“This was my first time working with virtual reality and I can see why this will be a key part of the future of film,” He says, “I was fascinated by the cameras and shots. My career is built on building a shot and framing it, but they’ve taken that out the window. William Shakespeare once said, ‘Pleasure and action make the hours seem short,’ and it was truly a pleasure discussing and plotting shots with the VR team.”

Director Travis Cloyd hopes this will set the bar for celebrity-driven cinematic VR
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“We put together our own layout and script based on the feature film production,” explains Cloyd. “After reviewing the film’s script, we picked certain scenes we felt would lend themselves best to showcasing the story in 360. Sometimes we filmed while the crew was filming, other times we had our own standalone setup. In post production, we masked the crews.”

We reviewed the script to pick the scenes we felt would best lend themselves to VR
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Every single episode we created had countless crew removal and VFX work
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“People have no idea how hard it is to cut out crews and everything behind the frame of a standard 2D shot when your shooting 360 alongside a major production. There was a massive amount of clean-up issues when shooting within the standard production. Every single episode we created had countless crew removal and VFX work. Not to mention all the audio passes and color correction work that goes into 360. When we look into our head set display our POV is roughly 40-60 degrees of the entire 360 degree shot. So much of the overall spectrum has to go through this very long and intensive post process. 60+ minutes of VR is a lot of content. You will see an amazing experience with a combination of natural 360 shots and others where we had to repaint the entire backgrounds anywhere the rest of the crew was standing. It’s a ton of work, but in the final product you won’t know the difference”

Cloyd believes that shooting VR during the course of feature film production will eventually become the norm, but currently there are still major challenges to overcome and it is not the main priority, as it can’t be allowed to affect the bottom dollar or production schedule.

“To minimize interference with the production workflow, we worked around them and did not delay or affect their schedule in any way. We have to have a lot of production etiquette and can never allow the blame of missing feature shots to fall into the lap of the VR team. When I direct VR I’m not necessarily directing actors, but I’m also directing our crews and solving these issues on the fly. We need to stay on our toes and watch the A cam and B cam monitors to know where we can fit in and how close we can get to the actors without being in main production shots. These are spontaneous decisions and require us to block with production and have an open dialogue with the feature director, cinematographers and camera operators. In many cases we are the ultimate C cam team. Except maybe we have C cam, D cam and E cam’s out there. When the system is done right it’s very rewarding and the content is amazing.”

Ultimately, Cloyd concludes, working around the 360 spectrum is an incredibly complex dialogue with lots of moving parts, and the secret is to make all that work without anybody knowing they are there. “Like VR ghosts.”

This article was originally published on VRScout

Behind The Scenes with ‘Speed Kills’, John Travolta’s VR Debut via @alicebonasio https://t.co/zcXHb2cbjY pic.twitter.com/F2ibsbLEni

— VRScout (@VRScout) December 9, 2017

Tech Trends offers comprehensive Virtual Reality Consultancy services to support businesses looking to adopt VR/AR/MR technologies into their brand and communications strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Checking Out John Travolta’s Virtual Reality Debut appeared first on Tech Trends.

Filmmakers are fast recognising the amazing potential of VR as a storytelling medium, yet so far the experiences they created have been universally short.

There are a few reasons for that, including high production costs and issues around motion sickness that many people experience with prolonged immersion.

“There are very few experiences in this world that are worth 100% of your time and attention, and that’s one of the reasons why VR experiences tend to be shorter right now,” says Timoni West, Lead Designer at Unity’s research arm Unity Labs. “There’s no way to check your phone in VR, it’s very hard to find your drink if you’ve misplaced it. VR demands most of your attention, and there is nothing else out there that does that except maybe a newborn child.”

But while we probably won’t start watching feature-length films in VR until we solve these issues – and VR hardware advances make it possible to comfortably wear the headsets for extended periods of time – there’s nothing to stop some creative cross-pollination between Hollywood and VR happening in the meantime. In fact, the first such big-league partnership has just been announced:

Filmmakers are fast recognising the amazing potential of VR as a storytelling medium
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I want INVASION! to be the next Toy Story
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Baobab Studios is looking to turn its award-winning experience INVASION! into a feature film
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Roth Kirschenbaum Films is headed by Jeffrey Kirschenbaum (former Universal co-president) and Joe Roth, a producer specializing in giving unusual twists to classic children’s tales such as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman with Kristen Stewart and Angelina Jolie’s misunderstood bad fairy in Maleficent.

“VR has great storytelling power,” says Baobab’s Eric Darnell, who will write the script, and is no newbie to Hollywood himself, having grossed $2.5B box office from work on Antz and Madagascar films.

VR has great storytelling power
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So it’s fair to say they have big ambitions for the project:

“I want INVASION! to be the next Toy Story,” confirms Roth, “It struck an emotional chord.”

“The immersive beauty of INVASION! opened our eyes to fertile ground for new IP with amazing new characters,” adds Kirschenbaum.

I can see what they mean. When I eagerly unboxed my Samsung Gear VR a few months back, INVASION was the first experience I tried, and I was immediately captivated by the clumsy aliens trying to destroy the earth and the bunnies (one of which you embody) who do their best to stop them. I wasn’t alone. The experience won praise at Tribeca and Cannes and has consistently been a top download on Oculus, Samsung and Hulu.

VR is set to claim its place in the creative ecosystem
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VR is certainly set to claim its place in the creative ecosystem, and we shall be watching with interest to see how that pans out.

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Will VR Give Us the Next Toy Story? appeared first on Tech Trends.

The world and his wife are jumping on the VR bandwagon, and that means we’re seeing a lot more interesting content emerging every day.

Much of this is 360 video, which is the easiest to produce, but also the most limited in terms of interaction – you can look around the scene presented to you, but you can’t actually influence how the action unfolds.

360 video is the most common type of VR content but also the most limited in terms of interaction
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To keep users engaged and enjoying that content for longer, building more interactivity into those experiences is key. That’s what Virtual Reality production company YouVisit is doing in partnership with West Hollywood visitors bureau.

“Unlike traditional 360-degree videos that simply show a location, we give viewers the power to choose their own path and explore the areas they are interested in,” explains Abi Mandelbaum, CEO and cofounder of YouVisit

Viewers the power to choose their own path and explore the areas they're interested in
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The West Hollywood Experience takes viewers beyond 360 video and turns the city into an interactive playground, enabling you to choose which paths you explore, and which locals you talk to.

“In the past, West Hollywood has fallen victim to stereotypes about what the city is like and the types of people it caters to. Putting the experience in the viewer’s hands makes them an active participant in VR and helps them create an intimate connection with what they are seeing. For Visit West Hollywood, this means prospective travelers can explore the city by bike, jump into a high-intensity dodgeball game or get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the area’s top restaurants,” says Mandelbaum

The travel sector is fast catching on to the fact that VR will become an essential part of their toolkit in future, not only enabling “try before you buy” use cases, but making it possible for those who cannot physically visit places to still experience what makes them special.

This goes beyond straightforward tours, and allows creative content producers to dig deeper and present users with a different angle on a place; something they might not have experienced as a tourist. One example of this is the FT’s The City Within documentary which explores the social dynamics of Rio’s Favelas as part of its Hidden City VR experience, recently launched in partnership with Google.

West Hollywood Experience turns the city into an interactive playground
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“The world of VR has presented amazing opportunities to showcase properties, events and now entire destinations,” adds Jaimie du Bois, Director of Business Development for Visit West Hollywood   When working with the team at YouVisit, we were able to conceptualise and create a unique VR experience that allows visitors, travel agents and even residents to see a different side of West Hollywood through six separate vignettes. This experience can be showcased on our website and social media channels, but it’s also a great training tool to take on the road for trade shows and sales missions,” she concludes

You Can experience West Hollywood in all its VR Glory here

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Less Camera, More Action: Exploring Hollywood in Virtual Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.