Adriana Vecchioli () works for the tech industry in Europe, and wrote few weeks ago a piece on Medium “How Virtual Reality is Changing Storytelling Forever“. We wanted to know more about her interest in virtual reality, and what her vision about this (not) new industry is. So, we asked her a few questions.
http://www.vrs.org.uk/
VR is quite a new industry, how do you see its development since 2014 (the year Facebook acquired Oculus) ? What could be the next steps to develop its audience ?
First, VR is not a new industry. It predates well before 2014.
The earliest prototypes appeared in the late 1950s: its first developments were conducted in the military with flight simulators. Since then, there has been several waves but VR development was halted by various challenges, such as the cost of hardware and failure at addressing a sizeable market.
But what has changed today then? The Oculus Rift indeed changed the game by giving a real sense of presence to the player. This was difficult to achieve before.
But most importantly, it showed there finally was a market: Oculus broke a record on Kickstarter by raising 2.4 millions dollars, before Facebook acquired it. More than 10,000 people contributed to the campaigns, which validated the existence of the VR market and proved that its perception has changed.
To reach a mass market, VR’s next steps are: accessibility, affordability and an ecosystem. VR hardware is not affordable yet, but some cheap tools can give a taste of it, such as using a smartphone into a Cardboard. Google managed to distribute 500,000 units in the first year, which helps fostering a VRdevelopers community to build cool stuff with VR.
What makes VR a totally new medium, where engineers and creators are working together to improve contents and gears ? Is this a new age for creation ?
Sadly, there is still little friction yet between the tech and entertainment industries. Both industries have radically different approaches to VR.
Take the question of the frame. First black and white, it evolved as new technologies emerged (color, sound, etc.). However over the past few years, innovation in the film industry has been limited: sure there have been incremental improvements, but nothing revolutionary yet. And nothing outside VR is pointing towards immersive storytelling in cinema.
Meanwhile, the video game industry ditched classic frame patterns years ago and started exploring the “player as a frame”. The player’s psychology frames the game as they want to see the world, and game designers have been exploring how to understand and predict it.
If both groups manage to closely collaborate with VR, we would see amazing works emerging. With Cinema’s exceptional stories and narratives and Gaming bringing life to characters as players, the best is yet to come.
Now it’s time for VR tech companies (Oculus, HTC among others) to directly make deals with Hollywood.
What sets VR apart is its power to trigger empathy. It’s an emotion engine.
theatlantic.com
On the opposition with cinema, and maybe television, do you think VR will replace them somehow, or they will find a way to coexist ?
It is hard to make predictions. VR could become the new TV, the new Cinema, the new Black – like silent films became obsolete in the 1930s. But VR could also become a standalone form of entertainment, with its own codes and genres.
As the surest way to predict your future is to create it, it will be on the content creators to define which path VR will follow, what works best for this medium.
Cinema is sclerotic today, nothing has changed in decades: it’s ripe for reinvention!
How can we think the language to develop VR with an audience which is in the center of the film/experience ? Can we talk about “movie” when you need to interact with the story ?
Does it matter if we call it “movie” or adopt a new word? What matters is emotions and stories.
Even more tangibly than cinema, the language of VR has to understand the player’s psychology: VR directors have to learn to be empathetic to their players and give them control over the experiences. To respect their differences and sensitivities but also empower them to take ownership of the story.
Brands and producers are really passionate about VR, yet we don’t see a lot of proper VR contents. What are your favorite (documentary, fiction, games…) ?
Some of my favorite VR experiences include:
– The New York Time 360 video serie. They’re all on YouTube and you can watch them using a Cardboard. ‘The Displaced’, about children at war, moved me the most,
– Google TiltBrush on HTC Vive: the controller becomes a 3D paint brush. It is very smooth and intuitive to use. I felt like a god creating a tiny universe at every brush stroke!
– ‘Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine‘ is a promising game. There’s only an early available, but it’s neat. I am not a die-hard fan of the Star Wars saga, but wielding a light saber to defend my space ship was a dream coming true.
You can find more about Adriana here.
Cover image from gdruk.com.
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