My Experience with VR/360 Horror Films

By Rylan Gladson, University of Victoria When my mobile phone-housing “VR” headset came in the mail, I was fairly excited. I had never tried virtual reality of any sort, and my perception of it was limited to videos of people looking very silly while trying it. As with most innovations of this sort, the hype vastly outweighed the content. For the past year I had read an increasing number of articles and opinion pieces touting VR as being “the future of gaming,” or “the future of film.” Some people were calling it a new medium unto itself. But what I noticed that while a host of VR hype was flooding the internet, rarely (I can’t recall a single instance) was there hype around an actual VR game or film. It seemed that the platform itself was far more interesting than anything designed to be experienced with it, which seemed like…

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The Strengths of 360 VR

By Brad Seabrook, University of Victoria I first came into contact with 360o Virtual Reality film with no expectations. After arriving, my Google Cardboard sat on the self for over two weeks until the first time I picked it up. When I did finally pick it up, it wasn’t because I wanted to, but because I had to. This lack of excitement doesn’t speak well for the brand of 360o VR. I wasn’t hearing a lot about it, and what I was hearing was negative criticism of 360o being a broken gimmick. But I am not here to talk about what others say, am I? No, but when I did first “experience” 360o, I understood the criticism. Low resolution, double vision and an unconvincing immersion was what I found… until I began to really play with it. I’m going to liken 360o VR to a talking animal movie for a…

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Popular Online Media Producers and Their Attempts at 360° — Failure or Not?

By Kaitlyn Michaelis, University of Victoria As someone who has followed Rooster Teeth’s adventures since 2011, I’m fairly familiar with their production work and the kind of humorous content they put out. The media production company has put out more than a handful of short films, video game playthroughs, created TV mini series broadcasted through their own website (Day 5, RWBY, and Crunch Time, to name a few recent ones). When I started taking Writing 420 and learned that we were going to be making a short 360° film, Rooster Teeth uploaded a short live-action 360° film to YouTube called Kidnapped. The premise is that you are Agent X, caught in between two idiotic henchmen and their boss. You must be dispatched of, as you have come in the way of their plans. But through a comedic misinterpretation, the two bumbling henchmen take you out — an idyllic ride on…

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My Virtual Tragedy

by Brendan Lee, University of Victoria What began with childlike excitement, ended in frustration laced with venomous rage. My inaugural entrance into the virtual realm, the 360-degree, VR film, “Kidnapped”, reminded me of a certain memorable Christmas morning. It was the year 2000, I was an eight year old ball of energy, and it was finally the day! With the stocking ripped open, socks, pyjamas, and the new pair of ski mitts piled neatly on the couch, at last I opened my final gift. I peeled off the wrapping paper and immediately sprinted up the spiral staircase to my mom’s office, popped NHL 2001 into the disc drive and waited for the game to install. With the loading bar 90% filled in, an alarm pinged, and the progress halted. A message popped up on the screen and told me the computer didn’t have the proper graphics card. My older brother…

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White Room? More like Alright Room…

By Chandler McCorkindale, University of Victoria While doing research on 360-degree narrative films, I stumbled upon White Room: 02B3 (available for $3.99 on the App Store). I chose to write about this film because like our film currently in production, it was shot in both 360 degrees and a traditional Flattie format. In terms of the script, the film revolves around six strangers who awake seated around a table in a white room with a gun on it. Unsure of who they are, or how they got there. They only know that they are a part of an experiment that tests their ability to settle disputes with communication or conflict. This script is ideal from a 360-degree standpoint because it allows for a controlled shoot. Roddenberry Entertainment doesn’t have to worry about camera movement or positioning. They don’t have to worry about weather or natural lighting. Instead they can situate…

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“The Invisible Man” and Integrating Editing, Music and Cinematography into 360-degree Filmmaking

By Kate McCallum, University of Victoria One of the largest challenges with 360-degree filmmaking is figuring out how to successfully tell a story with the knowledge of 2d “flattie” filmmaking that can become limited within this new medium. Can filmmakers take tools such as cinematography, editing, animation, sound, and lighting and treat them the same in VR films as they would a flattie, or must they develop a new way of expressing the story within this new medium? The obvious is the latter, however the amount of integration is still to be discussed. My experience in viewing 360 films is limited and I’m definitely no expert in the topic, however the few films I have seen shy away from more stylistic elements of a flattie film. I’ve observed that these films tend to work with action in the space around the camera to move the story forward, rather than use…

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Sound Recorting and Editing for a 360 Film

Sound Recorting and Editing for a 360 Film