VR movies: more realistic dreams

Most domestic video manufacturers are still researching 360 stitching, but some have already begun to study the artistic language of virtual reality... Think about it, it took decades from the arrival of the train to the emergence of montage and other techniques; and the accumulation and evolution of such things cannot be achieved by just throwing money at them - At the same time, whether virtual reality, known as the ultimate media, can live up to its name and be accepted by the public depends on whether these artistic things can be successfully realized and arrived. Let's see what Tiber, a mysterious figure hidden in the virtual reality world, thinks about the techniques and language of virtual reality!

In a sense, art is a byproduct of language. Ever since humans emerged from the primitive age and developed language, art has been around. When humans were still hunter-gatherers, our ancestors drew crude drawings of bison on the walls of caves; then we invented stories and art, gods and kings, religion and politics, painting and music, and everything. So far, we have a total of eight types of art: literature, music, dance, drama, painting, sculpture, architecture, and film. People are still arguing about whether games should be included in the category of art and become the "ninth art"; what about VR?

The general public, and even many industry insiders, believe that VR movies are nothing more than a technological advancement: replacing traditional movie cameras with 360-degree cameras, allowing viewers to turn their heads at will to watch 360-degree scenes, is considered a VR movie; in fact, many current VR movies do the same, Youtube has a VR channel, Google has Google Spotlight Stories, all of which are traditional movie techniques with 360-degree cameras. Of course, such VR movies are technically quite difficult - the director must consider the watchability of every perspective, not just one perspective; the previous methods of framing, camera movement, editing, etc. are completely ruined, and new lens languages ​​need to be considered. The short films in Google Spotlight Stories are all shot in one shot, with no split screens in between; but the camera still moves with the story.

Some people think that VR movies are 360-degree viewing angles.

However, this is not a real VR movie. Youtube's VR channel and Google Spotlight Stories are not watched with VR headsets. The best way to watch is to use a mobile phone to move in space to view different perspectives. Real VR movies, of course, require the use of VR headsets, binocular parallax to create a sense of depth, and precise positioning in space. The audience is really immersed in VR movies. Therefore, current VR movies are all rendered in real time using game engines rather than traditional movies or animations, because the audience needs to explore the story in the movie independently in such a virtual environment. Similarly, many restrictions in VR technology must also be followed, such as not forcibly restricting the audience's perspective (otherwise the audience will feel very unnatural), and must combine the movement in VR with the audience's body movement (otherwise it will cause motion sickness), and there is a limit on the basic frame rate (greater than 90 frames), etc. But this is only a technical requirement.

Google Spotlight Stories

VR movies may not just be a technical advancement like the transition from silent to sound, from black and white to color, or from 2D to 3D; it may be a leap forward in art forms, just like the transition from painting to sculpture, or from photography to film. Movies pop out of a two-dimensional screen window and enter a three-dimensional space. The increase in all art forms involves such a dimensional transformation, including the dimension of space and the dimension of time.

The earliest art form of mankind may be storytelling. Literature is a one-dimensional art. The ups and downs of sound became music, and music added a dimension of time. Art is no longer a static thing, but a form that has a beginning and an end in time. Painting and photography add the dimension of space. It is a two-dimensional static art. When it comes to film, the static image begins to move, and it becomes a two-dimensional dynamic art.

So what about VR movies?

VR takes place in three-dimensional space. The audience no longer looks out of a screen window, but is in that environment to experience what is happening in that virtual world. Therefore, the assumption in current movies that the audience is just an object (camera) observing what is happening in the movie is actually not true in VR. VR inherently requires a subject existence of "being there", which is in natural conflict with the field of film and traditional drama - the field of film and drama requires the audience to be "present" while being "absent", which is the meaning of the so-called "fourth wall": it requires the audience to pretend to witness a virtual performance as if they were witnessing a real event, that is, "suspension of doubt". This is not true in VR movies. Oculus Story Studio - a pioneer in exploring VR narratives, is constantly experimenting and summarizing their experiences and lessons in making VR movies in their production.

Oculus Story Studio found that in VR narratives, "suspending disbelief" is a very difficult thing. The unprecedented sense of presence brought by VR gives the audience the illusion of "presence", but in such a narrative, the stronger the sense of presence, the more the audience is confused about one thing: what is their position in this scene? The audience is both "present" and "absent": you are clearly in such a virtual environment, but you cannot have any impact on that world - there is no clue in that world that you are there, so why should the audience care about the story?

This is the problem: the greatly enhanced sense of immersion brings about a sense of alienation for the audience. The audience needs a ritual, a place to enter the character and the story. The "suspension of disbelief" and the fourth wall may be a necessary factor in the narrative; but in VR, the fourth wall does not actually exist, and this is where the problem lies.

Lost

Oculus Story Studio found that allowing the audience to interact with the characters in the story is a solution. Letting the characters in the story make some actions to show the presence of the audience is a good way to enhance the emotional connection between the audience and the story. In the short film "Lost", the huge mechanical hand will run over to test the audience's presence; in "Henry", Henry can use his eyes to signal the audience. Although here, the identity of the audience is still unclear. In "Henry", Henry is a lonely little hedgehog celebrating his birthday, but since he can discover your existence and signal you, it means that Henry is no longer lonely, and the logic of the entire short film is no longer valid. The audience is present, but there is still no answer to how they are present. The problems we have seen in the past, those movies and dramas that broke the fourth wall (such as "House of Cards" that occasionally talks to the outside of the camera), still face the same problem: breaking the fourth wall eliminates the meaning of the narrative, the audience is aware of their own existence, and they are out of the field, and "suspicion" is no longer suspended.

Henry

What I am thinking of here is a form of drama called immersive drama. The audience moves freely in a space to discover the plots of different performances in different spaces. Future VR movies may be very close to this form to a large extent. However, immersive drama still does not solve the problem of audience presence and interactivity. Although the audience can move freely in the space, the only action they can take is "watching". The actors will not interact with the audience, so the "immersion" fails. So what level can a VR movie with a truly immersive interactive environment reach?

How to convey the story and emotion itself in such an immersive interactive environment, I must give an example: the 2007 game "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare". In the first level "Crew Expendable", the player, as a member of the British SAS special forces, participated in a raid on a freighter on the turbulent waves of the North Pacific, discovered the nuclear warheads loaded on it, and then evacuated. Although the player has the right to act freely in the game, in this process, he has been guided step by step by the producer using scripts and atmosphere rendering. After discovering the nuclear bomb, the player's team learned that two fighters had attacked the freighter and must evacuate immediately. At this time, the whole atmosphere reached its climax. At that moment, the player seemed to have really transformed into a member of the SAS special forces, desperately trying to escape from the sinking freighter. At the last moment, the rescue helicopter had taken off, and the player jumped thrillingly and was pulled onto the helicopter by Captain Price. Only then did the player breathe a sigh of relief: We are all safe! Escape at the last second! Any thrilling Hollywood action blockbuster may not be able to give the audience this level of experience.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

This game is a near-perfect answer to the question of how to tell a story in an interactive environment. The player is a participant in the action and also a spectator; these two identities are very well combined. VR movies in the future can fully absorb this method to explore a new set of narrative grammar. We can even imagine that in future VR movies, such an experience can be reproduced in a more immersive and intense form.

What will VR movies look like in the future? We don't know yet. It may not be completely passive like movies, nor will it be as interactive as games. It may be something between games and movies. I think a better term may be "VR narrative experience". Movies have been used for more than a hundred years and have developed a mature narrative language; VR movies will also need to go through this process. VR will be a three-dimensional art with a time dimension. It may be the last art form invented by humans before the arrival of the singularity.

Literature, music, movies, since humans had language, they have invented these means to experience other people's dreams. VR, virtual reality, is the latest one. Will VR movies replace traditional movies? Have movies replaced dramas? Maybe in a few decades, we will all upload ourselves into the Matrix and dream forever; but before that, VR will bring us a more real dream.