[Tim Wilson]

[Robert Olhsson] “The hype is because computer sales are in the toilet and silly-con-man valley desperately needs some way to make people’s computers obsolete so they can sell people more powerful replacements.”

I’m obvs on board with the hype, but I don’t agree with this at all. Nobody’s talking about new computers, Premiere Pro is supporting it with updates being fed through your existing subscriptions, and consumers can get in with the cell phones they already own and some Google Cardboard. I’m all-in for $16 and free delivery from Amazon Prime. You can get super-nice rigs for under $40.

In fact, I’m struck by how LITTLE incremental new revenue will be generated by this. Even the multi-camera rigs are inexpensive, and access to multiple GoPros or Blackmagic Cinema Cameras is easy. Even renting multiple Alexas is not unusual for productions that are renting any. This is all doable for a fraction of the cost anybody was ever talking about for 3D.

Which is why, again, I feel like this is “realer.” The storytelling is potentially disruptive, but production and consumption are anything but. As Steve notes, nearly everybody in this forum already owns all the computing juice they need.

[Tim Wilson]

[Andrew Kimery] “[David Lawrence] ”
Yes, great idea! Tim?”

I think creating a new forum is a virtual lock if Tim thinks its time as come around.

I’ll show myself out now. ;)”

No need. As the Good Book says, “Let the one of you who is without pun cast the first groan.”

Here ya go: VR (Virtual Reality)/360º Video

THIS one, I’ll happily rename. LOL Much lower barrier for a forum with no traffic. yet 🙂

As with most of the new forums we start (including this one), this new one is a “dynamic” forum, which pulls the keywords “VR” and “virtual reality” from anywhere in the site. Once it starts generating organic traffic, we’ll turn off the “dynamic” nature, and let it rise or fall as it will. Again, like this one.

As a result, the only thing in that forum right now is this thread (co-located), an assload of NAB press releases, and a thread from the Business forum which I can summarize as “I don’t see a way to make money from this yet.” LOL

I’ve culled most of the threads that were sucked up by the keyword mechanism, but there may be a few extraneous ones that sneak in until I refine it.

So it’s a little barren just yet, but it’s there. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

[Chris Harlan] “I think it would be fun to be swiveling back and forth, caught in an argument between Leslie and Ron.

I saw some great demos today at NAB over in the relatively meager “virtual reality pavilion.” I’m hopeful for VR, far more so than I ever have been for any kind of 3D.”

You have my attention. 🙂

re: Parks & Rec, fair enough! Putting me in the middle of a story might be cool.

re: NAB, Tell me more!

What was the pavilion like? What was there? What makes you say it’s meager?

Sorry to pester, but I’ve obviously got some feeeeelings about this. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

[David Lawrence] “Then I was handed a Cardboard viewer and watched Clouds Over Sidra. Boom. It Just Worked.”

That’s the irony. The simple way is (for now) the right way.

I posted an article earlier in the thread about the editor of the NYT VR – her favorite is good ol’ cardboard.

I had no idea that ViewMaster was doing this, though! Because I mentioned ViewMaster further upthread too! It really does strike me as the model. Shorter pieces, place-focused (“Thereness!”), more about exploration, interaction, experience rather than linear story.

News we just posted: Videoblocks has added some 360 clips to their marketplace, and is soliciting more. Take a gander.

Of particular interest to me was CEO Joel Holland’s observation that they know they’re ahead of the market on this — but they did it with 4K too, and that worked out just fine. 🙂 But it gives them a chance to move first, set the price, and try to shape the market rather than let “the market” “take care of itself” ie, not taking care of ME.

Anyway, I’m a fan of their boldness, AND a fan of their on-the-record acknowledgement that we’re all just a little bit shy of being able to create new discrete revenue streams yet.

[Tim Wilson]

[Walter Soyka] “I was extremely skeptical myself of the merit of VR before one of my partners really pushed me into exploring it in more depth.

Have you tried any current-gen VR experiences?”

It seems worth mentioning in the context of this particular forum that I *DO* feel that non-users have a valid perspective to offer on a thing. LOL

But I want to underscore Walter’s point. I haven’t personally encountered anyone who’s tried it and thinks it’s hooey.

Perhaps not quiiiiite there yet, but there’s a reason for the hype. This time around, It Just Works™. Not that it’s necessarily trying to do too much, but I think that’s GOOD.

But strap a current cell-phone on some $16 Google Cardboard, download the New York Times VR app as a start, and be prepared to be converted, at least a little.

Maybe call it “prepare to be prepared to be converted.” LOL

[Tim Wilson]

Another stupefying release from BMD. Details here: https://news.creativecow.net/story/881602

[Tim Wilson]

[David Lawrence] “We’re mostly interested in exploring 360/VR as a medium for what my colleague Michael Naimark calls “Thereness”.

It’s not surprising there’s a lot of interest in adapting narrative to VR. Early stuff usually starts on familiar grounds. But we think the more interesting stuff is at the margins, especially in the area of interactive representation of place.”

Freakin’ A! I knew I could count on you man! I’ll take two! LOL

[Tim Wilson]

[David Lawrence] “The more we experiment, the more we’ll learn.”

I’m counting on you to once again be leading the way. 🙂

I agree that it’s going to be interesting to see how to introduce authorial intent, but I think it’s also going to be interesting to see the extent to which authors can create environments untethered by narrative.

I know you remember Myst. You could spend YEARS in that thing without engaging with it as a game. It was a world that rewarded EVERY kind of exploration, or none.

So I think that THIS is the challenge. Not for the narratively inclined to find ways to shoehorn traditional storytelling structure into a medium not made for it, but for letting storytellers getting out of their own heads, to let themselves be shaped by the new medium’s new possibilities.

Which I know is exactly what you’re pursuing, David. I’m speaking more generally.

But I do continue to maintain that, for the time being anyway, the most compelling uses of 360/VR are to put us in new PLACES to let us explore, rather than to slip us into story streams that “ideally” approach conventionality.

Hence my immediate interest in the documentary potential: while no less authorial intent than narrative storytelling, and in some ways exponentially more, but also very much open to simultaneous parallel worlds. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since this thread began, and will be writing about it in the context of what’s shown at NAB…but this is what I keep coming back to.

Narrative filmmaking is narrative in the sense of Go HERE, look at THIS, the story is structured like THIS. No matter how far those barriers get pushed in whatever avant garde direction, that’s what it comes down. The camera points one way. What’s behind the camera is by definition OUT of the story.

In 360/VR, the story is being told in every direction. The story IS being able to see in every direction. The narrator has been removed.

That’s not to say that some clever person won’t figure how to create a 360 degree environment AND tell a story, with a UI that gives you some idea where in the environment some key elements of a variety of storylines are playing out — oh wait, they have. We call them videogames.

But for “video” content, rather than “videogame” content, I don’t see anything beyond immersive shorts as achievable…but the achievement in those so far can already be spectacular. I definitely think these will be by far the most fruitful avenues for the foreseeable future, and I don’t think that’s at all a bad thing. Quite the contrary. I think that’s the BEST thing.

[Tim Wilson]

You’re set now, Steve. Our system automatically flags posts going up in more than one place to prevent spambots. We just needed to make sure you weren’t one.

You appear not to be. 🙂

Regards,

Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW