Interactive film displays local virtual reality scene
Vancouver will host the first VR Global Summit in September
Vancouver’s burgeoning capacity for virtual reality production is a side of the film business that Hollywood North is increasingly setting its sights on.
The city has also been chosen as the host of the first VR Global Summit on Sept. 21-22, because it is the fastest-growing global hub for the technology. At the two-day event, more than 10 local companies developing VR technologies will be seeking investors to expand operations.
“NASA, the Pentagon, Boeing and every major organ that is using augmented reality in some way is going to be there,” said Nanci Basi, executive director of Vancouver Film and Media Centre at the Vancouver Economic Commission.
“Our latest study of the VFX industry, taking into account all the data and not just those working with the tax credits, shows that we are a $3.8 billion dollar industry.”
The genre is further showcased with Downloaded, a new, locally shot movie that aims to turn traditional cinematic storytelling into an interactive viewing experience. The eight-minute film allows a viewer to enter inside a computer with the lead character Lisa and try to escape it — or get trapped forever. Basi is executive producer.
“What Downloaded is showcasing is how we can take people from all sectors — scriptwriters, actors, filmmakers, animation specialists, user interface experts and so on — and bring them together to create,” said Basi.
Developed from roundtable discussions looking ahead to the VR summit, Downloaded presented new challenges for director Ollie Rankin.
The local VFX ace’s list of credits includes such works as the Lord of the Rings franchise, The Maze Runner and Transformers: Age of Extinction. He is upfront about the fact that a lot of the industry is hesitant to get involved in this sort of storytelling. VR filmmaking doesn’t have a playbook yet, and the technology is still emerging.
“We’re in very early days of exploration of narrative in beyond-the-screen/immersion and interactive filmmaking, and there are many complex challenges,” said Rankin.
“We’ve spent 100-plus years getting the audience to look at one place on the screen and with VR you are giving that away and letting them look wherever they want, and a lot of the directing tools don’t transfer directly to that. What we need is for a lot of people to be trying out ideas to see what works.”
Downloaded stars Vancou- ver actor Tiera Skovbye, who plays Polly Cooper in the hit series Riverdale. On the phone from Los Angeles where she is doing promotion for her new horror film Summer of 84, Skovbye says that acting in the film was unique.
“It was just me, which is cool but unusual, because you’re acting with yourself and not playing off others at all,” she said. “Plus, we shot it piece by piece in sequence, which isn’t how you typically film. Also, you shoot all these different outcomes depending on where and how the player/viewer is progressing and, if something doesn’t work, you go back and re-evaluate and reshoot.”
Rankin has been writing VR stories for awhile and sees each one as being both a narrative he wants to tell and a technique for maintaining viewer focus while successfully telling the story. Both he and Basi stress that user testing is going to be key in making movies like this.
Putting together a film that can have multiple outcomes means you have to shoot it multiple ways as well. The director’s layouts for Downloaded are something of a hybrid between a storyboard and a video game plot.
“I extensively mapped out the various narrative branches that could occur, and was really influenced by how the theatre actors had played to the audience depending on their level of engagement,” said Rankin.
“Even if you go into Downloaded and do nothing, you’ll get a narrative. But I also had to take into account those really robust viewers who come in with considerable video game experience who are immediately going to be looking for puzzles, games and so forth.”
This is tall order storytelling. During filming, it emerged that someone could get through the puzzles and other challenges ahead of the character. The crew reshot a number of sequences.
Skovbye, a non-gamer, feels that this new storytelling hybrid film/game form is something she could get into.
“I haven’t seen any of it yet, so I don’t know how it looks,” said Skovbye. “But I really do think what’s cool about Lisa is that you become her friend and trust her, it makes it more of a story you can get invested in than just a game.”
No stranger to producing sci-fi or supernatural mysteries, which by their very nature are usually about working through puzzles, Vancouver is well-positioned to take VR film to the next level. Follow Downloaded news on Twitter with #downloadedVR.