Virtual reality ‘will change films’

TWO Cape Town film students armed with a 360-degree camera and a custom remote control dolly are trying to reshape South Africa’s movie industry completely.

The unlikely duo of a former production assistant for Velocity Films and a Finnish marketing director had both become disenchanted with the direction in which film was headed.

Then‚ because of chance encounters‚ they became infatuated with the new medium of virtual reality (VR).

Co-producer Simon Sutton said: “You can be at the most exciting movie‚ but there are still parts where it gets boring. But VR is completely new.

“The feeling and emotion you get from these films gives you chills. It’s both thrilling and exciting.”

Sutton and co-producer Olli Thtinen then came up with the idea to write‚ fund and shoot South Africa’s first VR motion picture‚ titled 14 Minutes.

“VR is becoming huge internationally. There is a whole new wave of media coming from it.

“We want to inspire that new wave in South Africa. This exciting venture in filmmaking breaks all the rules that the industry has. “It implements a new set of rules‚” Sutton said. The film‚ which actually lasts 14 minutes‚ follows the lives of a detective and a mental specialist tasked with stopping a terrorist attack.

The duo has 14 minutes to infiltrate the mind of the terrorist‚ find the bomb and stop the attack.

Viewers will play along as a third character known as COBS (computer operated brain scanner).

The film will release in early November.