Would you watch a virtual-reality Casablanca?
The question is ridiculous, but usefully so. VR will never be like the movies, culturally or aesthetically, and the best way to understand why may be to imagine you're experiencing the 1942 Warner Brothers classic not as a linear story viewed from a theater seat, but as an immersive world accessed by a digital headset.
Most of us would never leave Rick's Café Américain. We'd go behind the bar with Sascha, hover by Emil the croupier at the roulette table, hang out with Sam as he played "As Time Goes By" again. Me, I'd be following Peter Lorre's sniveling Ugarte. But the central drama of Rick's rekindled love and sacrifice for Ilsa Lund? We'd probably never get that far. Director Michael Curtiz and the Warner Brothers elves did such a brilliant job imagining the world of Casablanca that we'd be content to explore it until we bumped up against the walls, like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.
[...] VR will never become the new cinema. Instead, it will be a different thing. But what is that thing? And will audiences trained in passive linear narrative—where scene follows scene like beads on a string, and the string always pulls us forward—appreciate what the thing might be? Or will we only recognize it when the new medium has reached a certain maturity, the way audiences in 1903 sat up at The Great Train Robbery and recognized that, finally, here was a movie?
Movie critic Ty Burr goes on to review and discuss several VR productions and how they succeed or fail at using the new potential of virtual reality.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 19 2017, @03:22PM
The easy answer would be to say that the audience member's position within the VR scene would be static, and the only thing they could do would be to look around the scene. For example, when watching that latest action/comedy about the mismatched White and Black man drawn together to investigate a murder you can look forward to see them arguing, then look up and to the left after hearing the explosion to see that bomb go off on the 50th floor of a distant building.
However, that would require too much money to do, and since Hollywood has been churning out nothing but bullshit for the past 20-30 years and the PC trend is killing the "oomph" of movies, the best you're gonna get is what I described above but for a CGI movie. Let's hope a studio will have the balls to make one of those with niggers and tits. And maybe even nigger-tits.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @03:34PM
How about more like those Scandinavian detectives, where you walk along with the murder scene, notice that one important thing in the grass before the detectives do... something along those lines (extra hints that the detectives don't notice, but might give you a lead on the murderer).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @07:50PM
You are a very unimaginative and ill informed person..
It will be many things (unless it fails) and I think this is obvious to anyone with an IQ over 100.
Certain types of "story" games like "The Walking Dead" and others have already shown us what the interactive movie experience will tend towards. Games like Warcraft have shown us what interactive worlds will be like. These will progress as time goes on.
On the movie side have been the standard 3D movie experiences and the "pick your camera angle" movies. Visual environments combined with hydraulic space ship, air-plane simulators and fairground rides are also part of the spectrum.
The combination of movie with user interaction has already been underway and will continue in various forms. There will not be one solution.
And all the above without even referring to the infant VR solutions available right now with their peripherals, motion tracking, VR paint apps, weapons, etc, etc
I have been watching unimaginative fools comment on VR for a few years now and I must say it is always amusing. Whether it will be successful overall in the long term and not just a niche product will come down to price, market share, tech limitations, etc (as with ANY technology); but not due to lack of conceptual potential!
Also: you drunk, racist pig-man.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday February 19 2017, @08:56PM
Games like Warcraft have shown us what interactive worlds will be like.
No, games like World of Warcraft have shown us what padded playgrounds will be like. EVE Online shows us what interactive worlds will be like: just like this one. Did that just happen? Yeah, it did.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 19 2017, @09:21PM
Sod-off, you faggot-fuck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @04:46AM
lol.
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but you will still be the same, sad loser you have always been.
Sorry, there is no cure and its terminal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @09:38AM
Indeed, my first thought when reading this was: Don't look at movies, look at games. Games already do non-linear, interactive story telling.
But that is not the only place to look at: As with all new technologies, one place to look at is Science Fiction. In particular, the Star Trek holodeck is the perfected version of a VR environment. And its entertainment use is mostly role-playing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @07:09AM
You almost made it through an entire comment!!
Personally I've been hearing from older generations how media is way more offensive than ever. PC killing Hollywood? Lol more lime "waaah they don't pump out as much racist shit that makes me feel better about myself as they used to!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @08:54AM
I'm reminded of Police Quest and then almost any open world game since then (right up to the VR Star Wars game i played a couple of months ago) where I travel endlessly through a mute universe until I eventually accidentally trigger the event that progresses the stupid story. Open world my ass. All I've learned in the last 25 years of open world gaming is the all of the activity in the known universe only exists on some committee designed plot line, and that the out-of-the box thinking that rewards me handsomely in real life turns open world games a nightmarish hell that makes me yearn for a side scroller or FPS. Pivoting in a scene has got to be the limit for cinema, surely, after that its a single threaded plot in a vast open desert.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Sunday February 19 2017, @03:36PM
Hollywood for years had no idea what to do with 3D, and I'd argue they still really don't. 3D is a novelty that's placed on top of a movie that's "really" a 2D movie. Even movies shot with a 3D camera (as opposed to movies where 3D is layered on in post) generally are "2D first," and the framing, cinematography, etc., are primarily thought about in a 2D mindset.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:06PM
But 3D is very different from VR. 3D (compared to 2D) does not change the telling of the story; the director (you know, the egotistical maniac who thinks (s)he's a genius) retains full control over what you see and how you see it, the storyline is still fully under their control.
VR changes that in the way that as an audience member, you can choose to look wherever and explore a different narrative. In other words, the director has lost a large amount of control over the storytelling. It's that last bit that they need to learn how to deal with or evolve with/on/...
(Score: 1) by loic on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:07PM
The whole thinking behind a movie experience is totally opposed to what VR is. Movies are all about constructing a fixed point of view experience, an experience fully controlled by producers and directors. VR is all about the user experience, the interactivity, the custom POV.
VR makes zero sense for regular movies, by design it is a gaming, interactive thing. The only movie-like thing that VR could be used for, would be a fully 3D movie where every user has his own point of view rendered in real time. An interactive movie, quite analog to Telltale and Quantic Dream games.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:58PM
constructing a fixed point of view experience
To summarize my post from below, depending on the quality of the plot and the financial level of the backers you'll get some number of "multiple" instead of "a".
Then home viewers pick random perspective or pick one and watch the whole thing or random scene shifts to fill a predetermined amount of time or marathon it for 30 total hours of footage.
KSR Mars Trilogy filmed from the perspective of each of the original hundred colonists.
Insert any generic military action battle flick. Well, not the guy that dies 5 minutes in, probably. Some classic 50s and 60s WWII navy movies could be remade into "pick your captain and watch the fight from his perspective".
There exist sports movies, putting 40 cameras on 40 helmets is merely expensive, a mere linear scaling of 1 camera on 1 helmet. On the other hand something like Ninja Warrior isn't going to make much sense from multi-POV. On the other hand it would be revolutionary for something like the Olympics to allow anyone other than ticket holders to decide what they wanted to watch at any given instant. Imagine a football game where you can shut off the dumb sportscaster guy and the idiotic human interest stories and watch the entire game from the perspective of your favorite wide receiver or QB.
Realty TV in the "eliminate one per episode" genre would work extremely well. There would be a hell of a lot more camera and sound crews wandering around good luck with the editing.
PoV Pr0n obviously.
I distantly remember a Trek TNG or maybe DS9 episode along the lines of "a day in the life of three ensigns" although I'm sure it had a different name and this could work really well. Also the classic TNG episode where Picard was trapped in the turbo lift with some kids during some weird accident, that would be somewhat watchable from numerous perspectives, with some fine tuning.
I think most drama / soap opera stuff would work pretty well.
Maybe nature show documentary type stuff if technology improves enough it would be rather interesting to watch life from the perspective of ten different alpha male wolves (or whatever) as they live in a nature park.
I'd like to be able to watch a shit tier post 1990 documentary from PBS or cable without the stupid overlay of reality TV where they're always racing against time, I don't mind the pretty visuals and having graduated uni I don't need the narration written down to inspire 3rd graders. It would be more like a pre-80s BBC documentary.
Recorded music would be interesting in an era of "artists" being lipsyncing dancers and fashion models first and all that music stuff second, but at least in theory it would be interesting to see a rock concert from the POV of the drummer or bass player or whatever.
This is not going to be cheap, so first we will see fully CGI animated movies (I don't mean anime or rotoscoped either, but faked so well we can't tell).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @02:06AM
I distantly remember a Trek TNG or maybe DS9 episode along the lines of "a day in the life of three ensigns" although I'm sure it had a different name and this could work really well. Also the classic TNG episode where Picard was trapped in the turbo lift with some kids during some weird accident, that would be somewhat watchable from numerous perspectives, with some fine tuning.
It was TNG, "Lower Decks" [wikia.com], IIRC.
Oh, and you're welcome.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:21PM
And I'd argue you give them too much credit. Even two dimensional thinking is usually one too many.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Funny) by requerdanos on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:46PM
The string *always* pulls us forward? So, with that idea in mind, there's this interesting [xkcd.com] film from 2004(?) called Primer [imdb.com]...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:09PM
Huh. An XKCD comic that's actually worth looking at. Bra-VO.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @02:14AM
scene follows scene like beads on a string, and the string always pulls us forward
The string *always* pulls us forward? So, with that idea in mind, there's this interesting film from 2004(?) called Primer...
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana [wikipedia.org]
Perhaps "moving forward" here implies moving the *plot* forward, rather than an allusion to The Arrow of Time [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by termigator on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:53PM
Seems games like Mass Effect and other RPG games is the model to follow regarding VR.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday February 19 2017, @06:14PM
Well, yes.
Fiction that is (nominally) nonlinear and which is interactive (to whatever degree) is not a new thing that just now came about with VR. (See "Interactive Fiction" [wikipedia.org] at wikipedia for a treatment of the topic.)
Focusing on the "fiction" aspect, there are choose-your-own-ending [goodreads.com] books that represent a primitive form of the genre, expanding outward in complexity with text adventure [web-adventures.org] games, and the natural extension illustrated text adventure [infocom-if.org] games.
Focusing on the "interactive" aspect are story-bearing 3d first-person action games [Slideshow at RockPaperShotgun [rockpapershotgun.com]] as well as online multiplayer RPGs [wikipedia.org] and other online multiplayer environments.
And, focusing on both the story and on interactivity are DM-curated games such as DnD [wikipedia.org].
In short, this is already a rich method of storytelling that has had roughly a half-century to develop in modern incarnations. Each of the aspects above has something to contribute from its maturation and growth.
Force partial linearity? You have to find the blue key to get past that checkpoint.
Provide unpredictability and spontaneity? Here, use our MMO login page.
The environments are not identical--VR environments are viewed and controlled using their own interfaces--but the approach itself is the same. VR storytelling == interactive fiction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @09:06PM
Elder Scrolls games, Fallout, GTA?
Big open world games...
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:58PM
Someone never watched Star Trek..
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:10PM
The last time VR was a fad in the 90's it was pretty clear it would only ever be useful in a pretty narrow range of applications, you want it to be movie like entertainment? call me when you have a holodeck
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:53PM
Yeah. I think there is a world market [pcworld.com] for maybe five VRs.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Sunday February 19 2017, @06:00PM
I think there is a world market for maybe five VRs.
Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, and .... ?
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday February 19 2017, @09:29PM
Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, Drinking Engine Degreaser, and Why Oh Why Didn't I Take The Blue Pill.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday February 20 2017, @11:43AM
I have a unique VR problem. I really want one. I can (easily) afford one. However, I'm concerned that buying a VIVE or Rift now would be a big mistake. I think that in a few months, at most a year, we'll see a repeat of the Smart Phone explosion as generation 2 comes along with much more and better options that we have currently.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:35PM
What is VR? That hasn't been nailed down yet.
Now what I am thinking Hollywood will sell that might actually work is stream out multiple HD (Maybe 3D) streams and you get to pick your character to watch and switch during the movie. That fixes that whole PITA moving position and rendering thing.
If you watch it in a theater you get the directors cut. Or if you want to piss people off the projector could randomly switch every scene cut or so, such that nobody ever sees the same movie twice, which is interesting to think about WRT revenue.
Some stories like mysteries, some dramas, and pr0n will work pretty well. Some action flicks will work pretty well.
I think The Hobbit and LOTR would work pretty well. Most idiotic reality TV would work pretty well with one camera team per person. There will be issues, I mean can you insert enough filler and special effects to make the Harry Potter series watchable by anyone but Harry? Does batman or superman or spiderman make much sense from any perspective other than the leading dude? Then there's the in between stuff like most Trek.
My guess is this will lead to an atomization of the experience yet if done well a lot of repeat business. Imagine watching all of Tolkien from Gandalfs perspective and trying to talk to someone who watched the whole thing from Legolas perspective.
There is a little problem in that people only have $X to spend per year on visual entertainment or whatever you want to call Hollywood swill. That means if production costs go up by a factor of ten, you have a little problem with BAU economics. In reality, Hollywood is likely to follow a top40pop trajectory of extreme narrowcasting of formulaic junk until its exclusively consumed by perhaps 15 year old girls and no one else cares. My guess for extreme narrowcasting of movies is it'll settle on 16 year old teens as the sole target demographic and they'll shovel formulaic crap until they fade into obscurity. The formulaic narrowcasting model doesn't have room for "VR" so it won't go there.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:46PM
pr0n will work pretty well
Which medium of communication doesn't it work well in?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:50PM
Morse code?
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Sunday February 19 2017, @07:23PM
And semaphore.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @08:12PM
. - .. -- ... --- .-.-.-.-.-.....------------
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @10:48AM
Decoding: E T I M S O [Garbage]
I cannot see any porn in that.
You should have tried something like:
--- .... .... .... -.-.-.-- -- --- .-. . -.-.-.--
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday February 19 2017, @06:04PM
theology texts? feminist propaganda? childrens picture books?
I'm not sure its ever been tried in university level math and science textbooks, I'd like to participate in that research.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @06:41PM
theology texts?
Try reading the Bible. Or something older, say, Greek legends. Significant amount of theology texts are slashfics :)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday February 20 2017, @01:22AM
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.
But, seems it is all about the Λόγος, and not about the εἶδος, so the βίβλος are not so big on the interactive visual stuff. Think more like D&D, or Pascal's Wager.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @11:14AM
Well, it says the word is in the beginning, doesn't it? Well, that's also true for movies: It starts with a script. The filming happens later. There obviously have been some alterations of the text, to make it fit better in a religious content, but if undo those minor changes, you get a pretty good description of film making:
It all starts with a script, which them becomes life (i.e. gets filmed and ultimately shown in the cinema). And it is artificial light ("the light of the human race") that, in the form of a projector lamp, brings the film to life. But it only works if the projection is into a dark room ("the light shines in the darkness"), but of course the screen is not at all dark ("and the darkness has not overcome it").
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @08:00PM
Hollywood Has No Idea
You could have stopped there. Hollywood has never had any idea. Innovation was murdered in the name of Karl Marx. Hollywood jews made sure of that.
Hollywood is jewish, so you can bet that they have no creativity. The Devil is said to be uncreative and uses the same thing over and over.
Let us learn something today (Jew-rassic liars) [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday February 20 2017, @03:07AM
VR *isn't* a movie kind of thing. Even 3-D is only barely so, but VR explicitly isn't. To see one imagined scenario where it could work, look at the Niven & Barnes Dream Park novels. Or any of several computer games. I don't think the "platform-jumpers" or test-your reflexes games would translate well, but that may just be my taste.
The thing is, true VR requires extensive haptic feedback, and it can't require you to be shackled in one position. It would be a great think to use in a gym that was properly outfitted...but that means being able to run, jump, turn around, etc. while staying in the same real-world location. Nothing yet available will do that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @07:17AM
Standard movies won't work, VR would probably be better suited to for more in-depth entertainment than a simple passive storyline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @09:03AM
Percy filth, that's the answer. It's not just the eyes and ears, it's the "whole body" (for want of a better euphemism). The "adult industry" needs to grab this with both hands and develop the technology a bit further. Give it a few more years, and the technology will be adapted and simplified for less "personal" uses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @08:26PM
Too bad the adult film industry is busy with one of its two hands...
Oh well, I'm sure it'll develop it further just fine with one.