Have you ever heard of the Sanctuary Wood Museum near Ieper? If it can be called a museum at all. It is rather a museum-café. On the facade you read “ Sanctuary Wood Museum Hill 62”. Surrounded you see advertising panels. Coca Cola left and Stella Artois below. A flag of another soft drink brand is flying in front of the museum. Ice-Tea I think.

Every city in Belgium has its War Exhibition this year, theme walks and bike trails. Supplements of newspapers and magazines guide us through the war landscape. It is however this strange private museum that you can get to closest to the First World War. I am inclined to think that this site reveals more than any other museum. In a small room next to the café a private collection of war artifacts is exhibited. In the backyard there’s a trench. The next door house shows even more souvenirs. Loose memories of the Great War, brought together without much context. That’s what it looks like to me.

Most impressive is the collection of Verascope-viewers. The Verascope was a French designed camera capable of making stereo photos. In such a viewer you see a 3D slide. Scenes from the war. These 3D slides and the regular photos on the wall suddenly bring you very close to World War I. Closer than any exhibition and trench in the region, including the trench in the backyard.

Last year Fisheye participated in a DocLab of IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. This year we were asked to contribute to the DocLab Immersive Reality program. We were free to do our own thing. During the festival we will, in cooperation with other creative forces, be seeking the boundaries of non-fiction storytelling. They challenged us to do something with Oculus Rift. A documentary in virtual reality, that’s an interesting idea.

Non-fictional storytelling in virtual reality.

Since we were free to decide on the subject ourselves, we want to evoke the same experience, as the Sanctuary Wood Museum on Hill 62 does. We want to bring the viewer, in an almost casual way, very close to the reality of war. Contrary to most other Oculus Rift projects, we decided not make a roller-coaster story. No bombs or grenades. No typical game experience, as you may have seen at an Oculus demo. Let’s face it, they are about as retro as the hoverboard, don’t you think?

The lead character in our story is Ernst, a front soldier. You follow him in a trench, a real one as still exists today. While you wander about in the trenche, he talks about his experiences. The mood changes while you hear the story. The setting is hyperreal, the story true. And still nothing is what it seems. Sometimes reality surpasses imagination.

The story takes about ten minutes, depending on your track. The experience a bit longer. After the film we will hand over a document to the visitors. They will receive additional information, learn something about the context. We will also ask the visitors not to reveal their impressions. This is a dialogue they first of all have to make with themselves.

It has been a long search, but we (Wim, Simon and myself) finally decided to ignore the gamification possibilities and to underutilize the technology, so to speak. We want to make a non-fiction story, an interactive documentary about a soldier in the First World War. What you see and what you hear is for the most part real. The idea is to set the viewer thinking for himself. For myself and many others of my generation it looks as though that war is fully behind us. That our lives are safe and protected. That a war won’t ever happen in again. In Syria yes, but not here. Not in our lives.

That ‘s why it is important to dwell on World War I. The realization that this horror took place in our backyard is an option that we very much like to erase. It ’s our aim that our documentary leads to contemplation. Hopefully the Oculus Rift can be a help.

This project has been an intense journey for our team. Creating stories for virtual reality is like using a smart phone for the first time. You’re making decisions about in what way you want technology to interfere with reality. There are no clients to have meetings with, no brand guidelines to follow. The only two questions involved are; what story do we want to tell and how will the spectator experience this.

The DocLab Immersive Reality Program is an initiative of IDFA DocLab and the Brakke Grond.

Our team:

Wim Forceville — Fisheye

Fredo De Smet — Art Director and Storyteller

Simon Hold — Sound Artist

Yves Schots — 3D Scan specialist

Willem Mertens — 3D Artist

Gregory Vanlerberhge — Unity & 3D Ninja

With thanks to Veerle De Vreese — Programmer Brakke Grond