USA TODAY NETWORK doubles down on virtual reality
In the year-and-a-half since our first foray into immersive storytelling with Harvest of Change in 2014, the USA TODAY NETWORK has pioneered key innovations in the VR field, taking consumers inside never-before-accessible experiences like a flight with the Blue Angels and a street level view of Cuba.) Check out those stories and more about our VR work at USA TODAY’s new VR Stories hub.)
With last week’s announcement of a VR news show and a branded content studio that will help to make VR a go-to tool for advertisers, the USA TODAY NETWORK is cementing its position at the vanguard of media innovation and alternate storytelling formats.
The news show, VRtually There, will spotlight top stories from news, sports, entertainment and business. Access will be via the dedicated page linked above or the VR Stories app. The branded content studio, GET Creative, will connect advertisers with the immersive VR experience, among other new premium content experiences.
Last week, amidst the announcement excitement, I quizzed USA TODAY NETWORK VR whiz Ray Soto — who joined Gannett after a decade in the gaming industry — about the upcoming show and the future of VR:
A lot of people hear VR and think “weeks of production and editing?” How do you take the VR technology and make it a daily or weekly experience?
Ray Soto: The coolest thing about our show is the ability to highlight our VR content in a format that is accessible to our users. This is great for someone who doesn’t have time to browse through hundreds of videos a day to find great 360 degree video content. The show is a quick hit of important events, feature stories, and even breaking news — all within a 360 degree space. If you want to know what’s hot in news in a 360 space, we’ve got the show for you.
Our journey to produce a daily VR show is an interesting story. It was an idea and challenge to do something that had never been done before. We spent weeks iterating on prototypes and developing pilots for internal testing. We mocked daily production and fine-tuned the process in an effort to identify bottlenecks in VR production. Once we had the pipeline set, we spent time developing a show format that highlighted our 360 degree video content and the USA TODAY NETWORK. We now reached a point that we have the software, hardware and format which allows us to produce VR content on a daily basis. We’ve got a great team of dedicated players laying the foundation of the daily VR show. Our backgrounds in this space vary but it’s the perfect balance of creative design and video production.
What kind of ramp up is there in terms of training and equipping newsrooms across the network?
RS: There’s definitely a ramp up as content creators need to understand hardware, software, workflow and the methodology of capturing great 360 content. But we’ve taken steps to ensure our markets are up to speed on production through on-site training and regular training summits. This gives everyone in our network an open channel to ask questions and even provide feedback. I guess you can say we have an open-source mentality when it comes to VR. We succeed as a network.
Can you give us a preview of some of the types of stories that will be told with VR on the fly?
RS: We’ve set ambitious goals within our team to develop never-before-seen immersive news experiences in near real-time by covering events as they happen. We aren’t limiting ourselves to any specific story type. A perfect example is a 360-degree still image that was taken during President Obama’s final State of the Union Address. We didn’t expect to capture 360 content of the event, but our photographer recognized the opportunity and spent less than five minutes to capture an amazing photograph within the chamber.
What’s next for VR, besides the show?
RS: We have some very cool projects currently in production which I guarantee will change the future of news within VR. Let’s just say, we’re ready to put our viewers into the news as it happens in a way that no one has seen before.
What’s another technology your team is keen to bring into use as a “news” application?
RS: Our small but passionate team has been focused on VR development for nearly two years but our vision for news is bigger! We’re called the Applied Technologies team, we’re more than just VR developers and content creators. This gives us the flexibility to explore the opportunities of news within emerging tech years before a platform becomes a consumer available product.
Can you remind us about your background in the gaming industry so we can tell everyone about the cool people with interesting pasts who work here?
RS: I was a game developer for over 10 years where I served as an art director and outsource manager at Electronic Arts. I lead creative teams developing the art style and design of several projects. I worked on large scale PC games with 3+ year production cycles and moved into mobile game development before joining Gannett.
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Read more about the USA TODAY NETWORK’s VR plans in The Wall Street Journal, TechSpot and TechNewsWorld.
