VR-me, VR-me-not: What you must know before joining the virtual reality gold rush
The first quote I’ve ever received from a VR company left me discouraged and suspicious. It felt like -
Following the white rabbit… into the money pit
“£80,000 for a 4 minute VR trailer?” — for any documentary filmmaker/producer this sounds a bit like a “no go” sign. By comparison, BBC Storyville, the UK documentary broadcaster, would give you the same amount for a one-hour feature film, if you’re lucky.
It all started in June 2016, when I joined a hackathon organized by the French software company WondaVR, and, hence, the armada of VR-enthusiasts. There, filmmakers from all backgrounds delivered five-minute VR segments in 48 hours, showcased then at the Paris VR festival. We used Samsung Gears and camera rigs; the whole process was smooth, and we left the event exhausted, but convinced that there’s only a small step separating us from becoming the new generation of VR storytellers. It turned out to be slightly more complicated than that…
The democratization of VR content-making is still to come
No one wants to stay at the edge of the playground. And VR seems pretty much the place to be — even the Rio summer Olympics — starting August 6th — are broadcast in VR. The power of immersive storytelling no longer needs to be established. And for documentaries VR could be a tipping point. One of the latest NYT productions, The Displaced, gives a first-person view of what it is to flee a country at war. And it is stunning.
Following the reception of that quote, I carefully compared a few VR companies out there in UK and France, and had to admit we wouldn’t get anything better.
Prohibitive prices of gear rental and post-production costs make it sound like we’d rather do the VR trailer ourselves.
The only question was — how?
A closely guarded secret
Knowing the potential impact (and margins) of this new technology, VR producers keep their skills undisclosed. Very few seem disposed to share the knowledge.
Also because VR filmmaking today is pretty much about “do-it-yourself” attitude. Mounting camera rigs on drones, ordering special lenses from Japan to replace the original GoPro components, hacking the multiple cameras synchronisation settings to save time in stitching (the process of combining the spherical image with overlapping fields).
The art and craft of making high-end immersive stories is a stock-in-trade few are ready to divulge.
The VR market is driven mostly by hardware sales.. And not yet by content
Since I’ve started a daily market watch on the topic, my Twitter feed began looking more like a TV shopping channel for VR headsets. Indeed, in the two years since Google launched Cardboard, many other brands sprouted like mushrooms. Sony launched a VR system for PlayStation. Samsung joined the movement with Gear VR, powered by an Android-based Galaxy device. HTC released Vive, with software made by Valve (to mention just a few).
But the reality is: the market for VR is developing — at best — just a $6.7 billion business in 2016, and is mostly hardware-driven.
One could say: “Isn’t this a great opportunity?”. Yes, but the VR audience is new, and any significant growth will take at least three or four years. Today, TV remains the leading force to spread content.
Media darwinism: evolve or dissolve
Does it remind you of anything? Ten years ago, the 3D revolution was about to come. They called it the next big thing in home entertainment, and TV broadcasters created new departments for this supposingly “must-have” technology. With the success of the Avatar release in 2009, everyone assumed TV and film producers would follow. But they didn’t. Today, 3D companies are either already bankrupt or actively pivoting to… VR!
Getting the broadcasters in is a game changer
Today, the doors seem to be wide open for those who want to experiment with VR. Google, Valve and all the web giants are actively building ecosystems to host content. Nonetheless, those who make the platforms are not willing to pay the production costs. And the majority of VR projects are privately funded.
But it is still the TV broadcasters who own the know-how, and actually, a quite good business model to bring stories to wider audiences.
Currently, many of them are experimenting, but most of it seems to be pretty much at the R&D stage. Arte, the French-German channel, invested massively in new forms of storytelling and launched Arte360, an app to stream VR content. During i-Doc 2016 panel, the Editorial lead of BBC R&D department, Zilah Watson, spoke about the impact of live streaming in VR on news reporting. Discovery channel offers a wide range of immersive experiences, from mountain climbing to deep diving. Netflix dabbled in VR with a first teaser, Stranger Things, released in August of this year. Will this rise in attention end up becoming feature-length storytelling? To be continued…
