Virtual Reality Gearing Up to Take the Film Industry by Storm

"Help" by Justin Lin; a virtual reality short.

In show business, virtual reality is becoming the new “ingénue,” quickly spreading its wings to one day become the “movie-going” norm. The virtual reality began emerging at film festivals about five years ago as fascinating demos rather than intriguing narratives. These demos include things that movie executives using them to promote existing franchises and provide interactive extras for anticipated blockbusters. Recently, the entertainment industry has been pumping new levels of talent, money, and time into virtual reality projects due to its rapidly increasing popularity with people. Jon Favreau, director of “The Jungle Book” and “Iron Man” commented saying that we are witnessing the period in time where an idea, a blooming possibility, will come to be the thing we all experience and enjoy one day.

However, there are a number of difficulties and problems that old Hollywood movie magic expertise can be applied to. As a new medium of telling stories, many argue that while it's not necessarily a movie but it's also not a video game; it's something else entirely new, exciting, and its own. Many works would branch into alternate directions all based on where the viewers direct their attention. Writers must do a multitude of math in order to track a single story’s potential outcomes. Actors must perform long and continuous takes without the benefit of edits, remaining visible at all times. And filmmakers must search for new tricks and methods of directing their audience’s focus since they can’t rely on things like close ups and other traditional cinematic techniques to do it for them.

On the marketing end of things, because virtual reality is a creative niche that has yet to be understood, or even fully identified, enthusiasts and directors face a multitude of possibilities and possible challenges. They are unsure of whether their audiences will watch virtual reality movies wearing individual headsets in theaters or if they would rather experience them privately, like video games. They don’t know how long people are willing to wear the headsets in a single setting; considering that there are a number of people that find the 3D glasses to be bothersome and troublesome. It’s also unclear as to whether consumers would want to be able to interact with characters and alter the plots or if they would want to be a ghost-like observer to the story.

The main problems to be faced is gathering sufficient data regarding these unknown areas and finding ways to promote virtual reality experiences to a large enough demographic to turn over a profit. The demographic that would prove to be the hardest to advertise would be the older crowd that prefer “flat” movies with an exclusive observational role.

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