With the cost of production and post-production dropping over the past year, immersive storytelling in 360-degree video is now accessible to citizen journalists. Immersiv.ly, a London-based pioneer of news in virtual reality, has been experimenting with the power of one-to-one engagement that 360-degree video offers in close-field narrative. These narratives enable people to tell their stories in auto-portrait to build a patchwork narrative of a city or community. Luis Jebb examines a new trend in immersive storytelling, where journalists create community narratives in 360-degree video, and then stages communal events to show the content as a trigger to discussion and feedback to filmmakers. This approach addresses some of the challenges facing immersive storytelling—cost, public awareness of the format, a fragmented distribution model, disenchantment with mainstream news—and turns them into opportunities. Filmmakers and audiences are encouraged to engage with a fresh new format, and thus with the process of news and its power to educate and create social cohesion.

1. Close field: the
power of immersive
journalism in telling,
and learning from,
community stories
Louis Jebb
CEO immersiv.ly
Ambassador Journalism 360
8 September 2017
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T: @immersivly
E: louis.jebb@immersivly.com

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Louis Jebb
Founder and CEO,
immersiv.ly
Co-founder
ImmersiveIP Ltd.
Makers of Svhere
VR platform
Ambassador,
Journalism 360

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To help people to
care about news
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Svhere
Player to keep VR
journalism
evergreen and in
context
• 360-degree video
player. Uses video
metadata to drive
users to hyper-
relevant related
content using
machine-learning*.
• Free to use for
private sharing
• Group monetisation
for public videos
• App in closed beta,
September 2017
*Google News Lab’s report Storyliving: an ethnographic study of how
audiences experience VR and what that means for journalists (July 2017).
Concludes that: VR can create a powerful emotional connection between
audiences and subjects… This connection often encourages viewers to seek
more information and context about the issue in the aftermath of the
experience.”

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Ambassador,
Journalism 360
• Information and
training source for
immersive
storytelling.
• Founded by
pioneers in VR
journalism
• Backed by Knight
Foundation, Online
News Association,
Google News Lab
• Journalism 360
announced winners
of first innovation
challenge were
announced in July

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Trend from 2017: 360o
video to tell
stories about, and through, communities
• In 2017, have detected a trend in media competitions for immersive
storytelling and commissions in the medium.
• A trend for the stories of a community to be told in 360, and to
be distributed in synced performance in community settings
The intention?
• Encourage engagement with stories and with news itself
The importance? The appeal
• It’s an approach that seems native to the potential (engagement),
and the challenges (distribution), of immersive storytelling; and it
chimes with immersiv.ly’s mission to help people care about news
• If you want people to rethink, to care – start at a community level

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360 video promised to be a grand panorama…

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360 video proved power as close-field format

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360 video offered big story’s big picture

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360 video offers normal/abnormal context
To show the normality, of day
to day life, in which the
abnormality of big news
events exists.

11. The power of the
auto-portrait
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The subject has no
audience, no crew &
is both challenged
and liberated
The audience is the
camera. Absorbed
by living the story
“inside out”

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Performance in near-field environment

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LA Noir: You the character, opposite a star

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Composing in depth: near field and ‘presence’
SXSW 2017
@felixandpaul said: Near
field is most important
part of a #VRshot for
presence. Composing
depth is more important
than 360.

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Duncan Hooper, editor-in-chief, digital platforms, Euronews
I would argue that interviewing someone inside their home for
instance can be compelling in 360. Because as a witness to this
interview I am interested in the casual details around someone's
house that tells me about them. From the books on the bookshelf
to the Ikea lamp in the corner or the snowboots left lying about in the
middle of the room. You cannot really show this in a flat video
interview without endowing them with unwarranted
significance.
So let's stop thinking about rules that govern what can and cannot
work and instead think about what's in it for the audiences. 360°
is not just about the spectacular.
Power of personal/domestic context: Case 1

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The auto-portrait as
a journalistic tool.
Disfellowshipped by
Trey Bundy for Reveal
So, what’s the point of telling
this story in VR? The answer is
to give the viewer a more
intimate understanding of a
character and her experience.
The technology allows us to
put you in the reporter’s shoes,
to feel what it’s like to sit with
people as they look you in the
eye and tell you their story, to
visit their towns and the places
that affected their lives. In
some instances, it becomes a
window into a person’s
emotional memory.
Power of personal/domestic context: Case 2

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For the maker: Composing in spheres
• Depth matters: get the near field right – the rest follows
• Perspective plays a different role
• Inside out vs. a vanishing point through a frame
For the viewer: The power of ‘being’ the camera
• You the witness; you the character; you the editor
• Chimes with finding of *Google News Lab’s report Storyliving (July
2017). “What makes VR distinct as a medium is that it conveys
the sense that the viewer is ‘living’ the story as opposed to
being told it (‘storyliving’ rather than ‘storytelling’)”
“Storyliving” rather than “storytelling”

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Shakespeare 360: acting around the camera

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Shakespeare 360: “Ghost” or “third party”

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Link between formats
of news storytelling
the media interview,
auto-portrait,
the personal profile
And performance.
Arts performance –
lecture, poem, dance,
music.
A way of re-mediating the
political statement, the life
story, the personal witness
at the heart of a news
documentary.
The full context.
The incidental detail.
Viewer is the editor
One-to-one: journalism/performance in 360

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What’s in it for the audience: close field
360 as a tool to tell community stories
•In 2017, signs of trend in conference discussions, in media
competitions, and commissions for community stories to be told
360, and then distributed in community settings – sometimes in
synced/cinema performances
Why it appeals
•Engaging new format to renew audience connection with news
•Lower costs of production and post-production makes this
format affordable at community level
•Story of a neighbourhood; a school; an association; an ethnic
group
•Strong on casual, incidental details that work well in spherical
video

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What’s in it for audience: VR will be the
audience’s medium, not the author’s…
• Community stories are distributed in community setting
• Encourage community to engage with stories and with news as
a medium. Journalists learn from post-discussion with audience
• VR will prove to be the audience’s medium – where the
audience can explore in the sphere, and find new context –
rather than the author’s
• And in this medium they can live the story, rather than receive
it; and by engaging they can judge the truth for themselves.
• And if you trust the audience to find the context, and see the
abnormal in context of normal, you can help them care.

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Louis Jebb
CEO, immersiv.ly
E: louis.jebb@immersivly.com
T: @immersivly
W: www.immersivly.com
Contacts