This is a general presentation on the challenges and opportunities of video as a medium within VR, as a storytelling platform. I presented this deck at the Washington Technology Alliance VR breakout meeting in January of 2016.

1. The Potential of Virtual Reality VIDEO
Jan 28, 2016

2. Backup
TOC
Hi
VR Video Tech / What is it?
What has happened in past when new tech arrived?
What stories can VR Video uniquely tell?

3. Context for Forest’s POV - Tribes
1990s1970s-1980s 2000s
Chile &
Silicon Valley
Los Angeles &
SFO
WA & China

4. Context for Forest’s POV - Work
2000s1990s 2010-15
Film Making and
Film Tech
Software Stories
On the Web
SMB Story Telling
To Consumers

5. West Coast Styles to VR Companies
Tribe VR Video Secret Weapon “Let’s go build…”
SFO
Mark Zuckerberg
FB
social & viral XYZ so we
can show ads
LAX
John Lasseter
Pixar
“cameras and content to
tell stories”
Seattle
Ex-Microsoft & Amazon
Employees?
a useful cloud software
platform or service…

6. Who is Pixvana…
Founded Dec 2015
Seattle HQ & Dev
• Viz Fx creative
• Viz Fx tools pm
• Adobe Apple video and
photo tools dev
• me
Building a useful cloud
software platform for VR
Video

7. BackupWhat is VR?
from a Storytelling POV

8. VR achieves
Presence
Presence = Magic
(… people like Magic)
A new medium that can conjure Magic

9. Two (2x) Canonical Experiences
3D – CGI Environments Photo-real Stills / Video
WEVR theBlue:Encounter sample image
Full or partial positional movement is reflected in rendering of content
VRSE’s Chris Milk directed Apple Music U2
Viewer head position is restricted to single POV, with rotation and FOV support
Either, when done right, yields magic!

10. VR Video is very attractive business opportunity
Install Base of HMDs
Inherent
VR
Magic
PC Systems
Phone and
PS4
Video experiences highly attractive
• Magic at good production cost/risk
• Lowest production cost
• Highest installed base
… but: many technical challenges to
be resolved
The Cost : Magic Ratio Favors Video

11. BackupIdea 1
How can VR Video Create Presence?

12. Tech Overview of Key Issues

13. Ways in which
we move/see

14. Parallax
A big, big part of how things behave when
we move our field of view

15. Parallax
not a challenge
with 3d images

16. Projections
Sphere onto a plane

17. Play

18. “Planar” representations of what we see are not dynamic…

19. Future Technique A
Light Fields

20. Light Field / Plenoptic Photography

22. VR Applications
• Stereoscopy from any angle (not just angle of lenses at time of photography)
• Parallax when moving head position
• Focus pulling (if eye-tracking in VR goggles)
• Full Room or higher spatial freedom during playback
Multiple POVs
Rack Focus
Play

23. Future Technique B
Computational / Volumetric

27. Today’s Approach
Planar

28. Photo Sensors
Lens focusses light onto a sensor, which captures
light values through a RGB mask, which results in a
pixel grid map of the image in a rectangle/planar representation

29. Optical Field of View

30. Same Technology – Small to Large
GoPro Camera Red Cinema Camera

31. VR Rigs
6 GoPro VR Mono Rig 6 Reds VR Mono Rig

32. Stereo VR Rigs
12 GoPros (5 x Pairs, 1 up 1 down) 6 Reds (3 x Pairs)

33. Specialized Cameras Using Multiple Views
Quantum Leap VR CameraJaunt VR Camera
Google Jump / GoPro Oddyssey
Nokia Ozo

34. Planar and Optical Tricks
1 2
1 2
1 2
1 2
2x Kodak PixPro
1x Ricoh Theta

35. VR Production Overview

38. No Shutter Sync
Battery drain
WiFi
Memory Cards
Heat
Settings

39. 6 memory cards
1 USB adapter
1hr later
Files are on laptop

40. Play

41. Play

42. Play

43. Prelim Stitch
Center Corrected

44. Manual Overrides
Point Adjustment
Rig Removal
File Identification

45. 360 Video is NOT inherently VR

46. 360 if it provides a sense of Presence…

47. YAYs
• Enhance Presence
• Replicate common POVs
that viewer can relate to,
while seated
• Generate magic!
Emerging Best Practices for VR Video
NAYs
• Don’t pan or tilt the camera
• Don’t move the camera (if
you do, no accelerating)
• Make users barf!

48. Backup
Idea 2
What has happened in past when new tech has
arrived for storytelling, and what might we thus
expect of VR Video in coming years?

49. BackupHmm, What can I do with this?
Latency between development of new tech,
and creative storytelling unique adoption of that tech

50. 1890s Favorite Pastimes
Drinking, in a saloon Vaudeville

51. The Motion Picture Camera & Projector
Lumiere Brothers Thomas Edison

55. Special Effects & Cinema Specific Art Direction
A Trip to the Moon, 1902 – George Meiles

56. Varying POVs, Cross-Cutting, Editing
Great Train Robbery, 1903 – Edwin Potter

57. BackupThis development phase repeats itself
with each wave of new technology introduction

58. Synchronized Sound
Jazz Singer (Talkie), 1927
Singing in the Rain (Musical), 1952

59. Color Processes
Gone with the Wind, 1939
Wizard of Oz, 1939

60. Widescreen Reaction to Television
Cinerama

61. Development Phase vrs. Rapid Adoption Period
Movies almost always
had sound!
Color film started
as early as 1902!
Jazz Singer (Talkie), 1927
Wizard of Oz, 1939

62. Common Standardization Pattern
Rapid
Adoption
Standardization of Tech
Creative Iteration
Development
Phase
24 FPS
Color
Synchronized Sound
Stereo Sound
Widescreen Aspect Ratios
Surround Sound
Digital Effects

63. BackupSpecialty, busts

64. 3D fad Wave 1950 and 2009
Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1953 Avatar, 2009

65. Specialty - Stop Motion Animation
King Kong, 1933 – Merian Cooper Jason and the Argonauts, 1963 - Ray Harryhausen

66. CGI in Jurassic Park 1993
Animatronic (big puppet)
CGI (Computer Graphics Imaging)

67. CGI is the development child of all of film history!
Rapid
Adoption
‘93-97
Development
1902-1993
Standardization
Editing
Color
Sound
Animation
VFX

68. BackupWhat’s the pattern / lesson
from past?

69. Adoption Cycle is RAPID
Development
Years
Initial Exemplar Breakout
Adoption
Cycle
Adoption to
Ubiquity
Film as medium ~10 years Train arrives Train Robbery 1895-1903 ~10 years
Recorded Sound ~20 years
Vitaphone
Process (Various)
Jazz Singer 1925-1930 ~3 years
3D ~50 years House of Wax
Revenge of the
Creature (Black
Lagoon Sequel)
1953-1955 BUST
Wide Screen ~20 years This is Cinerama The Robe 1950-1953 ~3 years
CGI ~20 years The Abyss Jurassic Park 1989-1993 ~3 years

70. US Consumer Tech Adoption

71. VR Video
Rapid
Adoption
2016-x
Development
1960-2015
Has been in development phase
for 40 years
Will adoption phase be quick? Bust?

72. Backup
Web Video

73. Web Video Evolution

74. Streaming

75. Time Shifting

76. Youth Watching TV in Very Different Ways

77. BackupIdea 3
Imagine how stories will be told with VR Video?

78. BackupFuturism Group Workshop:
Horror & Suspense

79. Horrific…
Nosferatu 1922 Alien 1979

80. Behind You!!
Aliens, 1986
Dial M for Murder, 1954

81. Slow build
The Birds, 1963

82. Constructed through editing
Psycho 1960

83. It’s in the frame already, OMG
Psycho 1960
Alien 1979

84. OMG watch out for the 4th wall!
Blair Witch Project, 1999

85. 100 years and still innovating

86. All the old tropes apply, in new immersive context of VR!
And some new ones:
• “4th Wall” is where exactly?
• Physiological fight/flight?
• Find the treasure/horror, its somewhere in frame!
Others?
Horror and Suspense In VR

87. Cetaphobia / Claustrophobia
WEVR theBlue:Encounter

88. Acrophobia
Valve Aperture Science

89. ~90 Years Later
Potter 1903 (Goodfellas) Martin Scorsese 1990

90. Backup
??