Filmmakers today are exploring virtual reality technology to increase immersive viewing dramatically. In traditional 2D and 3D movies, the audience is just a spectator, but in VR movies, the audience no longer sees the predetermined picture. Their every move has an interactive effect.
However, the most exciting thing about VR in Hollywood isn’t what’s on the screen. It’s how professionals use it to create movie magic. This is how the movie industry uses virtual reality.
Direct experience
Viewers can experience a character’s direct experience through VR movies, which sets them apart from traditional film. Often, the audience interacts with virtual reality using a headset, such as Google Cardboard, to experience an entire virtual realm. The final VR movie involves many skilled people and encompasses various technologies, such as digital rendering, photography, and filmmaking.
Photo: Matthew Kwong
Virtual cameras
In George Lucas’ second Star Wars trilogy, he used digital tools to such an extent that it took the viewer out of the story in Solo: A Star Wars Story. During the space battles, virtual cameras were used to create realistic camera movements, and digital spacecraft models were filmed with a very natural camera motion, drawing the audience into the scene.
Virtual animation
In the last century, animation has evolved rapidly. During the ‘live-action’ remake of The Lion King, photorealistic lions in Africa were filmed using virtual cameras on an empty sound stage. A local network of devices was set up so the director and camera crew could walk among the lions as if they were there. They were creating an exciting feeling for the viewer.
Photo: Andreas Kind
How has VR changed film?
VR technology allows for a different viewing experience, one where viewers have more control over what they watch. Shortly, we may be able to watch full-length movies through VR headsets, but the most progressive technology in Hollywood film production is StageCraft, commonly known as The Volume.
The Volume
The Volume is a set of LED screens that stands 20 feet tall and 75 feet long. This technology immerses both the production crew and the cast in changing and moving CGI environments. The innovation in Stagecraft is not only that the image shown is generated live in photorealistic 3D by powerful GPUs but that the 3D scene is affected by the movements and camera. If the camera moves to the right, the image alters as if it were a real scene.
VR in film production
The Volume combines filmmaking and video game software to connect camera work, scene display, and visual effects. To begin, the ceiling and walls are covered in high-definition LED panels. These panels simulate the topography of created fantasy worlds that a team of artists, engineers, and visual effects production crews create. These LED panels work seamlessly together.
The Volume provides complete immersion for all crew and set. Production can go between various settings and backgrounds, within the same day, expanding the ability of productions to film at incredible speed.
VR in Hollywood
Hollywood’s studios are using virtual reality to some degree. In ‘The Mandalorian’ (the collaboration between Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm), VR was used to scout the virtual ‘Star Wars’ sets.
Twentieth Century Fox is most enthusiastic about virtual reality, forming a dedicated division for video gaming, location-based entertainment, and virtual augmented reality productions called FoxNext. Fox’s The Martian VR Experience was the first from any major studios, followed by “The Revenant,” re-creating the experience of being attacked by a bear.
Warner Bros. has also embraced high-end wired VR, making it a significant part of the marketing strategy for a movie that isperfectly suited. Steven Spielberg’s upcoming sci-fi film “Ready Player One,” takes place inside a virtual reality game.
Although VR technology has been embraced by filmmakers and producers, along with the entertainment industry as a whole, the majority of filmmakers agree that a full-length feature is not possible at the moment, and the audience must also adjust to this new format over time.
Photo: Barbara Zandoval
VR as a digital travel
Since pandemic there were few projects on the market about how to travel digitally. An immersive live-stream video experience that lets you explore the world’s most beautiful sights and popular attractions you can experience by downloading the WorldLiveApp. There you can watch, share and add a pinch of flavor to static landscapes and generate astonishing time-lapse videos direct from LIVE recordings. Take a trip around the globe every day, choosing new destinations from a large selection of LIVE broadcasts and video.
Virtual Reality in the Movie Industry was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.