We owe it to the French.
When I retorted with this tweet to the statement about Morton Heilig’s Sensorama:
@zillahwatson what about Antonin? pic.twitter.com/lDuExOW8yZ
— Paul Gailey (@paulgailey) April 5, 2016
I was referring to Antonine Artaud (1896-1948), a french theatre director, widely recognised as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde.
The Arrival
Be it the early works of Auguste and Louis Lumière and the The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station,
to the fabulous efforts of Damien and David to persuade Larry of the delightful viability of Cardboard, that post-modern day plastic, VR aka, réalité virtuelle bleeds tricolore more than anything.
Live VR video
And if we’re talking about the continuation of the #avralance then note how those leading the field for many years now, and about to step into big Facebook and Google pursued limelight, is Video Stitch, the company behind the newly launched Orah, a 4k Live streaming camera for prosumer usage that streams to your HMD and your soon your social feed.
Yes, Orah is lead by the French Nicolas Burtey and a team of Parisians. (Ed. seriously thinking of getting one of these!)
And yet in some ways, that narrative of film making in VR is still very much in it’s infancy, in a sort of Lumière moment, as story tellers grapple with how to craft a story with new fandangled tools.
Ghosts and Characters
I recommend digesting Devon Dolan’s VR thesis around the The Four Different Types of Stories in VR as modified by Kent Bye. It’s a fascinating take on the art.
This piece (in Spanish) from one of the VR creator’s of Ministerio del Tiempo for RTVE, goes into more detail about the film and post production techniques in VR to achieve viewer immersion. The notion of cuts and edits is an eternal one in VR that is touched upon:
To change from scene to scene, there’s always some elements that allow a transition, an envelope is handed to you, and you have to deliver it to someone…
Para cambiar de escena a escena, siempre hay unos elementos que hacen de transición; te dan un sobre, se lo tienes que entregar (a alguien)
Master story tellers
And yet, those very same story telling techniques and film hacks, that are now flexing a new generation of VR maker’s minds, are not too disimilar to the ones that tested yesterday’s great directors:
How Alfred Hitchcock hid 10 Edits in ROPE from Vashi Nedomansky.
ROPE (1948) is Alfred Hitchcock’s murder/suspense film that showcases the killing in its second shot. ROPE is often described as the film with no edits or cuts.
On further examination…Hitchcock’s gem actually contains 10 edits. Five of them are hidden as the camera lens is filled by foreground objects. The other five edits are regular hard cuts that not many people either realize or acknowledge. I’ve isolated all 10 edits in the video below so you can learn from the Master of Suspense on how to hide your edits without losing momentum in your story.