Cardboard

Vive la réalité virtuelle!

| Paul Gailey

We owe it to the French.

When I retorted with this tweet to the statement about Morton Heilig’s Sensorama:

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.


Vive la revrolution!

If Mr McGuire were real

| Paul Gailey

I confess.

I dropped a howler.

Last time I mentioned Walter Brooke, as in the actor,  who played the wise family friend to Benjamin (played by Dustin Hoffman) in The Graduate, I made a mistake.

In that infamous scene by the pool, where Mr McGuire gave the upstart graduate a single word of wisdom – plastics – I incorrectly spelt his name in my previous blog post.

Materially wrong

Alas if Mr McGuire were choosing his words and materials at any point since 1967, he may well have reasonably uttered silicon instead of plastics, or perhaps graphene.

In any case, I still assert that filters is worthy, if not more so than in 2010 when the abstract term crossed my mind and I spontaneously blogged much like now.

Yet today, the material that avidly evokes inspiration in me is cardboard.

Cardboard is a start, and as Joey “The Lips” Fagan, the Trumpet decrepit extraordinaire, recalled in The Commitments ….I believe in starts.

“Once you had the start the rest was inevitable. The Lord made sure of that.”

Cake, nails and Pita bread

So what do this assortment of food and objects have to do with cardboard and Cardboard?

Well, it so happens I’ve lately been somewhat busy with Cardboard and VR ever since last summer at Droiders we combined Glass with VR during some wearable surgery.

You see, the thing is, where as Oculus is tricky, and Glass is misunderstood, watching 360º is a piece of….

even if filming 360º is hard as

and editing 360º is a

(bread as an acronym.) 

So hands up who doesn’t like cake?

And now, due to a whole confluence of factors, cardboard and cake is getting real.

And Cardboard

I’ll be talking more Cardboard and VR, online and in person in Manchester on Friday 12th June, 360 degree deciphering those culinary and steel metaphors.

The real Mr McGuire is unlikely to show up, other than perhaps as a bit part in a deck, but you are most welcome to try Cardboard* if you pop down to SASCON for the wearables session.

*Supplied with free cake. While stocks last.