View Conference 2018: National Film Board of Canada offers us interesting VR storytelling tips

Today I’ve attended my first lecture at View Conference: the Masterclass “Artist-Driven Immersive Work” by Eloi Champagne and Martin Viau, of the National Film Board of Canada.

The talk has been interesting: they presented some amazing work of theirs and gave us some pieces of advice from their experience.

The most interesting project they have presented has been “Cardboard Crash”, that has been one of their first experiments with the VR medium. It is a cardboard app that lets the user see what will happen in case of a car accident when all cars will be autonomous cars: how should the AI of the car decide what to do in case of an unavoidable collision? Should it save the driver at any cost? Should it minimize the overall casualties? Should it minimize the cost for the insurance? It is a hard decision.

The theme is very interesting and the app is genius because it has all the graphics that have a cardboard style. Since you wear the cardboard, all the world is made of cardboard, and this also contributes to make the app a bit less serious and not too heavy to be enjoyed. Look at the trailer, it is very cool!

I loved the concept: it makes us think (it is true… how the AI of an autonomous car should decide?), but in a fun and enjoyable way.

Another cool experience is “The Enemy“. This is an experience that for sure you have heard about on VR magazines: NFB (National Film Board of Canada) made this experience with Karim Ben Khelifa, a famous war reporter. They went to war zones or complicated zones in cities and interviewed one people from both the opposing sides of the conflict. So, for instance, in Israel, they interviewed a man of the Israeli army and a man of the Palestinian warriors. During the interviews, the NFB made the volumetric recording of these people.

After that, The Enemy experience has been created: people were immersed in VR and saw themselves inside a room, where on a side there was one of the warriors and on the other side, the opposing warrior. Thanks to the volumetric recording of the two characters, for the users it was as being in the room with the two warriors… very strange, considering that they are two people opposing each other, trying to kill each other every day… so they can’t live in the same room. The user could go asking predefined questions to the two men and discover more about them. In the end, the user would realize that those opposing people in the end are not that different and want exactly the same things… and that maybe if one were born on the opposite side, it would have become like the other. It is for sure a very powerful experience against war.

They also talked about “Museum of Symmetry”, a trippy experience where they had to transpose a 2D cartoon in VR… and in the end they did it using 2.5D visuals (flat 2D visuals that are put at different depths, so to give the illusion of depth). The result is very artistic.

So, what about the lessons learned? I’ll give you a brief summary with a list of little pills:

• Get feedbacks: VR is a new medium… and especially if you have just started, you don’t know how to use it. So, assemble something that somewhat works and take it in the wild, getting as many feedbacks from the users as you can. NFB wasn’t used to take unfinished experiences to exhibitions, but it started doing it for VR, because they were humble enough to recognize that they did not know the medium, so they needed feedbacks from real-life users. Don’t wait to have a finished version: make a prototype and let people try it. Target as many people as you can.

• There is the problem of movie distribution: if you make your VR movie that has something particular, how do you distribute it? One of the latest experience they made is a high-quality video with HDR (High Dynamic Range). But there are not VR video players that support HDR, so they don’t know how to distribute it properly :O. Yes, they can downgrade it, but it is a pity… so, how to distribute VR experiences that are too innovative?
  This was a problem especially in the beginning, when there were no good VR movie players… but now there are still issues in this sense;
• When developing with cardboards, gaze-based interaction is better than interacting with the lateral button, that does not always work well and that is not present in all cardboard models;
• If you have to develop a VR movie, a short experience is still more enjoyable than a long one, because VR is still heavy to be used;

• Cooperating with great directors and screenwriters is awesome, but if they come from a traditional background, they would like to do in VR what they are used to do in standard movies, like camera movements and frequent camera changes, but this in VR is not possible. So, be patient when you collaborate with these people and introduce them to the new medium, offering them compromises;
• Find a good team. This is something they stressed a lot. You are going to do something experimental, something crazy. You must work with talented and motivated people, that are ready to work just to satisfy the needs of the director. This is fundamental. These people must be ready to try a lot and fail a lot, and find a creative way to solve problems;

• They like to use the Samsung Odyssey because it has great resolution and has an OLED display, so the colors are more vivid;
• There is no VR vs AR battle. You have to pick one of the two technologies depending on your intention. You have first to start from a concept, from an idea and then iterate it… and then choose the technology that best fits your needs. You must not start from a technology, but you have to start from an idea. The technology is only a medium, not a goal;
• Anyway, AR has still that enormous problem of the field of view: AR glasses have a very limited FOV that kills the magic, and also mobile AR is terrible, because it just offers you this tiny window towards the experience. AR storytelling needs better devices to develop;
• Experiment, experiment a lot. Fail, fail a lot. I loved hearing them talking about their experiments and about the crazy ideas that they had to do stuff. For instance, when they had to port the 2D cartoon to 3D, they created some costumes inspired by the cartoons and made real people wear them in front of a green screen. It was ridiculous, but it helped them in visualizing things. It made them experiment and see what didn’t work. Be creative and try all the ideas that come to your mind. VR is a new field, you have to be crazy;https://gfycat.com/PositiveImpeccableJackrabbit
• Don’t over-complicate things. Try to obtain one goal, don’t try to make too many things together: reach the objective of your movie and don’t add stretch goals that would make the movie a mess. Aim at one thing, and do it well;
• When asked about Tilt Brush, the answer was “It still feels like a toy”. This makes us understand how VR tools are still at their infancy;
• In VR, the user accepts to be everything: he/she can be a person, can be a dust particle, can be an animal. After a while, the sense of presence starts working. So, use your fantasy and make your user be whatever you want, whatever fits better in the story.
• They are working on a immersive tour of a public building in Canada, but they don’t want to make the classical VR tour, they want to do something more poetic, more artistic. They asked one interesting question: “Why in VR recreate reality when you can push things?” If VR is this extraordinary technology that can make us feel everything, why should we just recreate our reality? Why can’t we make something better and more intriguing?

The last question is very powerful and it is something I agree completely. Let’s just stop recreating our reality in VR… let’s do something different, let’s create new realities! Let’s re-write the rules!

I hope you liked this pills and if it is the case, please subscribe to my newsletter to sustain my efforts in going to events and exhibitions about VR! See you in the next days at View Conference!