Black & White, Shades of Grey
In 2015 my team built a touch-based prototype (which we then ported over to VR later) as a testbed to examine storytelling in a spatialized experience, where viewers had control over the viewpoint, rather than an edited, passive, experience.
I had the inspiration of relying on an old trope: a ‘femme fatale’ in trouble visiting the office of a private detective (in the full piece, we flip the script by making her the hero). In stripping color from the piece, we were able to achieve a level of integration with the characters that was hard to do then. In relying on a familiar story and setting, we were able to bring people into the story immediately- also hard to do with emerging technology.
Somewhere at the intersection of live theater, classic filmmaking, and interactive gaming lies a new language of storytelling. Technologies like NeRF and volumetric video create opportunities for creators to develop new skills and tools to engage with audiences.
The scene is built to be explored, and layers are revealed as viewers move around (e.g., there’s a tape recorder above a shelf, there’s a third party listening in outside the office door). The acting is tailored to be slow paced, to let viewers acclimate to the environment (which turns out to be key in VR), and having two actors engage directly with one another was fundamental (not all volumetric content can manage multiple subjects).
We learned quite a bit about telling stories in 3D space, with one handy trick we’ve used ever since for screen-based experiences: invite people to interact with the scene by having the virtual camera slowly start to orbit around the scene after 10-15 seconds of viewer inactivity. It reminds them they are in a 3D space.
(Note: the same trick does not work in VR, as it’s an invitation to motion sickness.)
