Presenting VR Storytelling to the SF Film Society
The Soap Collective was recently invited by the SF Film Society to give a presentation on VR storytelling to its members in residence. We always love sharing our process and the lessons learned since we’ve entered the VR space. The invitation allowed us to talk with people who have a background in film but are new to VR. We were also excited to discuss the meduim with others who share our passion for storytelling.
Our Creative Director, Logan Dwight, kicked things off by speaking about the differences between storytelling in VR and storytelling in traditional film. The messages he presented based on past learnings included:
Directing audience attention
To keep the user engaged and direct their attention from one important aspect to the next, we’ve brought in tenets of theater. To maximize user engagement, you must guide the audience and frame each scene using lighting, sound, and movement. It is more compelling when the user’s eyes can follow a character, a sound, or a light change from one area to the next. This forces them to shift their attention to the area at which you’ve placed the next piece of important content.
You don’t always need to fill the entire 360 space with action
Simplicity is key when guiding user attention. Most people can only focus on a 90 degree zone in front of them at any one moment. If you give the user too much to look at, they will try to look at it all, which will likely result in them missing your primary content.
Shooting in 360 is a lot like theater. The audience can look anywhere and everywhere. Be selective about what you choose to place where.
Decision fatigue
When users have to choose between multiple seemingly important pieces of content, they often become overwhelmed with decision fatigue. This may cause a user to end the experience without finishing and not return to explore the additional content.
Filling the scene with more content or action does not encourage users to come back.
Be wary of the user’s viewing position
Now that brands and larger-named artists are starting to experiment with the medium, more videos are getting produced without attention to how the viewer will experience the content. For instance, the majority of 360 viewers watch their videos while sitting. If you place key content in the back, the user will have to try to turn their body all the way around in order to see it. If you have a character speaking on one side but other characters are moving about and interacting on the other, the user must choose which to miss in favor of the other.
Measuring success
For Logan, a VR piece is successful if he can guess where the user is based solely on where their head is pointed. He knows an experience is comfortable if the user is following along just as he designed it.
360 videos that create a fluid experience for the user, without forcing them into uncomfortable positions or requiring rapid head movement, tend to have higher replay value.
Following the presentation Logan was joined by Shamir Allibhai, Soap’s Director of Strategy, for a Q&A. SF Film Society’s Caroline von Kühn moderated the panel and kicked things off by asking:
What do you see as the biggest challenge to telling stories in VR?
To Shamir, the biggest challenge is “getting people into VR. The friction is high. Mobile VR is mediocre compared to desktop HMD’s, but those are clunky and I hate getting caught up in the cables.” Beyond the user’s first step into a headset, the cost to create quality VR experiences prevents many from exploring the medium.
“VR storytellers right now need to be creatives and technologists, understanding the potential of a 3D game engine like Unity or Unreal, asset optimization, and translating the art of storytelling into VR.” ~ Shamir Allibhai
Over time, this will change. VR will become much more accessible and ask less of those creating content. This will allow for an even larger group of storytellers to experiment with it and push it past its potential.
The rest of the questions posed by Caroline and other attendees, as well as the panelists’ answers, have been summarized below:
A computer-generated experience like “Atlas” still reads like a video game. Are gamers in the 18–34 age range your target audience?
Because of the way realtime VR is currently created and distributed, the “gamer” audience might be the first to see our experience, but every industry has its early adaptors. Gamers might be attracted to an experience like Atlas because of the design and interactivity, but there’s more to the picture that will appeal to a larger audience. VR’s story potential seems to lie in the interactive realm. That is, it won’t be passive like film or win/lose like a game, but interactive where a user has agency (think back to The Game (1997) starring Michael Douglas). A user can make choices as to which door they want to go through, who they want to talk to, what they want to do.
Do you see VR replacing traditional movies and movie theater experiences?
The challenge for VR is it is hard to replicate the communal nature of watching a film…when everyone bursts out laughing at the same time, or is scared together, or is saddened by the same scene — that is a very powerful group experience. How much shared experience can there be/should there be in VR? And if we agree it is important, what approaches, ideas, and technologies need be tried and created to make it happen? These are the questions we are currently grappling with. The answers will help to expand VR’s reach, but it’s not likely to replace any other medium.
Where do you see VR going from here?
The next couple years will likely see a lot more experimentation happening in VR storytelling, and this is great — we need to continue to throw things at the wall, thoughtfully. We also hope to see VR with AI and speech recognition. Imagine a user having agency in a VR story where the characters can “hear”, understand, and respond. Real agency would come when the user can start to shape story threads and plot lines, and the story would adjust dynamically based on what this user says and does in the VR world.
Key takeaways from the evening:
- Though difficult, it is possible to direct a user’s attention in VR. The most important pieces of the VR experience are the story and the placement of content. If the user can follow a clear narrative and fluid movement between key content, they are more likely to return to and share the material.
- VR is not the end of today’s movies or television. VR has the capacity to create amazing experiences both interactive and passive, but not all stories are meant for VR. Often 2D video is the most compelling vehicle for certain kinds of stories. VR has the capacity to become another of the many ways users consume media.
We’d like to thank Caroline von Kühn, Matthew Keuter, and the entire team at the SF Film Society. Also, be sure to follow all of the new developments with Atlas.
Continue this conversation by telling us what you’ve learned about VR storytelling in a response below! To hear about our upcoming projects, and opportunities to join us in shaping the future of VR, signup for our newsletter below:
