Virtual reality and filmmaking: what's the future?

by Rachel Wise Independent writer

The world is changing, and as new technologies have already invaded our lives, we have to get used to all modern innovations and deal with them to get personal profit. As one of the most progressive and adaptive spheres, the filmmaking industry is usually among the first ones to introduce and implement new technologies.

Virtual reality is one of those innovations, which has marked an entirely new era in storytelling and film production. It is an artificially created world, which transmits to people all the information via their main senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing, and others. Having allowed the audience to view a 360-degree environment in every scene, virtual reality is modifying the standard way of creating and presenting a film. Just as new technologies have changed the way we communicate, express ourselves and experience the world, virtual reality will also transform the filmmaking industry. So, what is the future we are going to face? Here are some of the changes that will be caused by virtual reality.

Inexpressible emotions

Virtual reality has already been modified in the area of filmmaking, and it can make you feel the emotions of presence you have never experienced before. With the implementation of the up-to-date technologies, production companies and special effects crews are turning people from the viewers into the participants of the story. The advanced technologies and computer graphics will help filmmakers not only to make the movies to be watched, but perfect their filmmaking talent to create a variety of things a viewer can experience.

As virtual reality is employed in the film production industry more and more frequently, it is you, the viewer, who is creating the story and choosing different locations, people, with whom you would like to see new places, and the variety of emotions you would like to experience. Essentially, you can be personally involved in the new virtual reality creation.

New technical standards

As filmmaking and virtual reality will be closely connected in the future, the new filmmaking professional standards will appear. There are already regulated and proved standards for ordinary filmmaking, but when it comes to the virtual reality in films, these rules have to be different to make your perception surprisingly real. Thus, the filmmaking industry will meet new challenges to create highly technological and profitable films.

Changing the whole technical concept of filmmaking will establish new requirements, as well as new possibilities and opportunities. Virtual reality has even altered camera movements, but future possibilities are unlimited. Even nowadays it is possible to move cameras under the certain limitations, but it is also predicted that camera movements will be made not only by filmmakers, but by the viewers as well, or a combination of both. It will have a significant impact on the audience’s experience.

New synopsis

All these technical changes will naturally transform the filmmaking process, as well as the film plots and script ideas. The examples of independent films created with the implementation of the virtual reality technologies are such films as “Genesis” and “Endeavor”, which are produced by Red Rock Entertainment.

All events in “Genesis” happen in the year of 2067 A.D. Four years after the Confederation of Eastern states adopted their “final decision” about the West, a little group of survivors have to resist the polluted earth in the new brutal conditions. The operation was developed at high levels and conducted by highly qualified specialists, but something suddenly goes wrong. The matter is that the leader of this operation is a humanoid and now she has to find a possible way to overcome the situation.

Another project involving virtual reality was also financed by Red Rock Entertainment. It is a TV show called “Endeavor”. It describes the story about the Earth in 2065. Nuclear missiles have just caused World War 3, and now people have only 45 minutes to leave the planet. Endeavor is a spaceship aimed to find a new home for humanity. But those who are seeking an emergency escape face a problem: by the time the ship has reached that place, there might be no one left on the board.

All in all, we can’t predict how virtual reality is going to develop, but it will certainly reshape the entertainment industry and will make computer games, films and TV shows much more interactive.