“When I first encountered avant-garde films in the early 1960s, the works I found most interesting were those that were discovering a language unique to film, a language that enabled the viewer to have the experience of film itself. And, at the same time, allowed film to be an evocation of something meaningfully human. I began to notice that moments of revelation or aliveness came to me from the way a filmmaker used film itself. Shifts of light from shot to shot, for instance, could be very visceral and affective. I observed that there was a concordance between film and our human metabolism, and that this concordance was a fertile ground for expression.”
Nathaniel Dorsey, Devotional Cinema
On the first day of my VR Journalism class in my graduate program, the professor presented the theme for the entire semester – –what is the best use of the VR medium? This question has stayed with me since those prehistoric days of VR storytelling. Everyone was grabbing at VR like the 4K video craze - higher resolution doesn’t inherently promise better quality storytelling. Similarly, just because it is in VR doesn’t make it an outstanding experience. VR storytelling has its own unique language and form of expression. And experimentation in VR is critical in order to discover this unique language.
The Inter-Spatial Experience
In a traditional movie theater, the audience gazes en masse at a screen at the front of the room. The picture is massive. The sound moves you. The experience is immersive. There is, however, a physical distance between viewer and screen — and an emotional distance as well. The experience of the movie theater is passive.
VR is active immersion. Instead of a physical and emotional separation within the experience, you’re at the center of it all. Instead of disappearing in the dark abyss of a theater, you embody the space. Instead of passive consumption, you interact. The story acts upon you and you act upon it. The inability of VR to be a group watch experience isn’t its weakness, but rather its strength. VR is a uniquely personal experience that you share with others.
“VR is not a film to be watched but a virtual space to be visited and navigated through. Nonny de la Peña’s first rule of VR: begin by thinking of your body in the space. The focus of VR design is not the camera frame, but the embodied visitor.”
Nonny de la Peña
Virtual Reality is a reductive term. VR is much more than a mere digital duplication of reality. The term “Virtual Reality” doesn’t capture the depth of the experience of being transported and as Nonny de la Peña puts it — becoming an embodied visitor. In VR, you occupy two spaces simultaneously. You are transported to a new world where you emotionally engage and where you physically respond. Yet, your body remains fastened in analog reality risking running into tables, chairs and walls. You’re not fully in one reality or the other, but both realities influence your experience. You’re experiencing something real, but you’re not experiencing reality. You’re inbetween two spaces. Doing “virtual reality” is about being in these transitional spaces and extending your reality. Which is why I think a term like inter-spatial is better served to describe what is meant by virtual reality because of the intersection of spaces you’re occupying.
I also prefer the term inter-spatial because I think space is the cinematic language unique to the VR medium. At Sundance 2019, I saw one of the best VR films I’ve ever seen — Traveling While Black. If you havne’t seen it yet, stop reading this article and watch it on the NYT. This film beautifully weaves together character and spatial storytelling. How do you learn about segregated America? Reading an article is good. Watching a film can be moving. But transporting yourself through an immersive medium delivers a whole new level of understanding. It’s not just about being there, but understanding the physical and emotional context of the situation.
Traveling While Black
At Sundance, they built Ben’s Chili Bowl — the cafe where the interviews in the film take place. You sit down at one of the booths and put on a headset. You’re physically present in a reenactment of what you’re experiencing in the VR film — a proverbial intersection of space. As I watched the film, the filmmakers’ use of space to drive the story stuck out to me as a unique cinematic device for immersive storytelling.
The first cinematic use of space was the beginning scene where you are in a traditional theater and the scene blends into a 360 degree establishing shot of Ben’s Chili Bowl. It was the journey from gazing upon the experience to becoming an embodied visitor. The film literally takes us from what would be a 2D experience to an embodied experience transcending the space that provides critical context for understanding segregated America.
The second cinematic use of space was the projections on the walls of the restaurant. I found this to be a creative way to add context to a space. Imagine seeing the inside of the restaurant without the filmstrips projected on the walls. Not at all the same effect. We receive a lot of context through this “if the walls could talk” design.
The third cinematic use of space is the mirror. The filmmakers utilized the mirror, something especially difficult to work around in VR film production, and embraced it. They used the mirror as an emotional driver, for flashbacks, to direct attention and focus, and as a metaphor for remembering. One notable scene is the conversation with Tamir Rice’s mother Samaria Rice. The reverence of this moment is enhanced by the attention of everyone in the restaurant — their attention directed toward Samaria. But that attention is doubled through the reflection in the mirror where all eyes are on Samaria telling the viewer where to look. I never doubted where I was supposed to be looking in scene and I never had the urge to whip my head around to look around. The scene needed singular focus on Samaria and her story and the filmmaker used the VR space to compound that focus. The people in the restaurant direct the viewer’s attention and the reflection in the mirror duplicates that attention as if an emotional invitation for the viewers and others to witness in the reverence of this moment with Samaria.
Space Makes Us Human
While at Sundance, the AR experience The Dial caught my attention. In this experience you interact with map projections and AR through an iPhone. You control the timeline of a murder mystery with your body movements. As you move around the table with the map projections, you control the movement of time. Watch the trailer and you get a better idea of the experience.
I attended a panel with the filmmaker of The Dial, Peter Flaherty, where he expressed:
“Stories happen to us. Stories respond to you. Body becomes important because it empowers and enables the user to be in touch with the creation.”
In The Dial, you’re more than an embodied visitor. It’s a hyper example of an inter-spatial experience because of the layers you’re seeing all at once. The physical model house, the map projections changing with the story, the iPhone displaying the story’s characters, and you’re physical movements in the room controlling the timeline — all add up to you becoming the story. You’re interacting in a physical and metaphorical space where the story is created in real time based on what you do.
The context of space acts upon us. And we interact with the space to create context. Our presence, both metaphorically and physically, in space is a reminder of our humanity. I had the opportunity to see Asad Malik’s A Jester Tale and to hear him speak on his first AR experience The Terminal. Not to reveal too much without seeing it yourself, in both experiences you interact with holograms and in the climax of both experiences a real, physical person enters the room. I was able to ask Asad about the potential of AR storytelling and this was his response:
“The big thing is context. You view a film and it changes your psyche. When you see an AR piece it changes the connotation of the space. Your humanity is being judged. You’re forming a relationship with a hologram. Now there is a real observer in the room. That’s what makes your humanity sink in. You’re human now.”
As we move forward as immersive filmmakers and storytellers, keep in mind the role of space in your craft and how the language of space interacts with the story. The way we embody these spaces creates intersections of mind, body and spirit. We feel more, experience more, understand more and we become more human.
My Journey into Inter-Space
One of my first forays into VR storytelling was my project The $25 Billion Divide. I wanted to make something reacting to the harsh, xenophobic rhetoric from then presidential candidate Trump. The way his words bludgeoned me, a child of an immigrant, prompted me to create a response as a way to process. To convey the physical pounding of his words, I took pieces of his campaign speeches, zoomed in on his mouth and then replicated the frame to blanket an entire 360 space. The VR medium enabled me to create, not a physical space for the viewer to inhabit, but an emotional and psychological space — the same space in which his words impacted me. After this scene, the film cuts to a scene of several shots of the border wall in Tijuana, Mexico. As a viewer, you’ve witnessed a bombardment of harmful rhetoric and then land in a real-life situation that is calm and even peaceful. You see several Mexicans working out, enjoying the beach view and walking along the coast. My intention was to have the two spaces collide by joining the emotional, psychological space of the campaign rhetoric with the documentary scene of the border. The film doesn’t have voiceover or need an explanation. The juxtaposition of the two spaces speak to the viewer through an inter-spatial language. Which I hope creates deeper understanding.
Another recent VR film I worked on needs a bit of context to convey the purpose of the experience. In 2017, Savannah, a 12-year-old Mormon girl living in suburban Utah, got up in her Sunday church meeting to bear her testimony — a Mormon practice where members of the congregation stand at the pulpit to share personal experiences and personal truths. In this particular meeting, Savannah had written down her truth and came out as lesbian to her congregation of roughly 200 people. Half way through her testimony, the presiding church leader felt it inappropriate for Savannah to come out in such a way and he turned off her microphone. The silencing of Savannah likely would have never been known except that a friend filmed the event on their smartphone and the video made it online — to be picked up by the New York Times, CNN, BBC, Guardian and other news outlets. It went viral.
Together with the talented filmmaker Carol Dalrymple, we wanted to create this event in VR because the context (or space) in which Savannah was cut off is a character in the story. Had she come out to her family at home, she would have been accepted. Had she told friends in private, she would have been received with hugs. But she came out during the Sunday church meeting and was rejected. Carol and I recreated the scene by filming in a church building resembling a Mormon church. We filled the pews with people and then placed the archival footage of Savannah coming out at the pulpit within the VR space. With a headset on, you sense the gravitas as Savannah is sharing her beautiful personal truth and the microphone abruptly turns off. You’re in the space with her witnessing the shocking moment. But Savannah had more to say that day.
The next scene you’re placed one-on-one with Savannah. She’s looking directly at you. Surrounding her is a crowd of smiling people embracing who she is. The space is markedly different. Instead of gazing at Savannah from the pews, you’re with her in an intimate setting. She continues her testimony where she was cut off, looking straight at you. Where the previous scene separated you from Savannah, this second scene connects you with her through the literal proximity of Savannah and the metaphorical proximity of her story to you, the viewer.
The process of making these two projects have demonstrated to me the creative power and potential of the inter-spatial experience. The occupying of new spaces and the spaces inbetween empowers viewers to experience new perspectives and new emotional understanding. The inter-spatiality of immersive storytelling is first and foremost emotional. Craft stories by designing with the inter-spatial experience of the viewer in mind and I think the impact of our stories will be savored longer and deeper.
