SHOWCASE #1 - My Brother's Keeper

We're fairly evangelical about storytelling in VR but when people ask us for good examples, we can't help but have a little head-scratch and admit that there are still not that many great examples out there. We'd like to combat this. For sure. In the meantime, when we come across interesting work we'll add a SHOWCASE blog post. To save you the time.

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

A Terrence Malick-esque short film, "My Brother's Keeper" tells the tale of two brother's fighting on opposite sides of the American Civil War. Despite all of the technological innovation on show -120fps slo-mo, customized action rig, etc.- this is simply an emotive story, told well. Of course, this starts with good writing but I also really liked how the drama was choreographed around the camera and the action orchestrated to make best use of the space. 

People often think VR is all about having 'stuff' happening all around them but just as this would be incredibly annoying in real life, it's no different in VR. The worlds created in this film are rich but the film carefully guides the viewer as to where the main action is taking place. One interesting technique that I've not seen before was, quite literally, the smoke screen. Using heavy smoke to screen large areas of the space, to help guide the viewer was a bold move. I'm all for experimentation. Whether you think it worked or not, I'll let you decide...

Available on all VR platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Viveport, Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR). As always, I recommend viewing in a VR headset!

Enjoy... https://goo.gl/xY6BTP