Augmented Reality Mixed Reality Virtual Reality
Five takeaways from the Prisma VR hackathon
Guest Contribution
As a meta-journalist at journalism platform WAN IFRA, I published many articles about Virtual Reality. I interviewed journalists at BBC, USA Today, NextVR and researched reports about the development of the VR-industry to write about best practices, equipment, and storytelling.
Now, it was time to get on with VR myself…
Last month, I had the amazing opportunity to produce a VR-documentary together with Reeality Studio in Paris. In a team of three, we participated in the Prisma Media Hackathon to produce a 7-minute VR-story in just 48 hours.
W e decided to explore Paris’ first eco-friendly complex: La Halle Pajol. Our VR-documentary allows viewers to explore this unique building, which houses a library, youth hostel, healthy lunchroom, co-working space and has a beautiful garden. The district is entirely environmentally friendly. It is designed and used in a such a sustainable way that it produces more energy than it consumes.
https://medium.com/media/f89b24eef5c1a3c9c49132e40e2bedd2/href
While we only had 48 hours for this production, we managed to pull off a pretty descent end-product without tearing ourselves apart ;-) It took a lot of decision-making, in a very short amount of time, with limited experience and not enough sleep. Nevertheless, it was a brilliant learning experience.
Here are five things I learned from the VR Prisma Hackathon
1) Interviews need to be done in one take
Forget traditional broadcast interviews. With VR, re-asking a question is not an option. The 360 environment doesn’t allow to cut and paste video, so you better prepare for a fluid conversation. And because you’re doing interviews in one go, it’s also useful to think of a proper ending. Preferably one that cues to the next scene, like walking out of the room, or telling viewers where to look next.
2) Navigation is a challenge
What I found most challenging is to navigate the viewer through a VR-story. I prefer VR’s to be reporter-less, but sometimes being in the image can help you guide the viewer to look in a certain direction. To do that, I used hand-gestures and walked towards the next subject. Voice-over can also be a useful navigation tool. I noticed being much more descriptive than normally; ‘look on the right’, ‘have you seen this?’ etc. And also, we found that playing with the transition time to move to the next scene, and broadening the activation field for moving to the next scene helps users find their way more easily.
3) Use VR for visual stories in inaccessible locations
I’m mostly proud of our shot on the rooftop solar power park. The view is impressive, and it wasn’t easy to get access. To me, that is exactly what VR is about?—?transporting people to places they couldn’t normally go. People that watched our VR told us that ‘they really felt they were actually there’. The experience of standing on top of a solar panel rooftop, seeing the trains pass by on a sunny day in Paris, to me, really justifies the use of VR.
4) Post-production takes long, very, very long.
Post-production for VR is an elaborate and time-consuming process. Luckily my colleges from Reeality Studio were very knowledgeable. I would definitely recommend teaming up with a tech person to produce VR. If only to become aware of the technical options of the medium. We used Wonda VR software to create interactivity between our scenes. In our documentary viewers can choose themselves which scene to go to. Preparation is key though?—?you need to know the order of scenes beforehand, so you can provide navigation cues within each scene.
5) Graphics aren’t necessarily disruptive
Before this production, I was a bit ‘allergic’ to graphics within VR. I thought they would be disruptive to the immersive experience. However, working with the tech guys, who have more of a gaming background, I learned that hotspots with text, incrusted video and gaming elements can actually be of much added value to the story. Hotspots don’t feel like a disruption when they provide useful information to back-up your voice-over. And you can place them directly on the elements that require more information.
Ingrid Cobben is a multimedia journalist and a guest writer for Haptical. You can follow her on Twitter. If you are interested in publishing your article with us, here is how you can do it.
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