The judges at the Second Annual Virtual Reality Pitchfest had a difficult job. Luckily, Loren Hammonds, Curator at Tribeca, Charles Melcher, CEO of the Future of Storytelling, and Adora Udoji, Interactive Storyteller and Investor, are some of the brightest minds in the VR space today. They were tasked with the challenge of choosing the best VR pitch among a group of excellent projects.
What struck me about the projects at the pitchfest was the wide variety of formats that the creators were working in. Judging VR today, is like considering a lineup of film, photography, and theater projects all together, as if they were all the same medium. It’s pretty weird- weird in an interesting and exciting way.
We’re still at the dawn of what we’re calling “virtual reality” or immersive content. The VR technologies and creative approaches are so much in flux, that we haven’t quite ironed out what exactly virtual reality really is. This openness allows space for play and experimentation- and essentially- weirdness. This was evident in the pitchfest’s winners. And I mean that in only the most complimentary way.
The types of VR media represented by the projects at the VR Pitchfest were super interesting and include:
360 Video: A Place of My Own by Perry Britz, Sam Baumel
A Place of My Own is a classic example of a 360 documentary. The film is about the homelessness epidemic, It taps into the VR as an “empathy machine” concept. Shot on a 360 camera rig (like the gopro rigs we rent out on KitSplit) the format encircles the viewer in a video world. In the film, the viewer is immersed in the realities of being homeless and the callous lack of empathy that the homeless must deal with every day.
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Source: Thevideoink