Future Cinema

AR & VR Humble Bundle

Hey folks, as mentioned in class, Humble Bundle has a software bundle right now for prople to get started making AR & VR experiences. You get more depending on how much you pay (to a max of about $20 US), and it’s a pretty great deal.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/vr-ar-software

Hannah Week 9 Presentation Slides (Vatican to Vegas)

Hi Guys, here is a google drive link for my presentation slides from yesterday: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KuNzu7im59lCB_9J3Z_5_Y55ulVBvO2g .

See you next week!

Questions for discussion: Nov. 6 (Deepa)

Michaela – Questions Nov 6th

1. Does suspension of disbelief really work in VR and XR as it’s so close to reality in the sense how our brain understands it?

2. Regarding the mindsetter design rule – doesn’t it make the places too unoriginal? There are so few surreal and dreamy VR experiences – does this design rule reflect this situation?

3. Lucas says: ‘The process of storytelling has taught the students important lessons about other cultures and has given them cognitive, social, and creative/artistic skills that can only be acquired through stories. Stories also allow us to more fully perceive the world’ (49). However, don’t stories rather function as simplifying modes that put reality into easier patterns, so we can understand it? (Like algorithms) Our lives and world generally doesn’t work through stories or narratives. Is it just an attempt to give life meaning?

4. Regarding authenticity and realism of the immersive world and the story, how much is too much? What could be best practice for such experiences in order not to make users relive the trauma or violence?

Week 9 Questions_Sisi Wei

1. The concept of the immersive world is getting popular nowadays, people have access to experience immersive shows such as immersive restaurants, immersive cruise ships, etc. The Immersive Worlds Handbook mentions that immersive world is somewhere people want to be, somewhere people find willingness to stay. I have been to an immersive cruise ship back in China, where all the actors on the ship wore clothes from the Republic of China era (like cheongsam), the visitors could prepare to wear this kind of clothing or they could rent at the site (which is ridiculously expensive if renting at the site, but still many people are willing to pay this expense). The visitors all seemed very enjoyed this event. I am wondering if immersive worlds only attract those who already knew what the immersive world is about, so they knew if they were willing to participate and enjoy it? How could we be sure that we all find the immersive worlds the places we all want to be in?

2. As I know, in immersive world experience, visitors are not allowed to talk or to connect with the actors (if it’s show-related), there is a block between the visitors and the actors even if they are in the same space, or if they are very close physically. How could we fully enjoy and persuade ourselves to believe everything is real if this is the case?

3. Seems like all the immersive worlds/experience have some sorts of themes, like Disneyland have a theme where the world is built upon the Disney characters. Is it possible to have an immersive world but without any theme, and at the same time people still enjoy it?

4. After people experience the immersive worlds, would they get bored with the real daily lives? How do we avoid this kind of feeling?

November 6th Qs – Alex

The degree to which someone can be immersed in any experiential media is purely subjective and may not be effectively resonating with the entirety of its users. That being said, as the technology continues to improve will there come a day where the immersion is so universal that it subsumes traditional media (TV, movies, etc)? Is there room for coexistence between the non-immersive and immersive texts or will we soon have another cassette vs CD type situation on our hands?

(With absolutely no research being done by me) it feels like there is starting to be a revitalization of the “radio drama” style of storytelling through the medium of podcasts. Are these shows signaling a rebirth of a semi-forgotten means of storytelling or is there something entirely different going on here?

I can’t tell if Decentraland is the bone chilling first steps toward a dystopic digital landscape or a hilarious business built around dooping gullible investors. How does the idea of paying absurd amounts of money for digital “real estate” sit with you? Also, what the heck is even happening here? (I don’t have a subscription to bloomberg so it’s hard to get a sense of what’s actually going on with this business. The website is a complete mess of jargon that’s no help at all).

It feels like there is a growing trend of producing shorter and shorter digital content (vines, viral clips, serialbox, twitter) while other digital services are pushing their content to expand temporally (streamers going live for hours on end, YouTube advertising placing preferential treatment to longer videos, the super smash bros fan fiction which is 221 chapters long, and has been receiving updates since 2008). Is there room for a happy medium or will we continue to increasingly see texts being pushed to the extremes of the spectrum?

Week 9 Questions by Shabnam

The ‘Worlds’ paradigm demonstrated in Scott Lucas’ book, moves from the real world (our reality) to the Created World (escapes reality) and the next level being the ‘experienced world’. The major technological shift is in the way the audience actively engages with the world, bringing to the experience cultural idiosyncrasies.
Q – Like Film, how is New Media developing a Universal Language and Grammar that transcends cultural boundaries and experiences?

Matt, further to your concerns, I had the question of preserving artistic works created in AR/ VR. How is New Media developing its network/ technologies for Archiving ‘cult’ works created in the new medium? Transition of Film from linear to non-linear to digital has been gradual and seamless in a way, but the changes in the spectrum of New Media are tremendous and very fast. Therefore, What will be, or IS the sustaining technology to preserve such works, whose platforms disappear even before they can be significantly established? E.g. CD- Rom

The collective participation and engagement in world building produces a more eclectic and visceral World, as done in the World Building Lab at USC school. The process of synergy in research, data collection and imagination is fascinating. When does this fictional exploration (future projection) rooted in facts and figures become a reality? I’m also contemplating whether the technology comes first or the idea? How may I create new technology which supports the creation of my idea/ concept? Is technological innovation an accident, a by-product of the search for the right medium of expression or merely a tool to explore my idea?

Looking at apps like Serial Box and other such ‘short story telling’ apps (few seconds), Are new technologies fuelling the already shortened attention span of viewers? How can such technologies do the reverse?

Nov. 6 Discussion Questions (Matt)

1. Cuphead, one of the experiences featured in the Medium article, is an example of a largely forgotten and underused form of animation being resurrected in the form of a modern interactive experience. Do we think things like video games or other digital media are a good means to preserve artistic techniques that have fallen by the wayside, or is it more of a gimmick?
2. Podcasts have become an immensely popular means of delivering both knowledge and narrative experiences. What do we think it is that makes them so compelling? Is it just “radio, again” as I’ve heard some people express, or is there something more to them that can explain their popularity?
3. For however many interesting and provocative VR experiences have been highlighted over the years by major publications, how many have gone forgotten and ignored? Should there be a bigger incentive to document and catalog experiences in this form of developing media given how many other forms have lost their past?
4. Are there types of narrative experiences that the class thinks we need to see more of? Are we maybe leaning a bit too hard into VR and AR when there are maybe more things to be done in the real world?

November 6- Discussion Questions (Julia)

1) While reading, I thought of plenty of examples of how VR & AR are creating experiences for us that mimic and resemble ones in which we have to be physically present. For instance, The Lockdown, is an immersive experience listed on Lance Weiler’s article titled 20 Immersive Things. It is described as a new AR-based app, offering the world’s first mobile escape room. In other words, you can play the game whenever, wherever as long as you have your smartphone. I was even thinking about hologram technology changing the future of music performance, and festivals/concerts also becoming virtual worlds through VR and AR technology.

Q: Do you think real/physically present experiences are slowly being taken over by technology such as VR and AR? Do you think it is a possibility in the future that we may no longer be able to experience something physically and solely through AR and VR immersive technologies?

2) Q:What do you think makes an immersive experience and/or story successful? Have you ever experienced one in which you did not feel immersed or where it was not as believable as expected?

3) In interactive performances, audiences are increasingly asked to be participants or collaborators; to take part, sometimes to follow instructions, and occasionally even to have agency. In this sense, we are no longer passive spectators but part of the show, story, and overall experience.

Q: Do you prefer passive watching or this extremely immersive, interactive watching? Do you think immersive theatre/performance is the future of storytelling and future of cinema?

4) Q: By immersing audiences within the performance/story itself, do you think this takes away from ordinary/passive viewership? In other words, does granting a viewer the power to take part and make narrative decisions detract and take away from their overall viewing experience?

W9 Reading Questions from Mizusa

Q1. The Cell & The City the VR immersive storytelling narrates how the pancreatic beta-cell functions to teach public the effects of drugs and treatments on it. How beneficial/ unbeneficial is this radical way of augmenting one’s knowledge? How different is the way of narrative of The Cell & The City from its conventional counterparts, such as informed orally by a health professional?

Q2. (Reflecting on Q1) If this type of storytelling educates people effectively, enhancing their awareness of a specific issue, what else can be well narrated? Can immersive storytelling contribute to making a better world in this era?

Q3. The more technology is involved in storytelling, such as the cinema projection with the VR headset, the more difficult the viewers own the medium of the story on their own. How will this tendency effect on consumer experiences with storytelling? Some contents are so easily accessed online, and some mediums, such as DVD, are available at many stores, but not the kit for immersive experiences. Does this diverse possibility for ownership give any incentives to those mediums in the different degrees?

Q4. The article states that the reason why destroying a book’s prose to the point of it being unreadable is to track whom it has belonged to at any given time by making a “mark”. Why is one’s prompt of making a mark needed to be destructive-removing a word, not productive-changing a storyline? Does Universe Explodes tell us how objects like a book change over time by owned by different people?