Using Virtual Reality to Save the White Rhino
The American scientists and the Kenyan rangers aren’t the only people working to preserve the white rhinos. Kel O’Neill and Eline Jongsma, a pair of American-Dutch filmmakers, are also hoping to save these animals, not via test tubes or guns, but rather through a virtual-reality headset. The Ark, as their project is known, is a virtual-reality documentary that follows the lives of the last remaining four northern white rhinoceroses, as well as the scientists and rangers working half a world away from one another to preserve the creatures.
“We’re working with a 10-camera GoPro array,” explains O’Neill. “We want the viewer to feel as though they’re a floating ball of consciousness while they watch the piece.” This means that, when the viewer looks down, rather than seeing the tripod on which the 360-degree camera stands or a virtual-reality company’s logo, one instead sees the ground.