Who will be the George Lucas of VR? Film schools just started teaching it
[Philip Lelyveld note; this story covers the SCA/Jaunt VR Lab]
That’s why VR companies like Jaunt and Oculus are taking virtual reality to New York University and the University of Southern California, starting Master Classes and creating workshops: to write the rules of this new revolution in filmmaking.
“The concept of a VR lab started last summer, as we began planning on how we could work together,” Jaunt Studios President Cliff Plumer told me in an exclusive interview with Digital Trends. The Jaunt Cinematic Virtual Reality Lab, which will launch later this year, is the product of a rich history between USC School of Cinematic Arts (SCA), Lucasfilm, and its founder, alumni George Lucas. “A number of us at Jaunt who came from Lucasfilm have worked with Dean Daley and the USC Cinema School for many years,” Plumer said. The lab will be a three-year incubator at SCA where students can learn how to film for virtual reality, and try it out for themselves.
The Jaunt Cinematic Virtual Reality Lab sounds more collaborative. It will be a three-year incubator at SCA where the company plans to “collaborate with the staff on introducing Jaunt technology and production techniques to the students.” The goal is to develop techniques, rules, and best practices that the film industry at large can adopt. Jaunt did not reveal the names of guest speakers, but Plumer did imply it would involve members of the University of Southern California faculty that Jaunt has worked with in the past on feature films.
Plumer did not specify what Jaunt or SCA would need to see from the partnership in order to continue it past its designated three years. But Plumer attests that USC is just the first foray into education for the virtual reality company. “Jaunt will continue to look for additional centers of education” to help promote virtual reality filmmaking, he told me.
Virtual reality filmmaking is even starting to interest the elite filmmakers in Hollywood. On a panel at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival titled “Power of Story: The Art of Film,” Christopher Nolan stated that he’s open to filming in virtual reality. He even compared VR’s relationship with traditional filmmaking to video games. “It’ll be its own medium. I never get asked anymore, ‘do you think video games will kill movies?’ 10 years ago I was asked that all the time. They’re two different mediums.”
See the full story here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/virtual-reality/oculus-jaunt-nyu-usc-vr-classes/?curator=MediaREDEF