Virtual reality films are Sundance’s latest sensation
Jaunt debuted “My Brother’s Keeper,” an offshoot of the PBS series “Mercy Street,” which follows two brothers fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War. More than 150 Civil War re-enactors were used to film “My Brother’s Keeper,” and several of them crawl right up in your face as they die. You can practically feel the intensity of the battle.
Jaunt also premiered “Bashir’s Dream,” a mix of live action documentary filmmaking and animation that tells the story of Qusai Bashir Masaama, a 14-year-old Syrian refugee living in Jordan, who was shot in the back by a sniper while he was on his way to buy candy.
Other virtual reality standouts at Sundance include the Synesthesia Suit, a full-body exoskeleton-style suit with 26 sensors to provide as much sensation as possible while playing the video game “Rez Infinite” or experiencing the psychedelic sounds of “Crystal Vibes.”
In August 2014, Daniel Ashley Pierce recorded the audio of the verbal and physical abuse heaped on him by his conservative parents as they were kicking him out of the house because of his homosexuality. That audio is the soundtrack to “Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story,” which lets participants experience Daniel’s hurt and pain in 360 degrees.
And a three-hour wait accompanied “Tree,” a haptically enhanced virtual experience by artists Milica Zec and Winslow Porter that follows the life cycle of a rainforest tree.
“You start as a seed, you burst through the ground, and then all of a sudden when you start getting branches, you realize that your arms are branches,” Zec says. “You can move them, and your body’s a trunk. You get to witness what unfortunately way too many trees go through today in rainforests.”
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