Doug Liman Goes VR With ‘Invisible’: “I Thought People Could Do Better”
With Invisible—his latest project from Conde Nast Entertainment, Samsung and VR firm Jaunt—the Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow helmer continues to push boundaries and question established procedure, entering the world of virtual realitywith a bang and a lot of action, and demonstrating that the much-discussed, burgeoning medium need not be reduced to a mundane, aimless panorama.
Speaking with Deadline, Liman touches on his proclivity for “immersive storytelling,” the low bar that has been set with VR, and the “Holy Grail” he is chasing after in the medium.
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There’s some really boring VR content out there. It’s like watching a PBS videotape of a boring play. You’re like, “Cool! I can look at the ceiling and the wall, in case the main performance isn’t boring enough.”
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I discovered almost immediately that the bar for Melisa and her writing is so much higher because you have to hook an audience way more quickly, because part of VR’s appeal and the way it works is that the audience has to want to follow the story. Then, they enjoy hunting to find the breadcrumbs you left them. They love exploring the world, but they have to want to explore it.
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I selected Invisible as the story I wanted to tell in VR because it does have effects and it does have action. The reality is, it was shockingly hard to do the action. I was working with [director/stunt coordinator] Simon Crane, who’s done a number of films with me. He’s at the top of the field in action directing, and I’m excited for the next one we do because of how much we learned.
... Those of us who grew up when movies were made on film are used to shooting and waiting to see the results, and a modern filmmaker is used to seeing results immediately. ... In VR, there’s a lot of looking at the elements that are going to go into it, and then having to imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s all put together. Especially when you get to visual effects, sometimes you don’t to get to see it until a month later.
The audio is so complicated. ... VR was the same way, where mixing the sound is so complicated that when you’re doing the stitching of the picture, you have a lousy soundtrack that you’re working with, and then separately, over here, you have great sound, but you have no picture to go with it, and it’s not till it’s all done and it’s too late to make any changes that you finally see the sound and the picture married.
Has it been heartening to see the conversation shift over the course of this past year, with the success of your series and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena, which lit up Cannes?
Filmmakers feed off each other, even if we don’t know each other.
See the full story here: http://deadline.com/2017/06/invisible-doug-liman-conde-nast-virtual-reality-emmys-interview-news-1202109737/