Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh: Virtual reality ‘is never going to work’ for real movies
SEATTLE, WA - NOVEMBER 06: Writer Ed Solomon (L) and Director and Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh speak during an exclusive first look at interactive storytelling APP Mosaic from HBO and PODOP on November 6, 2017 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by FilmMagic/FilmMagic for HBO)
[Philip Lelyveld comment: I guess he hasn't been to a play in a while. Filming an entire play from one seat doesn't create a good film-going experience, but the theatre director can create a good in-theatre experience. Having just created Mosaic, he should know better than to say VR doesn't work for long form because I can't use cinematic language in VR. ]
“I wish I could short VR, because in a narrative space, I don’t think it’s ever going to work,” Soderbergh said when I asked about virtual reality during an event at HBO’s Seattle office this week. “It’s going work in 10- to 15-minute bursts as an immersion into something, but it is never going work in a long-form narrative space. There are too many things that you’re giving up that are crucial to a viewer’s locking in to a narrative.”
The first problem, Soderbergh said, is the lack of a reverse shot in virtual reality. This is the film technique that puts the audience in the position of one character, looking directly at a second character, and then flips the perspective to look back at the first character from the perspective of the second.
See the full story here: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/filmmaker-steven-soderbergh-virtual-reality-never-going-work-real-movies/