Oculus wants to make immersive virtual theater a reality
Yelena Rachitsky, executive producer of experiences at Facebook's VR giant, Oculus, describes it as indie video game phenom Journey meets immersive play Sleep No More. The project, tentatively expected for release next year, is inventing a new VR format that attempts to widen the audience for some of today's most exciting VR experiences -- installations with live actors.
"We're really interested in, how do you create that experience of live actors without needing to be in a site-specific location," Rachitsky said in an interview this month ahead of the Tribeca Film Festival. "It's a way to scale."
Earlier this year, Third Rail ventured into virtual reality, contributing to Wolves in the Walls, an experience that was also under Rachitsky's wing at Oculus. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
CNET reports that Rachitsky noted such an experience is “a way to scale,” with the audience enjoying “the interactivity of a live actor without the limitations of a performance that occurs only in one place.”
And VR performances in real spaces with actors already exist, too, like Jack: Part One by Baobob Studios, and Draw Me Close, a coproduction between the National Theater and the National Film Board of Canada. Using motion-tracking in a space that's mapped onto a live performance area, audience and performers interact together as in immersive theater, but the audience's visuals are a virtual world instead.
see the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/news/oculus-wants-to-make-immersive-virtual-theater-a-reality/