What It’s Like To Shoot A Feature Film For Oculus Rift
But the strangest thing is the surround sound headphones. Because you are in an immersive world, content creators are forced to use sound as a cue that instructs you where to look. The footsteps behind you and the screams from a corner make everything that much scarier--just as much as the monster or serial killer jumping out from behind the pile of trash.
Although distribution details are still sketchy, it’s one of the very first attempts Co.Labs has seen of Hollywood creating straight-to-Oculus Rift content.
Filming takes place with an array of cameras located in the center of the set in a large rig, with audio recorders hanging down from the ceiling. The big, this-changes-everything complication is that the camera array records everything in a 360 degree space. Or, as Plotkin told me, “If you see the camera, the camera sees you.”
And because footage from all those little cameras is merged, in a server-intensive process, into a single Oculus-compatible video file, every scene has to be done in a single take. Meanwhile, the actors are in front of, behind, and to the sides of the camera. The filming experience itself is akin to the bastard progeny of experimental theater in the round and video game production.
Everyone involved sees that there’s clear potential in making immersive virtual-reality movies, but no one knows what the audience will love, and what will just be too strange (or too corny) for them.
See the full story here: http://www.fastcolabs.com/3031890/what-its-like-to-shoot-a-feature-film-for-oculus-rift