Can integrating virtual reality into movies subvert the experience?

If you haven’t watched a VR movie, you are really out of date: before the end of 2015, Light Chaser Animation has launched its first original short film "Goodbye, Expression"; Noitom assisted the movie "Mojin: The Lost Legend" with its inertial motion capture system, which subverted the biggest constraint in the development of Previz; the most anticipated is the VR movie "Survive to the End" currently being shot by Lanting Digital...

Time is telling what kind of future VR technology will bring to mankind.

NBA's "Little Emperor" starred in Oculus short film

On Christmas Day in 2015, LeBron James, nicknamed "Little Emperor", who failed to win a game in the battle between the Cavaliers and the Warriors, gave his fans a VR gift. The NBA star teamed up with Oculus, a VR manufacturer under Facebook, and released a 12-minute VR short film - "Striving for Greatness".

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Reality show VR short film starring James

In the movie, James shows how he implements a strict training program (field training, gym strength training, etc.), and shows his lifestyle and trivial matters up close. As soon as this short film was released, it aroused heated discussions among fans, and the use of VR as a form of expression put James at the forefront of technology. This video requires wearing a Gear VR helmet to download and watch it on the Oculus Store or Samsung's Milk VR platform. Although whether this short video of James can be defined as a VR video, or is still only within the scope of 360° panoramic shooting, it is actually of great significance to Oculus. Because its blockbuster product Oculus Rift consumer version will be released in the first quarter of next year, and Oculus's Rift helmet will also get rid of the stereotype of a gaming tool because of this short film.

VR movies are so popular in the United States that they attract a lot of attention. Whenever the industry launches content or new technologies related to VR, they immediately spark heated discussions. Oculus, which is currently popular in the US VR industry, took advantage of the "James Effect" to announce the development of its first movie "Lost". This is a movie of indefinite length, which can be three and a half minutes or ten minutes depending on the audience's choice. However, some US media questioned that the movie's interactivity is not very strong and is far from meeting the requirements of a true VR movie. The interactivity of a true VR movie is reflected in the fact that when it comes to key links, you can follow the protagonist or choose a certain plot.

The first domestic original short film is released

While Americans were rushing to watch the short film produced by James and Oculus on the Internet, on the day after Christmas, a VR short film titled "Goodbye, Expression" was released by Light Chaser Animation at the premiere of the movie "Little Door Gods", breaking the record of zero original domestic VR content.

Audiences who experienced this VR short film on site said: "I didn't expect it to be so complete", "It's so cool", "Although it's still a bit uncomfortable, it would be so cool if we could watch movies like this in the future"...

In fact, as early as March this year, Light Chaser Animation, which was established two years ago, released the first concept trailer of the 3D animated film "Little Door Gods" as an attempt at VR content: when the audience enters the theater, they experience a VR entrance short film based on the movie scene - put on the Oculus helmet and immerse themselves in the small town streets in the movie; look around, the town residents warmly greet you to enter the wonton shop; the guests in the shop greet you; then follow the camera into the mysterious world of gods and stop in front of a door with a door god attached...

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Wang Wei, founder of Light Chaser Animation

In the past two years, more and more VR works have been available to everyone, but most of these contents are experience-based, and there are few story-based contents. This is mainly because VR's panoramic viewpoint and certain degree of interactive characteristics make many traditional video storytelling methods such as lens language and camera placement directly invalid. At the same time, VR content also faces various possible problems such as dizziness, which also increases the difficulty of story creation in VR.

Different from the short film released in March, the VR short film "Goodbye, Emoji" focuses on exploring how to tell stories in VR. It is also China's first complete VR story short film, produced entirely with CG. This short film, which is only 5 minutes and 40 seconds long, tells the story of a young couple arguing over their mobile phones, while the boy's mobile phone shows a different scene. Various emojis are excitedly looking forward to being selected and used, and the emoji that means "goodbye" is selected at a critical moment. The audience will start a unique journey with it.

Mi Li, the director of the VR short film, said: "The "Goodbye, Expression" project was launched in mid-January this year, the script writing began in mid-April, and the CG production officially began in June. The production took 5 months, with more than 50 production staff involved, and a total of 193 versions." CG technology is "old business" for Light Chaser Animation, so the team knows how to create impressive and exquisite pictures.

Through the use of long shots in terms of depth and perspective, lens rotation and shaking are avoided, and the audience is "cued" through the natural movement of lights, sounds, actions and scenes. This ensures that the audience can follow the development of the story without missing key points, while minimizing the audience's sense of dizziness, while also giving the audience enough freedom to have a full immersive experience.

This short film, which uses 360-degree panoramic high-definition stereo production, has a huge amount of data generation and computing requirements. For example, the amount of animation data has increased by more than 5 times, the amount of special effects computing has increased by 12 times, and the amount of lighting synthesis data is 877 times the average amount of special effects data in "Little Door God". At the same time, since the whole film has only 5 shots, the longest shot is 112 seconds, overall, there are great challenges in scene design, CG process and production, rendering technology, etc.

VR technology solves the biggest limitation of Previz

The hot topic in the film industry recently is whether "Mojin: The Lost Legend" can become the No. 1 domestic film in box office history? It is a fantasy film like the previous "Monster Hunt". As Chinese films have come to this point, the industrial production standards of all links have finally kept up with the box office growth, the 5-cent special effects have faded, and the explosion of fantasy/magic films has truly been realized.

Audiences who have watched "Mojin: The Lost Legend" know that the film's strength lies in its special effects. It is reported that the production team occupied almost all the studios of China Film Group Corporation, including the largest studio in Asia with an area of ​​5,000 square meters, and the filming time in the studio reached 2,742 hours. However, high-cost production is not a prerequisite for success. A good film has already made half of the preparations for success before the official shooting. For example, there is a key link in the early preparation of "Mojin: The Lost Legend" - preview.

"Previz" - literally translated into Chinese as "visual preview", or "previz" for short, is a keyword repeatedly mentioned by the special effects team of "The Lost Tomb" in their summary of success. "The Lost Tomb" produced a total of 60 minutes of preview footage (the whole film is 125 minutes). Before it, Chinese films had never used previz technology so extensively.

What effect does pre-production have? When Peter Jackson remade King Kong in 2005, the behind-the-scenes footage showed that he pre-made animations with the help of animators to explain the scenes to the actors on the set. This was the original "Previz". Through Previz, the director can form an accurate plan for all aspects of the film in the early stages, which provides a crucial reference during filming and avoids waste in many links. As a result, Previz has gradually gained a place in Hollywood blockbusters.

The speed of the times is dazzling. In 2005, Peter the Great had to be drawn frame by frame by animators. Later, another revolutionary technology in the film industry, "motion capture", naturally replaced manual animation and became the most important means of production for previews. Because the use of motion capture technology can not only reduce the requirements for the personal quality of animators (animators are very expensive), but also greatly increase the controllability of the production cycle (manual operation, if you want to draw well, you can't draw quickly, and each animator has a different speed). At the same time, because of the use of real-life performance data, preview clips can provide more accurate references for shot time and rhythm. With this power, directors and producers can understand the workload and content of post-production special effects production before the project starts shooting, get forecast figures that are closer to reality, more accurately evaluate budget costs and production cycles, set feasible budgets and arrange the best release schedules. Being a director is really a technical job.

In the Christmas season, not only directors love to rehearse, but actors do too. For this kind of special effects blockbuster with a large number of digital scenes, props and characters, motion capture combined with the on-site virtual camera and on-site visual preview can allow actors to quickly understand the plot and grasp the key points of the performance. The director has repeatedly deliberated on the preview shots in the early stage, which can also reduce the process of mutual adjustment and inspiration between the scene and the actors, or the pain of rework and torture when missing the picture, saving a lot of time and manpower.

Today, the key to Previz's breakthrough in Chinese films and the escort of "Mojin: The Lost Legend" is also based on the improvement of inertial motion capture technology represented by Noitom. The inertial motion capture system has subversively changed the biggest constraint in the development of Previz. First of all, of course, the purchase cost is low. The price of inertial motion capture is much lower than that of traditional optical motion capture equipment. Far means that the minimum cost of a full set of motion capture equipment is only tens of thousands of yuan, which is affordable even for online self-made dramas.

Second, the cost of use is low. Inertial motion capture does not require a special venue for complex equipment construction. It has no requirements for the venue and can even be used outdoors. More importantly, it is extremely simple to use. It only takes a dozen minutes from equipment preparation to the start of capture.

Third, it is easy to use. The real-time and stability of inertial motion capture data is much higher than that of traditional optical equipment. Unlike optical capture, it will not lose motion due to the mutual occlusion between props, scenes and characters. In this way, even if the actor is only half as skilled as Andy Serkis, it is not difficult to use.

This time, the inertial motion capture equipment and services used in "Mojin: The Lost Legend" are provided by Noitom, which can be said to have caught up with the node of technological innovation. And the popular Chinese film and television market is telling stories that are not limited to box office with the evolution of technology and the improvement of industrialization.

Can VR movies "survive to the end"?

"Standing in the middle of a white, enclosed room, I can turn my head left and right to look around the room, but I cannot move. Several young people are trapped in the room. There is a traitor among them. They have a chance to identify the traitor every one or two minutes. If they identify correctly, they can leave the room. If they identify incorrectly, one of them will die. As time goes by, people keep dying in front of me, and the young people around me also go from walking around, and discussions escalate to quarrels and suspicions, and even fights..." The above is the audience's feedback when experiencing the VR micro-film "Survive to the End" at Lanting Digital.

VR (virtual reality) is a virtual world that uses computers to simulate three-dimensional space. It can observe things in three-dimensional space in a timely and unlimited manner. It is recognized as an important development discipline in the 21st century and one of the important technologies that affect human life. Today, the trend of virtual reality has entered the film industry - well-known directors such as Spielberg, Michael Bay and James Wan, the director of "Fast and Furious 7", have joined in, and excellent film works such as "Avengers 2" and "Warcraft" have also tried to use it. In China, people's desire for VR movies has far exceeded expectations, and the use of VR technology will be a major trend in Chinese films in the future.

The famous domestic VR company "Lanting Digital" and young director Lin Jingjing spent several months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to experimentally shoot the first 12-minute plot VR micro-film "Live to the End". Although it is still an attempt, new problems have been discovered in the production process of the film, and solutions are constantly being sought.

Zhuang Ji, co-founder of Lanting Digital, explained that there are currently two types of videos that can be watched with a VR helmet: one is 3D video, like watching a movie, without interaction, the picture is in a certain range in front of the eyes, and the left and right eyes see two slightly different pictures to create a three-dimensional sense; the other is panoramic video, similar to a street view map, with interactivity, rotating the perspective to see different content, the picture seen by both eyes is the same, but you can see a 360-degree picture of a scene. Panoramic videos can also be watched on ordinary computer screens, but the immersion will be much more obvious when wearing a VR helmet, and VR videos mainly refer to this type. At present, domestic VR movies are more likely to adopt a combination of the two.

Although the technical bottlenecks have been overcome, the most difficult part of a 12-minute VR movie with a plot is how to keep the audience's attention on the plot. In "Live to the End", even though the actors are moving, the audience still needs to look left and right, and they will lose track of the plot if they are not careful. This is also one of the key factors that prevent VR movies from being long-form.

Many viewers have reported that VR movies are not mature and perfect compared to ordinary movies. They are more difficult to shoot and produce. Whether it is the well-known overseas brand Oculus, or domestic companies such as Light Chaser Animation and Lanting Digital, most of the VR movies currently produced are not very interactive and are far from the imagined goal of a true VR movie.

The real interactivity of VR movies is reflected in the fact that when it comes to the key links, you can follow the protagonist or choose a certain plot. And the real VR movie is no longer just a pure movie concept, but also involves many procedural issues. So, when can the real VR movie be realized? Many VR technicians believe that it is too early to talk about this topic now, and the technology, content and platform have not yet developed to the point where it can be discussed. The VR short films that continue to be released can at least allow us to experience the sensory pleasure brought by early VR technology, just like when humans talked about 3D with incredible imagination, the real VR visual feast is actually not far away.