Cat Flight

Oculus Rift Experience

Software
360 Film and game development in Unity with CGI (?)

Company
BBC Earth

Timing
10-15 minutes of material

Instructions UX
For the interactive section, the program uses little icons that convey that they are information, open and close. The icons are enough to realise that if you point to them, they will reveal something.

Narration
For the beginning, which is 360 video and sets the stage of the story (about a cub and it’s mother) the narration is spoken about “your mother” as if the cub was speaking.

Subtitles
In the interactive part, the text is 2D on a lighted hologram style info panel. The text is quite small, white and appears to glow on the background that is dark (evening). The animation at this point is in slow motion, so the moving of the cat’s body and the environment doesn’t pull focus from the text. 

Story Arch
It’s a nature learning experience. Cat Flight is the story of a mother caracal and her kitten trying to find food in a desolate African desert. The mother’s hunting technique involves a monstrous leap that takes her well above human head height, then she tries to grab a bird in mid-flight. Witness this remarkable jump in real-life super slow motion and then discover how she does it in an interactive CGI world.

Cinematography
The 360 footage is quite low quality with pixelation and issues of clarity. You are placed in several different positions both from above, below, side, etc. to be able to see the jump and hunt well (as if it was a frame for a nature documentary). The CGI world, which transforms the original footage into CGI. At this point, it is all slow motion and you rise upwards and downwards  For the explanations, virtual cards appear in the space with a video embedded in the card, with a short text explanation above them.

Framing
The shots were full environments.

Color Palette
It was in colour for the film and the CGI scene was selectively illustrated in colour. 

Composition
You are placed in views that explore the cat jump in different perspectives.

Point of View
At first, the point of view is that of her cub, but that changes with the narration and the CGI is entirely around scientifically showing the jump from different views. I found the narration of the “cub” to be a bit confusing since you think you are the cub and then you are up in the tree by the birds, so you are not sure what your physical presence means in the story.

Looking Around
You look around a bit, but there is very little in the frame, so you mostly only look directly ahead.

Storytelling
The story is fixed and the CGI part is interactive and you can spend as long as you like there. You could not jump in the story.

Sound
It was immersive voice over sound, and with a soundtrack, the sound effects were mapped. Sound was important to bring a sense of “wonder” to this.