Company
Disney Movies VR
Software
CGI Animation and 360 filming
Timing
Each experience was 5-10 minutes? I lost track of time, it was very immersive.
Narration
For the Disney, Disney ones, you became the character for a brief moment in the films:
Be Our Guest song is sung just for you by Lumiere, you are Belle (but can’t see your body)
Jungle Book: you play the boy in two scenes:
1. you are eaten by the snake as the lines from the film (boy wasn’t eaten though)
2. you meet the king of the Jungle (incredible CGI/ it looked real)
Dragon Story: you see several scenes, there is a narrator that talks about the story, reads a bit like a “bedtime” story narration which is pleasant, characters appear and disappear, scenes change to show the dragon
BIG: you were by the tree in Upside down Dreamworld. There was a lot of visual information, so I really didn’t follow the story, but it sounded as if it was exactly the line of dialogue in the movie where BIG explains what the nuzzlers are.
Subtitles
No subtitles, the sound is 3d, so you can hear what is going on and feel very immersed. There is music in all the experiences/ not sure about the jungle book, but the scene takes place there.
Story Arch
The methods are either a song scene, story scene or a “bedtime story.” I thought the movie scenes from Jungle book worked best, because I remembered this scene and now had a new understanding of the scenography and scene when I played the boy. In no scene, did “you” speak.
Cinematography
It was an incredible CGI Film and Gaming Environment combination. For the dragon story, there were people key framed into the scene but clearly as a transparent movie png/style. They fade in and out. Be Our Guest was a Unity/game engine aesthetic, which was although well done, a bit lacklustre since the movie version was very much over the top. The Jungle Book scenes and characters were incredibly well done, it was Unity and CGI to be sure, the monkeys looked real and moved so lifelike. For almost all of them, you were placed in the character’s position and saw their reference point in the scene. This worked incredibly well with the storytelling, because the environment is so rich and the depth of field, incredibly well done (with distance blur, fog, lighting, etc. of a high level) you could immerse yourself in the narrative without distraction. There was no movement in the space, so sickness was easily avoided.
Framing
All the scenes were full shots, you are fully immersed with your body in the space (although you can’t see it).
Color Palette
It was in full color, hyper-saturated and well composed like a movie still, but it looked quite real. For several of the texts, they were 3d in space, but the background was black or it was a still image and the text was the logo of the film with the distinct typography so this worked well.
Composition
There was symmetry in some of the scenes and all had forced perspective which was effective in guiding your eye and making you look around. Of all the VR experiences, I looked around a lot with this one and got a better idea of the space.
Point of View
You are the actor in this space, but it is fixed, you cannot move. Be Our Guest allowed you to pick up objects, but it wasn’t very convincing.
Looking Around
The story happened in front for Be Our Guest, namely because you are seated at a large table and a performance happens in front of you. The Jungle book monkey scene had me looking all around because you are placed between two of the characters, one directly behind you which is so well done, you really want to look at him during the dialogue.
Storytelling
All were linear, you could not pause, fast forward or interact (apart from Be Our Guest which was interactive but I didn’t have the right tools to grab objects). I didn’t mind this, nor the fixed position, I felt that this was the best way to go forward with the story. The dragon one did have jump cuts as well as the BIG but I found it a bit distracting and as a result didn’t follow much of the story.
Sound
It was immersive 360 sound, dialogue was mapped and placed in the space which encouraged me to turn and look around. This 360 sound made it highly immersive. All scenes had a music soundtrack underlying the sound effects and voices. They really used sound to the potential and it worked very well.
EEL VR Storytelling Research 