Behind The Scenes: RideShare VR180

Ever since I watched the VR short film, Dear Angelica, I was hooked. I knew immersive storytelling was the art form I wanted to dive into. So, after months of experimenting with a potato-tier camera making aggressively amateur VR180 vlogs, I felt ready to dive into the deep end and try out a narrative short.

I hit up my filmmaker homies for any short scripts they got collecting dust, and finally landed on one that felt right: Rideshare by the Everything Collective gawd himself, Seth Garnes. Short, humorous, and set in a car—it’s the ideal sandbox for my VR180 experiments. It was a chance to put theory into practice and see if making all those shaky vlogs really taught me something.

If you’re curious about the technicalities, check out the director’s commentary in VR180 in the above links; it’s the full BTS experience. But here, I want to focus on the ‘why’ — as in, why make a short film in VR180?

While I was in the preproduction/planning stage for Rideshare, I went out with some friends and got to choppin it up about my ideas for Rideshare. As we descended deeper into the night, the drunker and louder we all became. Eventually, while the DJ was playing some weirdo mash Taylor swift with LMFAO, one of the homies yelled over the music:

“Bro, why do a film in VR? Why not just make a regular film? It’d be a lot easier.”

Not gonna lie, he had me for a second. But as the Swift mash-up got brute-forced transitioned into Crank Dat by Soulja Boy, I suddenly remembered getting rocked to the soul by VR experiences like The Book of Distance and meeting the Vortigaunt, Gary, in Half Life Alyx had on me. This medium offers a unique level of engagement that traditional 2D can’t replicate.

So the next morning, while nursing a hangover, I came up with a quick list to check myself before I wreck myself, prior to VR-video content creation:

• SHOULD THIS VIDEO IDEA BE IN VR? Why?
• Is this video idea worth the hassle of a user putting on a headset & locking themselves in to watch your video? If it’s something light like a 20 sec meme, then just make a tiktok.
• Does this idea lean into the medium’s immersive potential? Are you making use of the POV, stereoscopy, etc? 

If any one of those fetches a “no”, then vault the whole idea and save it for flat screen. But if you’re confident that your idea plays into the immersive medium, then by all means, let’s get it crackin. As for what makes a “good” VR video, that’s really up to you and the world to decide. We’re still in the “throw everything at the wall to see what sticks” phase of the medium. But I see this undefined space as a goldmine of creative opportunity.

For Rideshare, my aim was to test my VR videography theories and techniques. And overall, I’d say it was a mighty solid effort. The pacing never drags, it’s engaging, and in a medium where a bad edit can literally make you nauseous, Rideshare barely (but does) gets a passing mark. The premise of a rideshare gone wild was the perfect test bed for capturing the viewer’s full attention, a must in VR.

TL;DR:

VR180 is an exciting frontier. It defies traditional cinematography and demands that you hold viewer attention from start to finish. And to not do so betrays the effort of a VR user going through the friction of putting on a headset in the first place. With Rideshare, I feel we hit those marks on a shoestring budget. And if this glorified test run convinces me of anything, it’s that immersive-video storytelling has promise. It’s a field ripe for exploration, requiring neither 3D modeling nor game design expertise. So take a ride with Kuya, and if you enjoy it, don’t forget to rate your driver 5 stars!

Till next time, stay immersed.

– Kuya