Filmmakers are already doing incredible things with virtual reality

seth green holidays VR
Could virtual reality shorts be the next big space for actors? Distant Corners Entertainment XYZ Films

Virtual reality isn't just for gaming. It could be the next hub for immersive visual storytelling.

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The Tribeca Film Festival featured 18 virtual experiences for attendees at this year's festival inside a Virtual Arcade ranging from mini-documentaries and short stories to animated pictures.

Most shorts required participants to sit in a chair you could spin around in to explore each respective narrative while a few invited you to stand and become a fully-active participant.

Here are the six best shorts we saw at the festival.

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"Old Friend" put me in the center of a music video I never wanted to leave.

old friend wevr
Wevr

The first short I tried out at Tribeca was one from VR studio Wevr in which I was dropped in the center of a vibrant world surrounded by a circle of colorful, muppet-like creatures.

When you look down at yourself, you find that you're also one of these colorful characters with waving, wiggling arms and legs. You may as well be an inflatable tubeman. A drum major appears and the next three to four minutes invite you into a psychedelic, synchronized marching band dance party.

It was difficult to restrain from wanting to join in, and I found I couldn't help but have a giant grin on my face the entire time. Creator Tyler Hurd created a nonsensical space filled with pure joy. 

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"Holidays: Christmas VR" was an incredibly meta virtual experience.

seth green holidays VR
Distant Corners Entertainment XYZ Films

Seth Green starred in one of the best VR shorts of the festival. When you first put the virtual reality headset on, you're in a theater watching Green's character in a screen as he tried to purchase a reality headset for the holiday. (Yes, it was very meta.) I won't spoil how he got his hands on one. Story aside, the best part of the short was the creative way in which Green's short made use of the technology.

Any time a character put on the fictional VR headset inside the video you became a person inside the virtual world. I was impressed how you were able to look down and see yourself as a person. Most of the VR experiences I tried either show you as a stationary object or as a non-existent, invisible spectator when you try to look down at your body. That ruins the illusion of being inside a virtual world slightly. 

You were also able to turn around to see your head. Any time you did it, you could see the fictional VR headset's logo, UVU, and it's tagline. If you discovered this before the short's end, it gave you a hint of where the story was heading.

 

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"Killer Deal" shows the potential of horror in virtual reality.

killer deal
Better VR Studios

This was one of the few shorts I had to wait in line for. Anytime I walked by, there was always a gaggle of people surrounding it, so I had pretty big expectations. 

I didn't realize until I tried it that the short starred Ian Ziering, of "90210" fame and the recent "Sharknado" films — something which made more sense knowing "Sharknado" director Anthony C. Ferrante was responsible for "Killer Deal."

In the short, you're a spectator in a hotel room during a machete convention. Ian Ziering returns to his room, but it appears someone else may already be there. He ends up going to toe-to-toe with a killer in a mask.

The overall experience was just all right. The dialogue and premise were a little cheesy, made moreso by squirts of what was obviously fake blood shooting out at you. To be fair, it seemed that was the point of the "over-the-top" horror experience.

There were definitely times I felt nervous and scared watching the short, especially when the light was shut off and you weren't sure what was happening in the room. There were two times where I held back jumping in my seat when the masked man came close to my face. (That's the weird thing about experiencing VR alone around a crowd of watching people. It's a little weird reacting and freaking out when no one else is having the same reaction alongside you.) 

Still, the nearly 10-minute short showed a lot of promise for what others can do with this genre in the future. 

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"Invasion" is an adorable animated short featuring rabbits and aliens.

baobab invasion
Baobab Studios

In the six-minute short from Baobab Studios, aliens come to Earth only to be met by two adorable bunnies, one of which is yourself. 

It felt like being inside a Pixar-esque short. The experience was like watching an animated picture from inside the animated world: Viewers were able to control the camera, and, depending on where you looked, take in a different perspective of the narrative. If you are watching on the Oculus, you're able to interact with your surroundings as the bunny. 

The rabbits were so adorable you could easily see them translated into a physical, marketable toy plush. By the end of the short, I wanted one of my own. The short is currently available to watch on every VR headset.

Check out the trailer for "Invasion" here.

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"Allumette" was the most immersive VR experience I've ever tried.

allumette
Penrose

I thought "Invasion" was cool and then I watched Penrose's "Allumette," a somber take on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl," and I was blown away.

One of the few VR shorts I was instructed to watch while standing up, this nearly 20-minute short was by far the most immersive experience I tried at Tribeca. You're dropped in the center of a floating city. Instead of just watching events unfold, you're able to walk around and check out what's happening around and below you. When a character walked out from under a bridge, you could get up close enough to touch her and view her from every angle. And when a flying ship passed by, you were able to stick your head inside of it to see below deck. 

The entire experience was like being inside a vivid dream. If this is where the future of animation is heading, I'm very excited for it.

Read more about "Allumette" here.

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"Perspective 2: The Misdemeanor" shows you a story of police violence from four points of view.

misdeameanor
via Tribeca Film Festival

Project creators Rose Troche and Morris May could have easily told this story about a misdemeanor crime that spins out of control with the viewer acting as a mere bystander. 

Instead, the story is told from four perspectives. The viewer is placed atop several different characters' bodies, which adds an emotional impact to the piece once a Brooklyn police officer ends up shooting, and presumably killing, a man over shoplifting. 

The only problem was that your head wasn't perfectly atop the characters' bodies, making the video a little choppy. Clearly, VR still has a way to go before it becomes seamless, but I admired that this video attempted to do something groundbreaking.

Movies Virtual reality
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