Jul 29, 2015

Oculus Creative Director Saschka Unseld: "It's like being back in film school.

Directed by Ramiro Lopez Dow, "Henry" is the second experimental short produced by Oculus Story Studios.

As an accomplished layout artist and director of animated shorts, including Pixar's "The Blue Umbrella," Saschka Unseld knows a thing or two about film. But since taking over as creative director of Oculus Story Studios, Unseld feels like she's back in film school.

Of course, he's not alone at Oculus, which this week pulled back the curtain on the VR animated short "Henry." From the company's overall presentation to Cartoon Brew's separate interviews with technical director Max Plank and Unseld himself, everyone at the relatively new Oculus Story Studio, for all their charm and skill, is convinced that Henry seems clear about the fact that they have only scratched the surface of what can be done in VR film.

Anseld calls the interactive nature of VR film "letting go." This is an appropriate mantra for a director who is accustomed to (literally) calling the shots, but who must now hand the cinematic experience over to individual viewers, each with his or her own tendencies and desires. Anseld says he's not ready to let go completely, although he thinks he should so that Oculus and VR cinema can evolve beyond what Max Planck calls the "novelty phase." I met Ansel yesterday in a quiet corner of the Beverly Hills mansion that Oculus rented for Henry's launch.

See also: Oculus Debuts Henry, An Immersive Virtual Reality Short

Cartoon Brew: Ramiro Lopez Dau's "Henry" is a cutting edge experience, but Oculus' presentation, seemed to speak to the sense that we are still in the formative stages of VR cinema.

Saschka Unseld: For me, it's really important to mention that constantly. Even though we see the potential, we are still held back a lot because the hardware is not fast enough. This is only our second film, so the more we do it, the more I feel like I am in film school again. In a normal movie, I would have completely known how to tell this story, edit it, and pace it, but not only am I in film school again, I don't even have the benefit of having seen a million [VR] movies.

There is always this mixture of loving the process of making VR films, but also realizing how little we actually know or can do about VR films. I feel like there is this external perception that people are looking for a killer movie or app or product that will win over others, but it's baby steps. Thousands of companies will try something and eventually one company will rub shoulders with Instagram. For that to happen, thousands of companies need to try something and eventually one company will realize Instagram.

Cartoon Brew: One of the things I noticed immediately about Henry was that the story and the characters drew me in, but when I was there I wanted to explore the environment. How do you keep viewers focused while still allowing them to take advantage of the immersive experience of VR at their leisure? I mean, we're always looking for both, and what we learned from Lost (the first Oculus Studio short film directed by Unseld) is that you should give the viewer space in the beginning to calm down and look around a bit. But it's difficult. When you show it to different people, they react differently. Some people just sit and look straight ahead, some don't move at all and don't look around, others want to crawl around and explore everything. But for me, the most important thing is that there is movement, not just spinning. There is immense joy in movement.

For example, the ladybug crawls at the beginning of "Henry". Initially, we placed various objects on the set so that viewers would be rewarded for looking around. For example, if they glanced at a rocking chair, a ladybug might crawl out of it. But we soon discovered that some viewers didn't look around at all, so we decided that we were moving too fast and decided to use the ladybug as something to draw Henry's attention to, in case some people didn't understand. So we didn't have to say, "Oh, by the way, look around you."

See also Oculus TD Max Planck interview: "I want to inspire VR Citizen Kane"

Cartoon Brew: VR decentralizes the movie somewhat, allowing viewers to make their own movie within a specific movie made for them.

Saschka Unseld: Initially, in talking about VR with professionals, the big change for me was "Where are you?" was to answer the question, "Where are you? This is a black and white question. And if you are there, then it needs to make sense in the story that you are there. But at one point, Henry is half of this outcome, and we realized that wasn't true. You are the audience and that is your role and that is fine. Your role is not to be an active participant in the narrative.

I think it is possible for the audience to have an interaction with the film, but where is the end point - is the character aware of it or not - I don't want to completely give up control of timing, emotion and character. Henry's emotional coherence with the audience is not compromised by the fact that he shares his feelings with them. If you put your head close to his, he might respond, "Hey, what are you doing there all of a sudden...? " and he might respond, "I don't know. But that would break it.

Cartoon Brew: On a more personal note, how does it feel to be part of this new frontier of baby steps in VR cinema? I have always felt part of it. Even before I started film school, I was playing with CG when "Toy Story" was released. It was around the time "Toy Story" was released. This is really close to that feeling; VR has allowed me to rediscover how good regular movies can be. Once you get away from something, you start to realize everything you have to lose.