Tribeca is a young festival by premier fest standards. Formed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this NYC-based fest has, perhaps because of its youth, been a pioneer in embracing new formats. Birthed out of the influential Tribeca Interactive conference comes Storyscapes, a robust VR entertainment program. Already proving incredibly popular, these re tough tickets! However S/W’s Jason Sondhi & Chelsea Lupkin waited in long lines to check out the selections and report back. Here are some of the standout titles they observed. 

Apex

Dir: Arjan van Meerten; Key Collaborators: wevr & Kaleidoscope

We’ll kick things off with my personal favorite of the program, the world-premiere of this wild apocalyptic music video from electronic musician and visual artist Arjan van Meerten. Known in the VR space for Surge, his award-winning 2015 effort,  Apex is a stunning room-scale experience that places you in the center of a frightening scene of city-wide annihilation. Peering from the edge of a skyscraper rooftop you are soon engulfed by an expanding explosion, then transported to ground level where malevolent towering demons march down fiery boulevards. There is no narrative to speak of, but van Meerten intrinsically understands immersion and scale in VR—the immensity of the figures is terrifying, and the perspectival shifts that room-scale provides make the illusion that much more complete. 

The film has a dream team of exec. producers, including Kaleidoscope VR, the group behind the touring Kaleidoscope VR Film Festival and now-defunct 360 video platform Vrideo, as well as Wevr, known for supporting diverse, high-profile projects like Iron Man director Jon Favreau’s CG VR animation Gnomes & Goblins and indie auteur Janicza Bravo’s 360 film Hard World for Small Things. The film is now available for PCs, but only through Wevr’s subscription platform Transport.

Jason Sondhi 

Auto

Dir: Steven Schardt

One of the most linear experiences we had, Auto follows a long time taxi driver as he finds himself replaced by technology—a self-driving car. Musay, an Ethiopian immigrant who already faces cultural adversity, once again becomes an outsider in a new world as he is forced to take employment with a taxi service as a “safety driver”, a transitional measure of comfort for passengers as car service providers make the change into self-driving cars.

Schardt places us inside the vehicle with Musay and his passengers as we see the former driver’s emotional struggles unfold. You won’t be able to escape the close proximity as a passenger, but you won’t feel like an active participant—Schardt simply allows you to come along for the ride. While Auto does not feel as though it is uniquely enabled by VR in form or storytelling, it is an enjoyable experience nonetheless. An independent production from Schardt, a long time producer for Lynn Shelton, the film is not available at the moment. 

Chelsea Lupkin

Blackout

Dir: Scatter NYC

Installation-based VR was big at Tribeca this year, and Blackout, from new dream-team collective Scatter, was one of the most eagerly anticipated. To begin, you step into a stark white replica of a small subway car, complete with pole handles and seats. Once the glasses and headphones are in place, your sense of dimension is transformed, allowing you to be immersed in a full size subway car with passengers. As you look toward each subject, a spotlight spears over them and telepathically you can hear their personal inner thoughts.

Fabricated from 3D renders of real people coupled with recorded interviews, the experience is a surreally genuine emotional journey, that deepens a universal experience of wondering what the people you confront in public are thinking about.

The project is unique as well in that the passengers frequently change. In fact, some of the stories included were recorded that very day. The two stories that were most deeply affecting to me were regarding a woman’s miscarriage and a tough-looking man’s coming out to his father. Swept up in their monologues, I was shocked to find how emotional I became (yes, I shed a few tears). These weren’t actors. These were real people and I was a fly on the wall.

True VR, as opposed to 360 video has a problem with portraying accurate human performances, as cameras can only capture flat images. To preserve the nuances of the subjects as they tell their stories, Blackout is shot volumetrically using the famous tool set Depthkit. For Vimeo-heads, this is the “Kinect” look developed created by hacking the Xbox accessory. Founding team members of Scatter created Depthkit, and Technical Director James George became a pioneer in the VR documentary space with Clouds, an early breakthrough in the modern rejuvenation of the form. 2017 has been a strong year for the team as they premiered Zero Days, their VR accompaniment to Alex Gibney’s feature documentary about cyber warfare at Sundance this year. Blackout is not currently available, but you can sign for updates at the project’s website.

Chelsea Lupkin

Draw Me Close

Dir: Jordan Tannahill; Key Collaborators: NFB, National Theatre

Another installation project, Draw Me Close was the most unique experience I had at Storyscapes. Drawn into a small room, I was lined up and equipped with my headset and motion-tracked controllers. From there, temporary walls were removed to introduce me into a larger space that mapped to a stark illustrated world representing an ordinary suburban home. I embodied a 5 year old version Tannahill, the project creator, as I lived an early childhood memory—interacting with his mother, fearing his father. Haptic feedback was experienced through select elements: a window I opened, the feeling of carpet beneath my feet, a bed I laid down in. An actress, whom I originally had assumed was a volunteer for the event, interacts with you. Playing Tannahill’s mother, she speaks and sings, guides you in play, and tucks you in at night. 

The plot as presented was thin as it is merely the first chapter of a full length project still in development. All told it took about 7-8 minutes to complete, but the fusion of live performance and interactivity is wildly compelling. Tannahill is considered one of Canada’s finest young playwrights, and the emotional elements of the work were affecting. Technology aside though, I wonder if the most effective element of this interdisciplinary fusion was simply being able to be to an actor, to partake in a story as a character with professionals engaging around you. This could be accomplished on a stage, so is VR is a vital component? Perhaps not, but having experienced Draw Me Close, I would argue that the magic VR performs is in helping to shut down one’s consciousness of the artifice inherent in that sort of setup, enabling a truly transporting immersion. Dealing with an actress in person, seeing her face and expressions, it would have been much more difficult to abandon one’s sense of self in order to engage fully in the storyworld.

Unfortunately what is uniquely wonderful about the project makes it not scalable, and for now there has been no further announcement about when you might be able to partake in the experience going forward. Stayed tuned to the project’s website for updates. 

Jason Sondhi

Extravaganza

Dir: Ethan Shaftel

We were excited that S/W alum Ethan Shaftel, director of Flesh Computer, was in the lineup, and thus Extravaganza immediately shot up our list of things to check out. Empathy is the catch phrase of the VR storytelling moment, and this experience places you directly in a puppet’s shoes living out a sickly misogynistic and racially charged animated satire. Mixing 3D animation and live-action, Shaftel’s short forces you to perform for an ignorant producer played by comedian Paul Scheer. You are forced to have huge breasts as a ballerina or as a sexy hula girl and feel what it’s like to be objectified. In another pop-up stage, you’ll face a 1800’s era white male explorer who’s only goal is to kill you and your tribe. Remember him—you’ll face him again as an alien. The various settings on the miniature VR stage make you feel unnerved and as vulnerable as ever. The dimension and sense of scale magnify how powerless you can feel despite the playful horror. Shaftel forces his audience to ask themselves if technology makes our society better or amplifies our flaws.

Chelsea Lupkin

Rainbow Crow

Dir: Baobab Studios

Baobab Studios has emerged as one of the most buzzed about VR studios of this generation due to its promise to create true, major-studio level CG for the form. The CEO, Maureen Fan is a Harvard Business grad and former VP for mobile games company Zygna, and its chief creative was the writer and director of the Madagascar feature film franchise. Pixar and Dreamworks alums abound throughout the team. 

Yet biography, vision, and marketing are a doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, as Baobab’s output is still pretty underwhelming. I caught the studio’s debut Invasion! back in mid-2015, and found it pretty lame, though in a move still far too rare for VR content, the piece was made ubiquitous on almost every VR store and 360 platform and has become one of the most viewed experiences out there. It even won a Daytime Emmy! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still, we were, and I suppose still are, in the proof-of-concept days and thus Rainbow Crow was high on my list for Storyscapes.  

Rainbow Crow was presented as a room scale experience, and is an adaption of a Native American folk tale. Taking place in an idyllic forest, a pair of humorous chattering animals set the scene of a springtime that is thought to last forever. But, winter is coming, and with it the animals will need a hero—the titular Rainbow Crow (played by project producer John Legend). 

Presented was the opening chapter of the project which still in development. It is lovely, with professional, if simplified scene and character design. Much of the action takes place rather far from the range of your interaction, but the frolicking animals do come close on occasion and lend themselves to inspection. That said, perhaps it is the burden of expectation, but it was hard not to be a bit disappointed by Rainbow Crow. The scene presented is rather short, the dialogue is clunky, and the exposition is very very heavy. Can Baobab breakthrough with something that is genuinely interesting on a story dimension? I still harbor hope—the source material is strong and the collaborative talent is top-notch—it was recently announced that Diego Luna and Constance Wu have been brought aboard the project. I was not satisfied by the opening chapter of this ambitious new project, but my appetite has been whet for more. 

Jason Sondhi

Step To The Line

Dir: Ricardo Laganaro, Defy Ventures, Oculus VR For Good

Brazillian filmmaker, Ricardo Laganaro’s short VR film was shot at a California maximum security prison. Out of all of the VR experiences, this one perhaps evokes the most empathy. Between 360 degree cameras that let you see what it’s like to be inside the prison and an up close and personal social experiment between inmates and staff volunteers, the human experience materializes in a way that all you can do is forgive and move on. This idea of forgiveness is what makes this film so charged with compassion and helps Laganaro change our perspective about prisoners, the prison system, and themselves. Release from incarceration can be just as jolting as incarceration and lives in and out of the system are affected.   

From the website: Ricardo Laganaro is a Brazilian filmmaker based in São Paulo. Since 2009, he has been at O2 Filmes as Head of 3D and VFX Supervisor. He’s directed 360º videos for clients like Google and Mastercard, including the world’s most viewed 360º music video for Brazilian singer Ivete Sangalo. In 2016, Oculus chose Laganaro to be part of “VR For Good.”

Chelsea Lupkin

Under the Cracked Sky

Dir: NyTVR

The one thing that VR is known for is transporting an audience to another world. Under the Cracked Sky transforms the viewer into a scuba diver under eight feet of Antarctic sea ice. Clear water, seals, and ice caves make you realize just how small you are in the world and just how precious and delicate the Earth really is. If there was anything that could make people think more about the dangers of climate change, it’s seeing how gorgeous it is to be under the icy water.

Under a Cracked Sky was narrated and photographed by two research divers at McMurdo Station, one of whom has more experience under the ice than anyone else on the planet.

Chelsea Lupkin