The pace of which technology is pushing filmmaking today is mind boggling. From higher resolutions and better ISO, to fully immersive viewing and VOD distribution.
However I’m very curious to see what happens in regards to VR filmmaking. Traditional film making requires an entire set and a crew to operate things such as lights, cameras, sound equipment etc. With VR filmmaking though none of this can really exist because the camera has to film a full 360 degrees in order for the viewers to get that immersive experience. And on top of the production complications comes the issues of directing the story and getting the viewers to actually pay attention to it.
The whole process of filmmaking gets turned upside down and inside out.
I really think that future filmmaking that is fully immersive is going to be a hybrid of what we see now in film and narrative gaming. The audience will have to be engaged somehow into the story by not only passively viewing parts of the story, but they will need to someone be required to engage into the story to trigger key events in order to make the VR experience engaging enough to keep people’s attention.
What will the process of editing be like for a format such as this. You can’t cut from a wide shot to a medium if the audience gets to feel like they’re in the middle of the scene. Instead it will be them that decides what they focus on and where they look. It’s not to say that editors are out the door just yet, but it will certainly require a new approach to being able to determine how the story is told.
One things for sure, any live action camera operator of the future is going to have a whole lot more work cut out for them with all of those cameras they’ll have to carry around.