Banshee Chapter: Oculus Rift Edition is the first feature movie produced for the virtual reality platform (as Deadline Hollywood reported today), and the groundbreaking project was driven by two metaverse alumni: Blair Erickson, who directed the original, well-reviewed horror film starring Silence of the Lambs' Ted Levine, created experiences for virtual worlds marketing company Millions of Us (which did a number of Second Life projects), and Adrian Herbez, who worked at Linden Lab before moving on to Sony Home. Their startup Jamwix created the Oculus Rift conversion. (If you have an Oculus HMD, download the movie here.)
The film experience changes when it becomes VR, Blair tells me: "What it does is shift the observer from a passive watcher to a more active participant. the camera literally becomes your eyes," as he puts it. "And since you can look left and right, you begin to feel like you're actually inside the scene. The effect is powerful and transformative, even at this early stage of development. You can already sense that something very game changing is happening from this new medium."
The movie itself hasn't been edited to fit the VR platform, he says:
"No... and I think that would be foolish to restrict anyway. Edits and cutting to different subjects works absolutely fantastic in VR as long as the system understands the shot and how to place the viewer within the scene. The film is in essence the same story that you get in the 2D version, only with the immersion cranked up to 11 so you're no longer watching, you're experiencing it from inside."
As for the movie itself, when experienced in VR: "I can only say that it's clearly the most terrifying version of the film," says Blair. "The rest I'll leave to the viewers." I will not be one of them, because 2D horror films tend to make me whimper like a tiny child, but if you do do Banshee in full VR, share your experiences here.
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