Virtual reality (VR) is the next big thing in the movie industry.Eric Darnell, co-writer and director of the “Madagascar” movies, showed his VR film at the Venice Film Festival this week, “Crow: The Legend”, in which the spectator is engrossed in the story of a mythical bird flies to the sun to bring back warmth to the Earth.
The voice cast includes Oprah Winfrey, John Legend and “Crazy Rich Asians” star Constance Wu, “Crow” is barely an amateur thing, but Darnell’s Baobab Studios will be giving the movie away instead of selling it, as a way to create interest in the medium.
Regarding VR going mainstream he said, “I don’t expect it’s going to be today or six months even.”
Darnell further added,“The technology has to get better, headsets have to get cheaper, the content has to get better and that’s at least as important as anything else.”
“It’s a chicken and an egg thing. You can make all the great headsets you can but if there’s not great content … what’s the point?”
Darnell also said he was fascinated by the VR after becoming “a little bit stale” creating usual animation.
“When I put a VR headset on, it just blew me away and it reminded me of the first time I saw computer animation back in the early 80s … (That) launched a whole career for me and so when I put that headset on it reminded me of what I felt like back then.”
In “Crow”, based on a Native American legend, the spectator wears a VR helmet and hand-controllers to accompany the bird on its adventure, sending waves via hand movements to help it on its way.
“I think the way we are really going to get there is by putting the viewer inside the story,” Darnell said.
“Not just playing a story for them, putting them inside the story so that other characters recognise that the viewer is there and that it means something to them, that you are in their world.”
The Venice Film Festival will be from August 29 to September 8.