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Joseph Gordon-Levvit Using Oculus Rift with Oculus Touch. Image credit: JGL twitter + u/Heaney555
Joseph Gordon-Levitt VR VIP
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an A-list movie star. And surprisingly, he is also very insightful about virtual reality. He got started with VR from his online collaboration/production HitRecord project.
“It inspires the hell out of me”
-Joseph Gordeon-Levitt
He was recently the special guest of an event held by Oculus Story Studio at the Sundance film festival. The topic of discussion was about storytelling in VR. He waxed eloquently for 7 minutes.
JGL under the Oculus Logo. image credit: VRScout
What did he say?
We have included the Youtube video below produced by VRScout. VRScout runs a high quality VR news site and we recommend it.
You should watch the video as it’s not too long and Joseph keeps it interesting. But to save you time, we have paraphrased his main points.
Joseph tracks VR as part of a long series of technological advances in story-telling. It begins with oral communication, which Joseph says is when we became human. It then moved on to written language, the printing press, movies etc. And VR is the latest in this long tradition.
He talks about how each platform is not a neutral story distribution system. It plays a key role in the actual story. ‘The medium is the message’.
For example, he talks about the role of the protagonist in various media. In a novel, you can get pages of inner dialogue about the protagonist. But in theater, this doesn’t work, so you get a lot of spoken dialogue. But then when it comes to a movie, some of the most powerful scenes don’t even have any speech at all.
He sees VR as having 2 forks in the road. On the one side, there is the more traditional 3rd person perspective. On the other, there is the first person perspective made possible only in VR. This is the VR experience where you are the protagonist yourself.
He notes that usually a new medium starts with the old ways. For example, the early movies borrowed heavily from techniques involving still pictures. Similarly, early VR experiences may be produced like traditional movies. But we can expect VR to take on entirely new methods that we can hardly imagine right now. And, by the way, Joseph notes, 100 years ago, many were skeptical that movies would ever have any impact. The parallels to VR are obvious.
He foresees 1st person VR stories as where the real advance will take place. But he says he has no idea how the various technical and story-telling challenges involved will eventually get solved.
In the end, he says, it comes down to all of us in the VR community experimenting with various ideas to figure out what works. And it looks like Joseph will be supporting it along the way.
If I can be of assistance, call me up.
https://youtu.be/wrAIGcLOFFA
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Starred in Don Jon, a Popular Movie about Internet Porn and Relationships image credit: Warner Brothers