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Sleepy Hollow & Narrative In VR with Stefan Grambart
OVERVIEW
Narrative experiences in VR have come a long way this past year, and Secret Location was at the forefront with our Emmy-winning Sleepy Hollow VR experience. This new medium poses many challenges to historically reliable cinematic and scripting techniques, forcing VR storytellers to innovate and develop new strategies to engage audiences.
OBJECTIVE
As the creative lead on Sleepy, I want to share my experiences working on our first VR project and outline our discoveries and challenges around what it takes to tell a meaningful story in virtual reality.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Content creators in the Film & TV industries, game developers, and VR enthusiasts
ASSUMED AUDIENCE KNOWLEDGE
Awareness of virtual and augmented reality as new media, and the difference between the two.
FIVE THINGS AUDIENCE MEMBERS WILL LEARN
How Secret Location brought Sleepy Hollow to life in VR
A method to script 360º narrative experiences
Live vs computer modelled actors
The importance of audio as an immersion technique
Leveraging contextual interactivity
7. How nascent?
• Many Kickstarter backers still waiting for DK1s.
• Eight months away from the release of the DK2.
• A year out from the launch of the first GearVR.
• Facebook & Google not even mentioned yet.
• And…
12. What’s the secret to telling
a good story in VR?
We had to figure that out for ourselves.
13. Our Approach
• Implement sound & action cues to direct the
user’s attention towards the primary story area.
• Place points of interest outside the focal area
that add context to the active narrative.
• Develop dynamically generated content that
can be delivered to the user in a predictable way.
15. We had to account for lineups, acclimation, and narrative.
Pacing the Story
The audience orients themselves within
the scene, get familiar with VR and the
space they are in.
Ichabod Crane appears and addresses the
audience with a warning. Ichabod leaves,
and the sound of the approaching
Horseman fill the scene.
The Horseman appears
to cut off the
audience’s head.
The Horseman lifts the
audience’s head like a trophy,
giving them a good view of
the Horseman CG model,
ending on a title card.
Leading Action
Crow caws loudly and flies
towards Ichabod’s entrance.
19. A lot of our visual
language depends on a
defined screen edge
20. Our crow drew the audience’s attention
to the primary story area.
21. 3D Spatial Audio
Audio direction doesn’t rely
on line-of-sight.
Sound effects positioned in
the 3D space are an effective
means of grabbing the
audience’s attention.
35. Stereoscopic
Camera Rig
At the time, 3D cameras were
designed for widescreen
formats, not suitable for our
needs in virtual reality; we
had to invent our own.
36. Image credit goes hereImage credit goes here
Our environment and horseman were real-time rendered.
37. The Horseman was generated in the scene
based on the audience’s sightline.
38. After SDCC, we continued to develop
how we tell stories in VR.
58. The interaction in games make them a perfect fit for virtual reality.
World War ToonsLucky’s Tale
Land’s EndEVE Valkyrie
60. • Collaborative storytelling between author and user.
• Infinite possibilities collapse into a single, linear narrative.
• Author/user roles can be asymmetrical.
EMERGENT NARRATIVE
61. Rivalry Of Kin
the Preferred Kinsman; the
Rejected Kinsman;
the Object of Rivalry
The Object of Rivalry
chooses the
Preferred Kinsman
over the Rejected
Kinsman.
77. Skirt the edge of the valley by using an animated style,
“Inside Out” (2015)
78. Be careful not to fall in; cute & creepy aren’t too far apart.
“Tin Toy” (1988)
79. Performance Capture
During Sleepy we worked with
stereoscopic capture on green
screen, and we learned a few
things:
•Actors need to be close to the
camera to capture emotion.
•Shoot at the distance you’ll display.
•Our project manager isn’t a
great actor (sorry Luke).
80. Image credit goes here
Constantly pushing the limits of our performance capture.