TIN CANS and CARDBOAD

Original instructions for opening cans included the use of a hammer and chisel... and it was Ezra Warner who patented the can opener around 48 years after the first tin-cans were produced.

VR feels like someone invented the can-opener and is looking around for things to open with it.

Much like today: I bought Google Cardboard and I don't have a phone I can use in it - which means I might be buying my second-ever Android phone. I'm an iPhone user these days, so this is almost entirely for the purposes of creating a pitch to Google to get a Jump developer edition. Y'know - that 16-goPro rig that will film in every direction? I want to create VR content for youTube.
Hopefully it will be good enough to persuade Valve to give us a Vive / SteamVR devkit.


What brought this on? 

I watched a short VR film made at a Syrian refugee camp called "Clouds Over Sidra" at the MOMI museum in New York.

At first I was busy getting over the giant pixels, chromatic aberration and focal issues - and then as 12 year old Sidra talked about living in a camp of 84'000 people.... that faded and I felt there.

It was emotional. I watched the other two films they had running: Being hit by a Digital-Domain-train and scooped up by a giant baby and an arty, jumpy piece that had a trigger to make me run through a forest. Both were interesting, but the United Nations camp stuck with me.

A few days later I can't remember the pixels and blurryness - I remember looking up and seeing the UNICEF logo through the canvas of her tent as they ate dinner on the floor. That was the strangest, most interesting thing. I wasn't there, but memory said I might have been there in a dream. That's what brought this on. What can I make with this when I'm not confined to framing - to 16:9 letterboxes... ?  and soon with the Vive, not node-locked to a point-in-space.


Why me?

I've got 15+ years of experience in the world of VFX. I'm a CG supervisor at a small studio in Soho and I also teach at The Animation Workshop in Viborg Denmark. I've worked on Academy Award winning films, half-a-dozen TV series and over 40 commercials.

I'm absolutely fascinated by the potential for immersive creativity and am at a good point in my career to try out some more fringe technologies whilst continuing my work in Visual Effects.

Exciting, fascinating stuff.


Here's a trailer for "Clouds over Sidra":