Google released its first virtual-reality Google Doodle to honor French pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès (Link to video on YouTube).
Nexus Studios, who created the animation, says they planned the drama as if it was a ballet where the viewer gets to stand right on the stage:
"Here is an early sketch showing the layered story (it was important to have clear separation between the layers). The main elements of the story, such as the primary character animations, take place in the red section. Secondary scenes, such as musician characters playing the score, take place in the yellow section. Finally, loop animations of decorative elements and special surprises take place in the blue section!"
The colors of the final animation were intended to evoke the hand-tinted colors of the original films:
"During Méliès’ time, they couldn‘t film in color so they would have to paint every frame of the films, often using a very limited palette of colors! We chose to represent that by incorporating a strong dominant color (e.g. cyan, red, or yellow) in every scene of the film."-----
Google Doodle home page
I’m hoping that 360 movies will connect the creativity of the video game industry with the film industry. This short, while cute, doesn’t really have anything particularly “360” in it. It’s basically just a 2D movie fhat rotates around you. Coming from the video game industry I’d like to see 360 movies take a more “immersive interactive” approach where the main action reacts to where you look. It can stop, chase down your viewport, start another part of the story etc. Being able to look “outside the frame” during a movie adds interactivity in my mind and at that point I think it needs to take some cues from the video game industry to be “truly immersive” and fully take advantage of the 360 medium. 360 movies have a great opportunity to be truly unique story telling experiences instead of “movies where you can look backwards.”
ReplyDeleteThat all being said, I’m curious what other people think about this medium and it’s potential.
Nathan, I agree, it only scratches the surface of the potential. What I'd like to see is graphics that correlate input data from eye-tracking sensors to give true interactive depth of field focus cues and eye contact with characters.
ReplyDeleteI'm working in architecture visualization and enjoy this new technology very much, but I don't see the advantages of applying it to films. I find it distracting from the story. It's irrelevant to see all the other things that the traditional director didn't want to tell us. I think technology goes way than creativity. We (I mean the most visionary creaters) have not assimilated it yet. I'm sure there will be paths we don't know yet.
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