Hester Ebesu

The Cinematic VR Field Guide Hester Ebesu

Virtual reality (VR) is truly a new medium. Along with the excitement at the creative possibilities, there is also much confusion within the film industry on how best to shoot a compelling piece of VR content. Questions regarding camera movement, blocking, lighting, stereoscopic 3D versus mono, spatial sound capture, and interactivity all get asked repeatedly.
As Jaunt is at the forefront of cinematic virtual reality production, the purpose of this guide is to share our experiences with shooting a vast array of VR content with the wider community-what works and what doesn't. We are not, however, trying to produce an exhaustive text on the entirety of filmmaking but rather trying to cover the additional complexities and challenges that come with shooting in VR.
Much of what will be discussed is framed through the lens (so to speak) of the Jaunt ONE camera system as that is the rig with which we are most familiar and we provide specific details on it wherever applicable. The vast majority of the content of this paper covers general VR shooting techniques however and we attempt to keep the material as agnostic as possible. Virtual reality technology as well as the language of cinematic VR is constantly and rapidly changing at a breakneck pace so we will endeavor to update this guide from time to time as new techniques present themselves and new technology develops. We hope you enjoy this guide.