VR is (almost) Here

Forgive me blog-gods for it has been a year since my last post (almost an eon in blog years).  I thought the VR Expo event in Los Angeles warranted comment.

Ghost of VR Past

I was introduced to virtual reality due to a chance meeting 30 years ago with Scott Fisher and the headset/data glove he developed for NASA AMES.  He was creating a control system for robots working in space to do certain tasks and thus avoid dangerous and expensive human spacewalks.

All this was pretty cool in the 80’s, but also very crude tech compared to today.  Fisher was using some HP 3000 computer the size of a mini-bar refrigerator with a whole 8MB of RAM.  All I saw were simple wireframe renderings.  But it was VR.

Everyone was very excited.  There were artists claiming to be working in VR, although I was never really convinced.

Academics were studying it.  My master’s thesis considered ontology and VR.

And then . . . not much happened.

Ghost of VR Future

Although it was clear VR would replace 2D mediums such as photography and film, as both spaces to create in and experience, it was not clear when.  30 years later we are still waiting, but getting much closer.

At the point when the cost of a simple VR headset is low enough that it can be given away with your smartphone purchase, there will be a redesign of the OS for those phones to use a VR GUI.  There will then be a crushing demand for 360 experiences at minimum for everything from advertising to scripted production.

2D entertainment will begin an accelerated decline into oddity, then relic, “that old, retro, 20^th century tech”.  This will happen soon.  Nothing drives tech like consumer demand.  Television will stay around—radio is still alive and kicking—but all visual production will have to be geared for VR, even if only in 2D.

For example, imagine watching your favorite 2D television re-run in a VR room and television appropriate to the time period.  Or as a producer, you could purchase a pre-fab VR drive-in environment for your no-budget 2D horror feature distribution package.

A continuum of product will develop from consumer-produced 2D only at the low end to complex, interactive, live and scripted entertainment at the expensive high-end.

Ghost of VR Present

When it comes to revenue the product will generate, that continuum will not be a smooth curve.  There will be a massive amount of production out there—most of it bad and done for free or minimal pay.

And face it, audiences like it.  Ask this question in the present: How much time do people already spend consuming expensive scripted entertainment versus on Snapchat watching free video of their friend vacationing at Venice Beach?  There will very quickly develop two tiers of production—the very high-end, involving only a few players making 90-95% of the industry income, and everyone else, struggling at bottom dollar rates, regardless of visual quality.

This began happening in the music industry in the 1980’s, then photography in the 1990’s, and is now happening to 2D production.

In 1975, 29 different music acts held the number one hit slot.  Digital home recording was “studio quality” by 1980 and got cheaper—and better.  By 1995, only 10 acts had number one hits. In 2015 it was 8 acts—and yet there are far more bands with high-quality recordings out there than ever before.

Photography as a profession is now almost impossible.  Editorial day rates are half what they were when I quit commercial shooting in the late 1980’s—in real dollars.  At the same time, the cost of professional camera gear/tech is far beyond what it used to be, forcing everyone into keeping up with the new tech.  I used my $800 Nikon F3 rig professionally for over a decade and no client thought anything of it.  If you were to show up today at a commercial shoot with camera and computer from a decade ago, you would be fired.

Most filmmakers who actually get a project completed and out there are still “one and out” players due to either being unable to raise the funds for a second project, or the second project is a failure and loses money.  Storytelling is a time consuming process, no matter how good you are at it.  And you need to get paid for your time or you will be forced to do something else.

Twenty-somethings already know it is challenging to earn a living producing content, and not likely to get easier.

VR Reality

One thing is for certain if you are doing production: you need to include VR in your planning, at least.  For a time, the tech to do VR at the high-end will be expensive, especially design and integration of interactivity.  But all of that will drop in price and/or become part of production software.

My phone already shoots 4k video.  Phones are taking advantage of the fact that there is a camera on both sides, creating 360 views.  Most clients for still advertising shoots also require video documentation; soon a VR component will be added.

The bottom line: if you are doing production, get on board with VR or risk becoming irrelevant.