Isolation is the beauty of VR
In these heavily discussed and explored times for virtual reality, we VR producers are often hearing the proclamation from agencies who are looking to move into it: “the problem with VR is that it’s isolating. We want people to be able to share experiences. No one wants to sit alone, cut off from the world in a VR headset?”. How wrong they are.
Let me ask you this. Who has sat in front of the TV at home watching Netflix, whilst having a Whatsapp conversation on your phone, writing an email on your laptop and reading a blog on the iPad? If that sounds familiar do you also feel that you’ve not engaged fully with any of it? Are there story lines in ‘Bloodline’ that you just can’t follow? Do you find yourself having to reread the blog a few times before any of it goes in? Are you seemingly incapable of writing a coherent email to your big American client? Is your inane ‘Friday Football Lads’ chat on Whatsapp actually the only thing that you are making sense of? Now I’m sure your footy chat is important, but that seems like a bit of a mess to me. This lack of focus on anything but the simplest repartee about whether Arsene Wenger should finally be sacked is frankly a little bit sad. I don’t mean ‘sad’ in the ‘you’re a loser’ meaning of the word, but sad as in ‘this is a real shame and can’t be good for your health’ kind of way.
What I love about VR is that it demands all of your focus and isolates you from this noise of modern day life. Once you’ve decided to engage with something, it’s headset on, get comfortable and start watching. After around a minute you are fastened in, the real world around you falls away and the chosen piece of VR content has your absolute attention. There’s no Whatsapp pinging, second screen tweeting, or irritating colleague disturbing you. It’s just you, your senses and the VR experience. If it’s a good piece of content you can temporarily forget where you are and your conscious brain begins to form connections with an entirely new reality. And that’s amazing. At VR City we’ve taken people to detention centres, international rugby matches, global awards shows, remote whisky distilleries, far flung music festivals, and a secret warehouse with Jude Law. This year we are bringing an audience to the Dalai Lama. With nothing to disturb your focus this experience can be incredibly powerful, and perhaps more so than real life (no phone to disturb you). I actually find it quite relaxing, as the state of being safe from distractions is quite rare and to me, rather therapeutic, which in itself, enables more focus. It’s like taking a 5 minute holiday somewhere where there’s no TV, no internet and no phone. It’s bliss and can be a real doorway into all sorts of emotions and learnings.
This isolation excites me very much and brands and broadcasters should be excited to. Imagine the impact you can have on your audience if your viewer has no distractions and is able to feel that the new world you’ve created for them is momentarily their reality. I for one love my isolating VR sessions; my little holidays from the real world.
