The Sundance Film Festival is all about the shared experience of the theater, so imagine the surprise of realizing that one of the most moving films at this year\u2019s fest most moving films is something that can only be seen inside of an Oculus Rift headset.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Angelica \u201c is a 12-minute illustrated story about memory, movies and grief that premiered at the Festival last Friday. In the film, a girl, voiced by Mae Whitman, lies in bed writing a letter to Angelica (Geena Davis), a famous movie star who we also discover was her mother. We swirl around in her memories of Angelica, shifting between real life and images from movies she\u2019s been in and back again. The viewer spins around taking in all the environs with Angelica, whether she\u2019s in a shootout car chase or drifting into space. More than a few viewers shed some tears into the headset by the end.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first animated experience created entirely in VR.<\/p>\n
Writer and director Saschka Unseld, also the Oculus Story Studio Creative Director, wanted to tell a story about how both family and films help shape you as a person.<\/p>\n
Unseld, who\u2019d wanted to do illustrative VR for a long time, had always struggled with the coldness of computer animation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to keep the human touch and texture in it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf something is directly illustrated, you feel more human touch, you feel more hand, you feel more character.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why he settled on illustrator Wesley Allsbrook to create the hand painted images. They had a coder develop a custom system so that she could draw directly into the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn VR it\u2019s important to counter that tech coldness with artistry and the human touch,\u201d Unseld said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Angelica\u201d is already available for free for those who have Oculus headsets. For everyone else, it\u2019ll be a little more difficult to see, but not impossible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to us to always be in places like Sundance or Tribeca or other place where we can show these things to people who haven\u2019t had interesting VR experiences yet,\u201d Unseld said. \u201cIt\u2019s still early times and there\u2019s a lot of preconceptions about what VR is and isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Angelica\u201d proves that VR is not just a cool immersive experience \u2014 it\u2019s also art form that\u2019s capable of pulling at your heartstrings.\u2014AP<\/p>\n
Image: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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