Virtual Reality's Biggest Misconceptions

For more than 25 years Virtual Reality has often been viewed as an expensive gimmick to make dinosaurs come to life or make video games more immersive. Despite the fact the VR can be a powerful tool, preconceptions about VR are still holding people back from taking full advantage of it. So let’s bust some of the misconceptions about Virtual Reality, right here, right now:

1. It’s too expensive – For years now, VR has been way too expensive for general use. However, headsets are actually getting cheaper – the Daydream is only around £70 and Samsung Gear VR just over £100. Also major tech companies WANT NGO’s and charities to make VR content. Facebook has founded ‘VR for good’ encouraging charitable projects involving VR and the ‘Lighthouse Programme’ by Google offers funding, use of halo cameras and stitching services.
2. No one can watch it – Many think that VR has a high barrier to entry but even distribution is improving thanks to the continued progress of Facebook and Youtube’s 360 platforms and the popularity of Google Cardboard.
3. Motion Sickness – There’s been reported issues of motion sickness due to time lag and movement. However, in our film for Rotary we used a teddy bear as a device to mitigate against issues of movement and motion sickness.
4. Complex Production – Capturing 360 degrees around you is more like theatre than film in terms of how you capture and choreograph it, but this can be overcome by planning. There’s also the opportunity to shoot a traditional film at the same time in order to maximise on assets and use one to promote the other.
5. What’s the point? – Virtual reality gives us a unique opportunity to build empathy, deepen emotional narratives and really put viewers into someone else’s shoes. We proved this with our VR experience for NAS.

VR is no longer just a fad, it’s a powerful piece of technology that has unfortunately been overlooked and misused, never reaching its full potential. We are now in a position of understanding of being able work at the forefront of VR, keep narrative at the heart of experiences and really make a difference.