Framestore Make the Virtual a Reality

Following last week's announcement that Framestore would be opening the first dedicated virtual reality and immersive content company, we caught up with Framestore's global head of digital, Mike Woods [below left] and executive producer, Simon Whalley [below right], to get some more insight into what the company is aiming to achive and how integral they think VR will be to the future of communication.

Tell us a bit about the new part of the company and what its aims are.

MW: It is called Game Engine VR and Immersive Concept Studio, but for short VR Studio. The one thing that underpins everything we do at the moment is the fact that we’re moving away from sending images to a rendered farm to be processed and sent back. Rendering in real time, instantly, not only allows for interactivity but also versatility.

It can work effortlessly across any bit of new media we like. So, for example, the game engines that we use all work perfectly on mobile devices, on a projection, on a touchscreen, in an Oculus.

The testing we’ve done with VR, and not just the Oculus Rift headset but other forms of VR headsets, has just blown us away to the point of wanting to take this extremely seriously. [This is a] new way of telling a story [with] endless opportunities.

Will the Oculus work across a multitude of platforms?

MW: Yes, we will soon have projects released that prove it across different verticals. So big, brand led product executions, mobile led executions, we’re doing more… I mean we could get lost in semantics forever about what we did with Game of Thrones, but ultimately you’re putting someone in a TV show.

And even when we first started messing around with it, and the brief was on the table, and we were working with the client, we knew it was exciting, but until that first moment when your images are starting to come up to a level that’s real; you put that headset on and then you have this whole new arena to play with; you’re in a TV show. You know, you’re taking people away from feeling like ‘I'm being forced to look at a director’s gaze’.

What are main positives of working with VR?

SW: It’s a new filming technique and I think, for us, it’s a brilliant opportunity because it’s not a language that directors can use. You know, film directors are brilliantly versed in how they tell a story in a 16:9 window, but you can’t employ any of those devices in VR, you’re putting someone in a place.

And it’s more about cues, making sure someone’s looking the right way when you want to deliver a message or something important about the storyline or what the brand is trying to say.

And it’s just a fascinating thing. It excited us to the point that we knew the Game of Thrones project would be a success, but we had no idea it was going to be the success it is. Now we are drowning in brilliant requests.

Are those requests coming directly from clients or brands?

SW: Everywhere, absolutely everywhere, in every possible way. It’s a new medium in which to tell stories. It’s been around for a long time but what’s changed now is that the hardware is so much cheaper it’s unbelievable. And the ability to create quality images is much higher. Where it gets really exciting is when you apply it to education, healthcare, architecture, museum spaces; I mean all of these things benefit massively from the possibilities of this.

And is this the sort of stuff you’re hoping to work on?

MW: We already are. There’s a project we’re working on that we can’t tell you anything about, but will launch in July 2015 that’s using a piece of hardware that won’t be launched to market until late 2016. We’ve been working with this company for the last two years. It’s going to start coming to the world very soon, but we’ve been on it for a long time.

So it’s going to be really incredible, immersive experience of an augmented new reality. There will be other immersive experiences that take you away completely from things like entertainment, to education, to all sorts. It’s anything, yeah. I mean it’s… our Holy Grail is the Holodeck [from Star Trek, below], the good old fashioned Holodeck; we’ve actually had it working in a motion capture studio, where you put on a headset and can then walk around the room, is incredible experience.

The room is real and the things in it are real but then you put on the headset and you’re in it, you walk along, you feel the wall, feel the table, everything’s there, I'm in a MOCAP suit, so I can see my hands, I can see my arms, I can move about. But then you can click your finger and anything can appear in front of you. A stegosaurus can walk in and say hello if you want. At that point, that’s where it gets sort of mind-bending.

Can Oculus overcome the problem that 3D has had, and still has, of being a bit of a gimmick?

SW: We’re under no illusions that a lot of cheaper experiences will be cobbled together quickly and poorly for Oculus. Everybody will want an Oculus experience without really thinking it through. We’re fully expecting this gold rush to result in a lot of rubbish coming out.

But we believe in it so strongly that it just doesn’t matter. There’s so much more to be done with it, there’s so many amazing things we can do with it. Bad things aren’t going to affect its overall because it’s already too good and the benefits are already so apparent, that the quality will outshine the rubbish.

Facebook recently bought Oculus for $2billion; what do you think Facebook sees in Oculus?

MW: It completely fits their business model; they are in the business of virtual conversation already. At the moment virtual conversation on Facebook follows the rules of ‘I type in a comment box, and then you do, and then I do, and then you do and our conversation appears on a webpage in HTML’.

Whereas Facebook has a vision of, it’s the three of us now sat with headsets, seeing all three of us at the top of the Eiffel Tower because we’ve chosen to be there to have our conversation. It makes sense, that’s what they do.

I mean yeah, we were surprised at the speed of the announcement of [the sale], but I can’t say I'm necessarily surprised about it because it makes perfect sense for what Facebook’s about.

Oculus was initially created as an additional tool for gaming; will that usage still apply?

MW: Possibly, I think there may even be more entertainment experiences before gaming ones because I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding that it’s a gaming device and that you put on a headset and then your game just already works.

It really doesn’t work like that because if you currently die in a game you might get thrown across the floor of a room and if you did that with a headset on, you’d be sick instantly. You can’t be thrown eight feet [within an Oculus headset] without feeling like you’ve been thrown eight feet, so games have to be gentle. There are certain games that will work really well that are in development, but most games at the moment wouldn’t work because of how ill they’d make you feel.