We are surrounded by new advancements in technology every day, from new methods of space travel, to new forms of medicine capable of healing things previously thought impossible. In almost every area of life there are advancements made to make it better and more interesting, and even film is affected by this. The advancements in film are necessary to create new stories, braver and bolder stories and the Cannes Film Festival had one corridor focused on this for the first week of the festival. Focused on VR, or virtual reality, several different booths in this hall displayed a different way that VR could change the way stories are told and how we receive them. In one example, a person can strap on the virtual reality device and can enter a world that surrounds them and envelops them. Like being next to a sunken underwater ship and watching the majesty of a whale pass by and see it swim away, or they can enter a horror house in the movie Conjuring 2 and watch the terror occur all around them. Allowing them to enter the story.

In one of the VR showings in particular, the press was taken into a room placed their VR devices on their heads and the matching headphones on their ears and entered 5 different stories. One story placed them as a character in the story of a guerrilla warfare camp where they would have just been kidnapped and finally understand their surroundings*. They were taken to a forest and while their kidnappers start doing other things, another prisoner starts to befriend the VR viewer. Hours later (in the movie) after a depressing broadcast, the VR viewer’s friend gets release and before he walks away, he gives the viewer the radio he was listening to, telling them to stay strong. This is a different story, one that has only been told a few times, in movies like Action Man. Normally, it is against the “rules of film” to address the camera because it breaks the fourth wall and destroys the constructing narrative. When the characters in this short film did it, they didn’t destroy any narrative, because you* were the narrative* and the story was constructed around you to include you. This change’*s films. They no longer speak at you, but with you.

Speaking of changing the way a story is told, Across the Space Frontier, does just that, and it's from the people behind the spectacular graphics of Battlestar Galactica comes a new VR story shaking up stories in a new way. Told like an old science fiction, including even a narrator with a voice that sets the tone that’s a mixture of foreboding and amazement, this booth teased a new story, a story that follows the long expedition of a harrowing female astronaut to the moon and a terrible things happening on the trip. The teaser ends with an expedition to Mars still repeating the cryptic message that something happened on the moon. One incredible feature that included was a good spatial awareness with the person watching and the world they inhabited. When seeing a space ship orbiting the planet the viewer could move the head around the ship and see any other details that may have been on the other side. Their teaser was successful with viewers as they sold it to a secret buyer in a million-dollar agreement

While not an advancement in story, another booth demonstrated in advancement in the movie watching experience, with Cinemawell.com. Creating a new social-media movie going experience. Instead of going to the movies to watch new films, a person can sit comfortably in a chair at home and watch and comment with others watching the same film. It’s also useful for testing new movies with audience as it allows any person to watch a movie and easily discuss what worked and what didn’t. Essentially, it is the social media for films and allows people to make new friends and discuss movies freely without any shushing from audience members. Also it uses a currency that you can buy thing like virtual popcorn and giving it to someone watching the movie; it’s like emoticons, harmless and shows you’re love.

The advancements were incredible and highlighting just how much story has advanced and is still advancing and I'm intrigued to see the future, as well as when these devices will be "on the market".

Written by Dallas Fitzmartin