We dropped in to the Mumbai's first centre for Virtual Reality films, and here’s how it went
A stilll from the The Unnamed Guide, a virtual reality film series. Pic courtesy/Arundhati Bhattacharya
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Yesterday, something spectacular happened quietly at Bandra’s Bombay Art Society. The country’s first virtual reality and films centre was started by Enlighten Film Society, the group that had earlier this year produced the first series of virtual reality films in India.
A woman watching a VR film
Even now, the process of showing a VR film remains cumbersome, with gears like virtual reality glasses and earphones needed for each person. While a batch of three people watch (the centre as of now has three sets of gears), others have to wait and, so, as an added incentive for those turning up for the experience, classics from across the world like Bicycle Thieves and Encounters at the End of the World were screened at the auditorium.
Paranav Ashar
In the conference room, we could see people with the glasses on turning their heads and moving to watch the entire video.
In the seat
Paranav Asher, the founder of Enlighten, who made the first virtual reality film series in the country, says that the medium is still fairly nascent but will be all around sooner than we can imagine. Given the way technology has evolved over the last decade with one format making way for the next one, we are ready to believe him. The three films screened were The Golden Ray, which explains how Satyajit Ray’s Sonar Kella helped Jaisalmer become a tourist haven; The Elephant, a Jataka tale about Gautam Buddha being the king of elephants, and The Flowering, a legend associating Pushkar's creation with Brahma. Asher was inspired to make this series while travelling to Nalanda university, where he encountered a guide who introduced the place to him with an Indian guide’s inimitable style of telling a story. He says he found this art of storytelling fascinating and one that was dying. The narration of the films is also chiefly through the voices of guides who introduce us to the different interesting sites.
Our take
The visual effects are splendid. Such that while looking down you may, for a second, wonder if you are falling down. The 3D video makes you wonder if a completely new language and craft for visual storytelling has to evolve now to meet the demands of how much more the viewers can experience. For example, while shooting a VR film, one tricky situation is the director may enter into the video. In the film The Elephant, a hat appears to accompany you as you move forward. However, because you don’t see a face, it does appear like a character of the film (possibly another tourist) and is not intrusive. “We are still working on making it better. There is a lot more to do and the films are not that elegant yet. In this case we didn’t quite mind the hat as the story was being told from the view of an explorer,” explains Ashar, adding there will be a screening every Sunday.
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