Facebook's Oculus makes its debut in the second virtual reality film, "Henry". The movie has been premiered in Beverly Hills, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015.
The VR reality company, Oculus, was acquired by Facebook last for nearly $2 billion. Now, Oculus hopes that Henry, an adorable critter, would help convince Hollywood and consumers about the viability of a storytelling medium based on virtual reality.
On Tuesday, at a private mansion in Beverly Hills, during an invite-only event, Oculus debuted with a 10-minute narrative experience starring the lonely critter Henry. Inside, guests were provided with consumer versions of the Oculus Rift headset for a 360-degree glimpse into Henry's cartoony home.
While "Henry" is an entirely passive experience that only requires viewers tilting their head the watch the action inside Henry's tree-trunk abode without using a controller, Ramiro Lopes Dau, film's director, included the ability of the character to look directly at the user.
"Henry" is actually the second film from Oculus Story Studio after "Lost", the studio's first short film, debuted earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Oculus Story Studio is an internal production company established last year after Oculus VR company was bought by Facebook.
Palmer Luckey, Oculus founder, declared that their goal with these short films and with Henry is not just to be "an introduction to virtual reality", but to "build better content." Luckey explained that the VR company is not attempting to rival Hollywood's existing players. Instead, Oculus is aiming to demonstrate VR's capability and inspire production companies and movie to create content beyond promotional efforts.
Luckey added that "in a perfect word" all the major studios would already be busy making plenty of VR content because this is profitable as well. That alternative would be better for Oculus VR company instead of the current situation where they provide content for the "the entire VR marketplace." The situation is similar somehow with that of Nintendo, which managed to do that with their games. But, as Luckey explained, this is "really rough" and would be preferable to "have a diverse ecosystem."
Lopes Dau, the movie's director, thinks that there's place for more different experiences, "more or less interactive," however in the case of 'Henry,' it's more about the character. However, interactivity in a piece of content referred to as a short film makes us ask if this is really a movie, a video game, or an entirely different genre. To this question Lopes Dau answers: "I don't think anyone really knows," adding that he just wanted to create something telling a story and giving an emotion.
Oculus Rift will bundle "Henry" together with games and other films for free. The system will require a powerful high-end PC to run, but the price of the VR gadget planned to launch early next year is still unknown.
