A cloaked figure wearing a WWI gas mask is looking at an old map. The map crumbles between his fingers. He puts the remaining bits into his pocket, picks up his suitcase and continues his journey through the murky wasteland. He passes debris of western culture, skeletal remains of unfathomable creatures and hides from hippopotamus-like mutants with giant blistering testicles.

 

The scene is from “Mad God”, a stop-motion film directed by Phil Tippett, a film director and visual effects supervisor specialized in creature design and character animation. Well known for his work on the Star Wars series, including the famous chess-sequence from the first film, the “imperial walkers” and later as a supervisor of the animation of the dinosaurs on the first “Jurassic Park”. As head of Tippett Studio, he is still deeply involved in producing visual effects for a large number of films.

On the side, he has had a little project of his own: “Mad God”, a film he has been working on and off since 1990. After a group of his animators convinced Phil to let them help him make the film a couple of years ago, it has snowballed into a regular passion project, with artists and animators working on Saturdays and cover expenses with a kick-starter campaign.

 

The film, which is planned to be feature length, is made and released in parts. The visual world in the film is highly detailed and as everything that is hand crafted by the crew, each part takes a while. By now, after 27 years, roughly 26 minutes of the film (part 1 & 2) are finished and available to the public. 

 

In regards to the theme of this TAKE issue, the interesting part about the “Mad God” project is that besides the traditional version of the film, a VR version has been produced.

I caught up with Alex Hessler, the CG supervisor and VR Director at Tippett studio, to get his perspective on storytelling in VR and on how VR contributed to the project:

 

Alex:

“Stop motion has a unique aesthetic which really appeals to VR. It is real and detailed because the object themselves are real. At the same time, it is a fantasy and an illusion of the film making process. “Mad God” takes place in a dizzyingly detailed world, which needs to be explored and examined. VR is a wonderful medium for this. It lets you experience the Mad God universe from the scale and perspective of the puppets. You can see the dirt and hairs on each character. You can experience the size of the monsters. It is amazing.“

 

Martin: Can you tell us about the process? Did the VR perspective change how the scenes where shot/conceived?

 

Alex: “Shooting for VR is very different than shooting for traditional cinema. We have to make a 360-degree world. Not just a shot from a specific camera. This affects lighting, animation, layout... everything. Traditional cinema has many advantages. There is a well-established design language of composing and editing shots. There is mature technology for creating content. As a director, you have a lot more control over the audience’s experience. Most importantly, the audience is used to it and knows how to enjoy it. With VR, everything is new. Every project has something in it that we have never done or seen before. There is a constant question of “will it work?” As a director, I have the responsibility of not only creating something compelling, but also something that works for a first time viewer. There is also a mountain of technical challenges. I enjoy the problem solving that VR requires. It is an exciting medium to be involved in.” 

 

Martin: Alex informs me that instead of just upscaling and making a VR-film that follows the same narrative, the VR format opened up for another way to explore the universe. The VR experience gives a feeling of physically being in the scene as a character, which is a premise of the VR version. 

 

Alex: “The VR version takes place in the same universe as the Mad God episodes, but it does not follow the narrative. It stands on its own and, in a way; it expands the Mad God universe. We want the user to look around not just out of curiosity, but out of the anxiety of being in this world. So we surround the viewer with characters. It triggers some social anxiety, but also a question of “who am I?” Before you can really resolve the question, you start to feel threatened by the monsters around you. We have a lot of audio and visual cues to direct the user. The trick is to do this in a way that feels natural and not contrived.” 

 

Martin: In terms of directing for VR, Alex’ perspective is that the basics are the same, but the process of directing the viewer’s attention with framings and angles, is different as in traditional cinema: 

 

“Directing VR is very similar to directing cinematic content. The differences are around whom you are directing and when decisions are made. For example, on a cinematic production, a director would use a DP (Director of Photography) to specify the lighting intensity of different parts of a film to steer the viewer’s mood. This same technique can be used in VR, but in VR, this type of image manipulation may not happen on set. Instead, it may be adjusted in the game engine by an engineer. So the director must make the same judgement calls around timing, color, mood, sound, etc. They just need to know a completely different set of techniques to make those changes.” 

 

Martin: With the word “Game engine”, my thoughts go to the world of computer-games where VR originates from, and I am curious to know if Alex finds that CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) created content is an advantage when working with VR:

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Alex: “CGI has a lot of technical advantages when creating VR. For 360-degree content, you can render it with a virtual camera easily. For live action, you will need a series of cameras and a way to stitch the images from each. This is currently very tedious and expensive. Also, for the more expensive VR headsets, which allow you to walk around, CGI is currently the only option. The content needs to be rendered in real time through a game engine. These are all just technical limitations that will eventually be solved. I’d love to work with more live action captures in VR, but it’s still challenging.” 

 

“VR is currently doing very well for gaming, specifically arcades. There is a lot of work going into narrative content, though I have not yet seen a compelling use of VR for traditional story telling. Filmmaking is just too strong of a medium for this. However, I believe VR technology will rapidly evolve into mixed and augmented reality. It will change how we use social media and other content. For those that do not know, mixed reality refers to VR goggles that let you see the real world at the same time as the artificial content. Imagine glasses that display something in front of you that is not there, on top of the real world. It is a few years out, but that’s where futurists are putting their money.