Variety: IMAX’s first virtual-reality entertainment center in Europe will open in Manchester, in northern England, by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday. The pilot IMAX VR center will be housed in Manchester’s Printworks multiplex as part of a deal with the site’s owner, European exhibitor Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group.
5 comments:
I’m fascinated to see what this virtual reality software has in store. I would definitely go for the intrigue and curiosity factor. However, I’m not a gamer and what IMAX is trying to do sounds to me like a video game. I wonder how the idea of IMAX virtual reality differs from gaming, besides the fact that it happens in a pod. Movie based video games allow users to play with or against their friends in simulations from their favorite movies, like some of the ideas expressed in the article. I’m also interested how the creators or the VR movies intend to keep the story. Do the movies become like choose your own adventure movies where the audience member is an active participant? Does the user become a bystanders, watching the action around them? I hope that with all the cool technology, the storytelling element is not eliminated. Because, in my opinion, at the end of the day as entertaining as the technology is, it is the stories that help us think and grow as people.
What!!! This is incredibly exciting. I'm really into the idea that the design of the space is made to be "social." I think that one of the obvious challenges of VR is that it is solitary. I like the idea of being able to watch your friend as they are experiencing the VR. I also appreciate that this VR project is concerned about their audiences interest in VR. I appreciate that they are opening up their sites with an intention of running a six month trial period. I think it would be too presumptuous to say that all parts of the world and all communities are interested, or trust, a VR exhibit. VR is still a very foreign real to a lot of people. I think this project has the potential to share VR with a lot of diverse audiences.
This is an incredibly interesting article in my opinion because it not only explores the growing distribution of Virtual Reality to the public and how they are able to consume it, but also bringing in Hollywood and looking at how that market is able to take advantage by making quick money on VR. It is actually an incredible thing for Hollywood because these VR pieces, at least those mentioned in the article, are 5 to 15 min, so it is not going to be some enormous project such as a feature film. It is also possible to complete a VR piece without any actors nor cameras, which would save a lot of overhead costs on the front end. In addition to this, I think the idea that IMAX has come up with here is very cool and I truly look forward to see if it comes to the United States and how it does in Manchester. I was hoping for a little more of an advancement in VR from this article to make it easier to be mass-consumption at once, but I am sure IMAX is looking for a way to do so.
Prior to reading this article, I had not really given much thought to how virtual reality would be distributed to consumers as the market first started off. For some reason I had not considered the possibility that virtual reality would be something that you would go somewhere to use. This may be because the movie theatre market is on a slow decline and current generations appear to be more interested in doing things at home in their own space and their own time. It’s possible that virtual reality will change this. Unlike the transition of movie-watching from the theatre to your laptop, virtual reality requires new equipment to be used, so having a place where you go to use it is necessary until people are hooked and buy their own gear. Maybe the rise of virtual reality will save the move theatre market, or maybe it will only be a life-preserver for a couple more years, until virtual reality takes off and it becomes another at-home experience. Until then, the idea of strapping on goggles to escape this world into another is a bit less depressing – doing it at home alone is quite different from going to a commercial entertainment location with a group of friends.
This is an amazing concept and I hope it prove to be a success. VR technology has always interested me in its capabilities and potential for what it can create, and I hope putting it in a platform such as this is a really cool way to use it to create an experience. IMAX has the money and the capability to make VR really really realistic, and I hope they don't throw away this shot at creating a whole new type of entertainment. VR has been needing a company to really bring it completely into the mainstream, as it is still a developing piece of tech, and I hope that this is its chance to catch on and become a really cool part of our entertainment industry. I also really like the social aspect of it--instead of sitting at home in your own world, you can interact with friends much like you would at a movie. And it seems like its reasonably priced, which is also fantastic.
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