Cinema at ‘year zero’ in virtual reality revolution, filmmakers say
The first wave of virtual reality cinemas, heralding what their creators claim will be an entertainment revolution, rolls out across the world this month.
Film as we know it will be dead in the next five to 10 years ... It’s a whole different way of telling the story
The first screening room in France opened on Wednesday and several others are promised for Beijing, Shanghai and Los Angeles in the next few weeks.
Like the early days of cinema, virtual reality – or VR – is still something of a novelty sideshow.
But not for long, its supporters claim.
“Film as we know it will be dead in the next five to 10 years,” said the founder of the world’s first VR cinema in Amsterdam. “It’s a whole different way of telling the story. I think it is really what we are moving towards in the entertainment world,” Jip Samhoud told AFP.
Elisha Karmitz, who is behind the MK2 screening room in Paris, insisted “that the VR revolution is already happening. “2016 is year zero of this revolution,” he added.
In a glass cube inside a MK2 cinema near France’s national library, viewers can choose between HTC Vive, Playstation VR and Oculus Rift headsets, or they can go for “full body immersive” simulators.