Anyone who has watched a documentary dealing with wildlife will be familiar with the voice of Sir David Attenborough. The latest crop of work featuring his narration has been appearing in 3D on Sky TV but it’s about to get a little bit more complicated. The company behind making the documentary films, Atlantic Productions, plans to release a version of the latest effort, Conquest of the Skies, for the Oculus Rift as well.
Speaking to realscreen, the company’s commercial director John Morris said “”We’re now filming for the Oculus Rift so when we filmed our recent flight in Borneo, we filmed with an eight-camera rig, so you got the full 360-degree experience.” Morris believes that the Oculus Rift is destined for a bright future, which will result in “millions of these things being sold”. As such, it’s being considered a new platform for media and there’s no denying that a David Attenborough documentary would make for impressive viewing in virtual reality. If they can find a way to combine that with 3D, we might never leave.
Just how the documentary will look isn’t set in stone, mostly because nobody has ever tried it before. Morris said “In terms of the creative challenge, we look at this as being comparable to the beginning of the film industry.” He’s probably not far off, the Facebook-acquired tech could change the way that some media is created, perhaps even giving rise to whole new forms of entertainment in the process.
Source: Ars Technica