Screenwriting for Cinematic VR films

ScreenWriting for VR films: A Broken Concept?

Is there such a thing as writing a screenplay for VR? While it may sound intriguing to announce: “I’m shooting my next epic in VR”, an apt question could be, are we be making movies ‘for’ VR or making movies in VR?

To what extent does screenwriting affect a VR movie? Can it contribute to better immersion? These are all un-answered questions, but we can try and answer them by first defining a “log line” (to borrow a screenwriting term) for what a Cinematic VR film is all about.

The reason VR [and 3D films earlier] have been getting a lackluster reception, is because the above two ingredients have been sorely missing in video based VR movies.

It’s probably due to residual thinking …2D thinking… by Directors and Cinematographers. One can’t blame them. It’s a whole lot of un-learning to do. Not many established people will want to go back to film school.
Take new movies such as “The Limit VR” for instance, reviewed here.

Much like the old 3D, Transformers movie, where mechanical monsters created with exquisitely detailed gears, mechanics etc., were lost to “speed storytelling”… the recent Robert Rodriguez VR film had sets that would have immersed the viewer in the scene, more so because it was shot in first person POV for the better part… but alas! Did the audience get a chance to savor these details?

That’s what current cinematic VR films exhibit: artefacts of 2D moviemaking mindsets.

There’s always the complaint that action movies cannot have time to show details or “dwell” on a shot or scene. I beg to differ. Case in point, The Matrix. It has amazing action, yet had beautiful dwell time (all those slo-motion bullet time shots) and the movie was 2D! Those are the shots/scenes that would have looked even better had the movie been in 3D… One can see the effect it would have, had those scenes been shot in first person VR!

Does it mean all action scenes in VR should now ape The Matrix? No, but there needs to be some dwell time inserted, perhaps “craftily” by the screenwriter.

The Crafty Screenplay writer.

By learning what works in VR… it allows the screenwriter to visualize scenes better and utilize the ‘spatiality’ the VR canvas affords, to paint the world in which story plays out.

The scenes themselves do not have to be Matrix like… what is missing sorely today, is the use of VR to depict Human Emotion.

The movie: Midnight in Paris –  If this were a VR movie, how could we transport the audience to the cobbled stones down a winding street on the banks of the River Seine that Owen Wilson walked on?

This is where the screen writer could craftily weave in some presence into the story… say the character is absentmindedly flipping a coin as he strolls and it falls, he picks it up and walks along. Motivation for this action?  – It’s his lucky coin!– Without having to type in CLOSE ON, or ANGLE ON, the DP (who is NOW the audience) will tilt their head down if the scene is in first person POV, or indeed, the DP could cut an insert/closeup of the pavement as the actor picks up the coin. This would be a motivated cut, and not a weird angle the viewer might otherwise find themselves in [when wearing a VR headset]

– One such weird moment is when audiences find themselves half buried in the asphalt in the Doug Liman “Invisible VR” reviewed here. [Scroll down to the Skill 3 subheading in that article] That cut was a stylistic 2D filmmaking choice but unmotivated for VR because in VR the camera *wants* to be the audience as much as possible.

Getting back to the Midnight in Paris scene, the result would be: A closer view of the pavement and those (maybe wet with recent rain) cobbled stones, is what might bring back memories to the audience or, transport them to that location for the first time. 

Combine this with Ambisonic audio of the crunch of mud under shoes, and suddenly you’re not watching a romantic scene, you are living it!

Those brief moments where the eye can linger, can savor… is where Cinematic VR is at.

A closeup of a character wiping away a tear from another actors face… captured in stereoscopic VR. The “relief” of the skin of a human face presented in 3D draws the viewer closer. These are scenarios that the screenwriter can weave into the story without actually spelling the shot and camera angle out to the Director or DP. We know that a screenwriter should not suggest camera angles for 2d, much less VR, to established Cinematographers or pacing to the Director. (today even a Stereographer has to take a course in diplomacy to do this!).

What a screenwriter can do is, cleverly weave VR centric cues into the story in such a way that it’s natural yet has those 2 ingredients: Detailing, and Dwell time.

How do you write a screen play for an action movie in VR that wont make it boring? and yet have detailing, dwell time.. and “Eye Time Out“?

Above: Eye Time out in the Matrix

At 0:48 seconds into the video, and again at 1:56, is your Dwell Time and eye-time out…. before the pace picks back up again. The trick would be in the screen play, to mention:

“…and Trinity lands on her feet; feline like, in her black patent-leather catsuit”.

Otherwise the pacing and framing would be left open to interpretation by the Director and Cinematographer.

Character Arc and The Depth Script:

Screenplays have a Character Arc and Stereoscopic VR movies have a Depth Script. A screenwriter can leverage the concept of a Depth Script when building their Character Arc.

Here’s the general premise of a Depth Script: It is a visual graph that a Stereographer and DP uses to chart the progress of the “3D ness” of the scene as it plays out.

More creative use of depth scripts encompass:
Sad scenes having a “shallower” depth, happy moments allow the Stereographer to “dial up the depth”. This handling of depth is of course an art in itself and experienced Stereographers and Cinematographers work in tandem to achieve it. It can, if done well, add to the immersion and suspension of disbelief in the movie. The concept is discussed to some extent in the book “Think in 3D“.

A beautiful synergy between Director, Stereographer and Screenwriter can  come about, if the Character Arc and Depth script work in tandem. In brief, a depth script takes into account the ebb and flow of Depth in the movie, to add immersion, but also serves other much needed and crucial purposes, such as to prevent audience eye-strain, to match between cuts in scenes and more.

While the Screenwriter will have no way of knowing what the depth script would be, the intention here is to make the writer aware that a  Character Arc combines well with a depth script to build the “mood” of scenes as the character (protagonist / antagonist) traverses the beats of the screenplay.

Backstory in VR?

Can flashbacks and backstory benefit from the play of dwell time and depth? Happy childhood memories = more depth/more of the 360 vista capturedm, versus loss of a loved one, (more closeup with the VR camera). This will no doubt be the job of the stereographer and the depth script, but it’s mentioned here so that the screenwriter can be aware of how stereo3D and ‘dwelling‘ on the human form up close in VR can influence even if at a subconscious level, high emotional bonds between characters and viewers.

Flashback usually have a slower pace, even when recounting car crashes and such. These are “visual bites” that immersive VR was made for.

Above are only some guidelines. There are certainly other areas that a screenwriter delving into the medium of storytelling for cinematic VR, can explore. The more the screenwriter learns about the medium, the more he/she can leverage video based VR, which in turn will make for a more engaging experience for the movie-goer.

We are still learning how, working with the screenplay writer at early stages of a movie, can make for more compelling action and drama movies in VR.