https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHjWlziIYDw

Jim Leyden, Toys (360° immersive video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSfXWcF0u6Y

Jin Kim, Po-Hsien Lee, Chrisitna Lew, Chunxue Li, Yuanzhuo Wang, Zhaochen Zhang, Due Date (360° immersive video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpBOeFv1K2w&feature=youtu.be

Chunxue Li, Eric O’Neill, Yuanzhuo Wang, Zhaochen Zhang, Tip of My Tongue (360° immersive video)

Curatorial statement by Professor Laura Zaylea:

What media genres work well in 360° immersive video? One way to answer this question is to explore which media conventions do not work well in spherical form. Is there still a “close up”? Will “montage” create poetic meaning or simply nausea? And since each audience member is presented with more viewing options than they can physically take in at one time, is the stress of FOMO (fear of missing out) inevitable?

The immersive videos featured here take different approaches to answering these questions. Toys is a concept-driven experimental work that presents a wonderland of visual stimulation in all directions: A room full of art-making “toys” disappears in this commentary on capitalism and shifting priorities. Due Date is a music video that plays with lighting cues and repeated imagery to guide audience attention.

Tip of My Tongue, a narrative about a young Asian American man who wants to tell his mother he’s gay, guides attention through visual and aural stimulation: Eyes are drawn away from a blank wall (in the first shot) and towards an illuminated bridge (in the final shot); attention is guided through sound design elements such as dialog (motivation to find the characters) and music (permission to explore the setting). The viewer is invited to take a seat at the table and a ride on a bicycle; at one point, the camera is placed in the hallway such that you can peak into either character’s room with ease but never see both at once. This strategy uses architecture to create a unique, implicitly interactive experience: While the conventions of immersive media storytelling are not yet defined, the Fall 2017 Emergent Media Production students predict that this “hallway shot” will soon become one of them.

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A word of thanks:
Special thanks to all Emergent Media Production creative media makers of Fall 2017, and all researchers in Dr. Matthew Lombard’s Fall 2017 course 4446: Psychological Process of Media. We worked together to create 5 unique immersive videos and design an original research study testing audience responses to immersive storytelling. A video of our end-of-semester final presentation, With/in/visibility: Exploring Storytelling in 360° Video at Paley Library’s Beyond the Page event series is available here. Thank you to the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Paley Library / Digital Scholarship Center for the Innovative Teaching with Makerspace Technology grant that allowed us to purchase the camera used to film these projects.