Facebook-owned Oculus VR is diving into the movie industry with the establishment of an in-house movie studio that will focus on the creation of virtual reality films.
The studio, named the Story Studio, premiered its very first short piece on Jan. 26 at the Sundance Film Festival.
Story Studio tapped talent from animation studio Pixar, which was behind the CGI in animated movies Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story, and from experts in the video game industry. The studio will look to develop content for virtual reality devices, and at the same time will give out advice to other moviemakers that are thinking of trying out virtual reality technology.
Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook last year for the price of $2 billion, has been mostly focused on the development of video games to be used with its Rift virtual reality headset.
However, virtual reality has recently caught the eye of the moviemakers of Hollywood, as the technology would allow them to expand their films into the 360-degree panoramic view made possible by the Rift virtual reality headset.
Story Studio showed Lost at the Sundance Film Festival, which the studio said is only the first of a total of five short films that it is planning to release through the year.
Lost was directed by Saschka Unseld, a former artist at Pixar and currently the creative director for Story Studios. The film puts the viewer in the middle of a forest, a scene that is disturbed by the entry of a mechanical creature.
Brendan Iribe, the CEO of Oculus, described the film as "a real-time version of a Pixar experience that you're inside of."
At this year's Sundance Film Festival, which is the largest gathering in the United States independent film industry, a portion of the event is dedicated to short movies shot in virtual reality, with films produced by names such as Felix & Paul and Chris Milk.
Oculus is hoping to be able to develop real-time virtual reality films, wherein viewers will be able to interact with the characters and objects seen through the headset.
"This is really tuning in to what a lot of people who are extending 360-degree film into VR cannot do yet," said Iribe said. "It's getting into the heart and soul and magic of VR."
However, virtual reality movies may not become mainstream any time soon as the headsets that enable them have not yet been released into the mass market, as the consumer model of the Rift headset is currently still under development.
