We’ve been working with Parable VR and its Creative Director (and Matt’s brother) Jonathan Rudd, in order to make a virtual reality trailer for a BBC3’s One Deadly Weekend in America – a documentary about gun crime in the United States.
BBC3 were so excited about the documentary and its revolutionary trailer that they organised a special night at Rich Mix in Shoreditch. Guests were invited to experience the VR film, join in a Q&A and watch the documentary.
It was a good evening. For some people, it was their first experience with VR headsets, and it was great to see people’s excitement and their dramatic reactions.
On the Q&A panel were Danny Horan (BBC Commissioner), Jon Alwen (Executive Producer Voltage TV, the production company behind the documentary), Ursula MacFarlane (Director of the documentary) and David Wise (CEO of Parable VR). There was an interesting discussion about the documentary, and about why it had been decided to create a Virtual Reality trailer to accompany it.
Danny Horan explained that BBC3 was a progressive TV channel, confidently aimed at younger people, proudly online-only. I think he saw that there was much excitement around VR, and that short, on-demand pieces of quality content, delivered to phones, computers and headsets rather than TVs, were what younger people wanted. The trailer would be a valid piece of content in its own right, as well as a promotional piece for the documentary.
You can now download the BBC Taster VR app, which includes our virtual reality trailer.