AUSTIN, Texas — Known in her industry as an innovator in virtual reality, director Jessica Brillhart demonstrated how immersive storytelling differs from the more traditional approach to filmmaking at 2019's South by Southwest Conference and Festivals in Austin.
Brillhart, named by MIT as an innovator and pioneer in virtual reality filmmaking and immersive entertainment, is a director, writer and theorist. Currently, she is the founder of Vrai Pictures, an independent studio.
She previously served as the principal filmmaker for VR at Google where she helped launch Google Jump, a virtual reality live-action capture ecosystem. She has worked with NASA, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Montreal Canadiens – a professional ice hockey team -- according to SXSW.
At her SXSW convergence keynote March 12, Brillhart imparted wisdom to a packed room. She explained how traditional filmmaking differs from VR, or immersive, filmmaking.
“Filmmakers are taught that the frame is everything,” she said.
Rather, VR is a world of potential frames, she said.
VR also differs from traditional filmmaking because it changes how the filmmaker relates to the audience. She said you are instead bringing that person into the world you created. They aren’t “just viewing it,” she said.
“She becomes part of the medical makeup of that world,” Brillhart said of the audience.
In one VR experience Brillhart created, she packaged the Weather Channel forecast for Omaha, Nebraska to the smooth sounds of Kenny G.
Meant to take you back to the 1990s Weather Channel, Mashable reported it took her four hours to put together.
Thinking about how you can use all of the space is something filmmakers should do more often, Brillhart said.
“Why waste that space?” she asked.
She then showed a virtual reality video which focused on a girl, Kennedy, playing violin in her bedroom. Opposite of Kennedy, in the doorway of her room, stood her parents, watching on. Brillhart said it shows that viewers can stumble upon a variety of stories in their own time through virtual reality.
Brillhart introduced Traverse at the festival – an immersive audio platform which allows visitors to walk around inside spatialized music.
“Sometimes you just got to build it yourself,” she said at the festival, imparting a piece of advice to those in the crowd.
She then unveiled a VR experience that lets you experience an Elvis Presley recording.