Some things are quite certain; once a technology erupts, the next thing to expect is its evolution. As for Virtual Reality (VR), it is one of the fast-growing technologies at the moment, alongside its likely twin technology – Augmented Reality (AR).

Although Virtual Reality has been used by the gaming and modeling industries, the technology is now being adopted by entertainment companies to reduce costs. In 2017, the Global Entertainment and Media outlook forecast revealed a shocking fact, stating that the use of VR is rapidly growing in the entertainment and media space. Virtual Reality technology is not just for evolving for gaming and entertainment, but also media production.

Well, it’s not something to be so much surprised about; VR seems the best technology for delivering engaging content to targeted audiences. The evolution of Virtual Reality in media production happens rapidly than predicted. Probably, this is because false news goes viral on social media within a few minutes, leaving a lot of people to become much more concerned about the various news links they see on social media. However, it is believed that with VR/AR technology, credibility will return to the news industry, as well as the entertainment industry.

VR technology and media production

Media production is growing every day and becoming diversified. New ideas are being employed by professionals in the industry to boost media authenticity, quality, as well as competition. However, of all the techniques, ideas, and concepts being introduced into media production, VR is the most popular, and it is becoming prevalent.

VR has taken the media and advertising industry by storm after it has dominated entertainment and other tech markets. VR has made media and advertising brands to start creating 360-degree videos which they publish on YouTube. 360 videos are a way of offering immersive video experience to YouTube viewers. However, the viewers are expected to wear a VR cardboard headset while looking into your smartphone; this will reproduce the effects of VR while watching a 360-degree video.

Virtual reality provides deep immersion, which is a crucial factor used by people who offer 3D modeling. Advertisers and marketers are beginning to see the need to use VR in their presentations. VR has proved to be a powerful and influential technology in the media and advertising industry.

So far, YouTube has served as the best platform where advertisers launch their 360 videos with respect to virtual reality.

Studios using VR in media production

Quite many studios have started launching videos based on Virtual Reality. VR videos are created using 3D rendering and 360-degree video technologies. Such videos provide deep immersion and promise more engagement than typical digital content.

Why virtual reality is becoming prevalent in media production

A media content is created with the sole purpose of engaging a specific audience. Virtual Reality provides more engaging scenes and keeps an audience entertained for as long as possible. The evolution of this technology in media production has led to several developments in the way people interact with digital content, especially on YouTube.

Virtual Reality is more than a show and tell; the technology is more about feeling a presence. Most apparently, there’s no better way to engage an audience except with the use of VR tech. Hence, seeing that the technology is rapidly being adopted in media production is not supposed to be a thing of surprise.  Experts have proved that VR offers behavioral learning, which is an effective way to teach, train, or sell.

Well, just like VR is becoming predominant in media production, it has already made its way into entertainment, most especially, gaming and music.

Virtual Reality in the entertainment industry

With the help of VR, there’s arguably no need to have vast teams of animators, and it also helps to reduce the cost of having studios. VR is obviously the future of entertainment, where we’ll have to view, listen to artists, watch cinema movies, and play games using 360-degree experience. In no distant time, with VR rapidly being adopted in the entertainment industry, people won’t need smartphones or computers to hook up with entertainments; instead, people would use VR gadgets to interact with a digital world where they can feel, hear, see, and manipulate actions.

Below are the aspects of entertainment which VR has a special impact on;

1. Museums and Amusement Parks

Some museums and amusement parks are already using VR to entertain their visitors. Using virtual reality, it is easier to attract and engage a large audience visiting a museum. Taking for example, the British museum where VR is being used to entertain both kids and grownups that visit the museum to see their Bronze Age collections. The British Museum provides VR headsets to visitors for them to use, explore, and interact with the artifacts in the museum.

In the same way, VR is used in Amusement parks to offer unforgettable experiences to people visiting the park. You’ll likely find many amusement parks and what makes you visit a particular one depends on the level of entertain you got from the last visit. With virtual reality being used in parks, visitors are taken through an unusual world and provided with intriguing sensations.  

2. Concerts

VR is being used by organizers to entertain the audience who come to witness a concert. We have seen concerts like Coachella, Lollapalooza, Tomorrowland, Sziget, where VR or 360-degree videos are used to engage the audience. Also, a couple of artists now perform live concerts via VR. The evolution of VR in the music industry (specifically) keeps giving birth to new devices and technologies which are making things much easier for artists, producers, organizers, and other people in the industry.

3. Cinemas

Soon, many people would sit back at home and use VR to stream cinema movies, instead of going to the theatre/cinema. While the evolution of VR in this aspect is a significant threat to the Cinema business, it will cause more people to love watching cinemas since they won’t be stressing up themselves going to the venue and going through protocols.

4. Youtube

We just launched our new experiment that we call Pokie Dokie and its goal is for us to experiment with the technology. We created multiple environments in unity and we started playing while hanging out and filming. People started loving those and we said to each other: “Let’s have a script”.

This is how Pokie Dokie started becoming a reality and we launched the Christmas series. Obviously it is easy to experiment with more backgrounds, more scenes and stuff. I would love to hear your feedback on that endeavor which is extremely important to us, because it proves the whole point of VR in media production.