IMAX's VR Industry Plan: Be an Integrator in the VR Film Industry

Davia Keighley (second from right)

when the director and producer have completed the final review in this cinema, Davia Keighley,IMAX, the chief quality officer of man, who is covered with silver and a straight suit, will start with the cinema with his name at headquarters and distribute IMAX films of the same quality on more than a thousand IMAX screens around the world.

and now, this company, which has been working on film projection technology for 45 years, is beginning to have a new experiment, virtual reality technology.

strong > VR: a turning point in the film industry / strong >

CEO Rich Gelfond of IMAX believes that VR technology is much more than just a player's game console or living room gadget. He believes that this will be the future of cinemas, and even the film industry as a whole. "all the people who tell you that the current VR form is its golden period are wrong! Wrong! "

it's not just theater owners who think so. Joe Russo, the director of Captain America: winter Warriors, also believes that VR will change the whole way the film is made, change the audience's experience, and even this perspective. VR will break the film's long-standing way of storytelling, shooting, and editing. And the person who can seize this opportunity may become a textbook figure in the film industry in the next era. From a broader point of view, not only movies, music, games, television, the entire entertainment industry will be changed or challenged, industry monopolies such as MGM or Warner Bros. may be overthrown.

IMAX, as the boss of production and playback, naturally hopes to comply with the trend and continue to occupy the commanding heights of the next market. From VR's cameras, content, and consumer education, IMAX hopes to contract the entire VR movie process and eventually output it to its own terminal.

I strong > MAX's VR industry plan / strong >

VR the biggest problem at present is waiting for technological breakthroughs. Consumers generally cannot accept high product prices, lack of content, and talent training, and IMAX is hoping to solve these problems at once with its own size and long-term contacts in the entertainment industry.

Gelfond said that IMAX's integration of the VR experience must be integrated with IMAX's concept of a large screen, that is, the sense of interaction between the audience and the big screen cannot be lost. In the IMAX experience, the audience's line of sight is supposed to be immersive, and they can hardly see the whole picture at a glance, but actively look for their own exciting points in the large screen, which is very similar to the interactive experience of "first person" emphasized by VR.

from scratch, at the beginning of last year, Gelfond began to build a team within IMAX that can expand the IMAX brand in the VR field. The goal of this team is to create the most "high-end" VR projects. Everything that is not High-end will be shot mercilessly, like the IMAX that Ford had hoped to borrow and name. Working with the highest-level companies in the industry, combining VR experience rooms in IMAX cinemas, home version of IMAX experience, and acquiring VR content or technology companies, work in a variety of VR areas is carried out in a variety of ways.

Last year, IMAX set up a $50 million fund for VR content and partnered with film studios on VR projects. IMAX, in partnership with Google, is expected to launch the VR camera in 2018. Work with Acer and Swiss VR headset studio Starbreeze to develop higher-end device solutions that give VR helmets a wider field of vision and more immersive effects.

in terms of experience, IMAX envisions a model such as experiencing a closer and personalized version of VR after watching the IMAX version of Star Wars in the cinema, and get immersive interaction immediately after the experience. The VR experience, like the peripheral products of the movie, provides another derivative option for moviegoers.

these projects are all in a factory a few miles away from IMAX headquarters.

strong > IMAX VR Factory has just begun / strong >

in IMAX, also located in the VR Center in Los Angeles, everything seems to be different from David Keighley Cinema. Its pure white walls and empty space have been open to the public for a long time, but they are still not very popular.

the current IMAX centers, except for some HTC vive which are more or less the same as the outside experience field, have actually begun to display their 5KPhone 210 °field of vision with the latest head-mounted display and the latest movie-derived content are their current products. The seemingly empty space is also designed to match the "ever-changing" VR technology, making it easy to change and increase the experience scene.

IMAX's VR career will begin, and the two-hour VR movie experience has not yet arrived. The first few works and products they are about to launch may not be successful, because IMAX cannot really predict whether the outbreak of VR will be one year or 10 years from now. In fact, just like the immersive headgear that IMAX put into in the 1990s and the boundless hope for 3D, time, technology and cost do not determine success or failure.

even the seemingly confident Gelfond says that if VR turns out to be not the future, just like the gold prospectors hundreds of years ago, make it an interesting journey!

Edit: nancy