{"id":130203,"date":"2024-10-10T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/10\/submerged-is-everything-impressive-and-isolating-about-the-vision-pro\/"},"modified":"2024-10-10T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T16:00:00","slug":"submerged-is-everything-impressive-and-isolating-about-the-vision-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/10\/submerged-is-everything-impressive-and-isolating-about-the-vision-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the\u00a0Vision Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I don\u2019t like submarines. The idea of being trapped, several hundred feet underwater, in a narrow, creaking death trap? No thanks. I already knew that going into a screening of Submerged<\/em>, the first scripted short film shot in Apple Immersive Video for the Vision Pro<\/a>. Now that I\u2019ve seen it, I\u2019m triply sure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Written and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger, Submerged<\/em> takes place inside a WWII submarine that\u2019s under attack. It follows the crew as they try to escape a sinking submarine. I, however, was seated comfortably in 2024 on a couch at Apple\u2019s demo space in Manhattan. There weren\u2019t any other theatergoers because I was going to strap the theater to my face. It was a little weird. At least, until the film got going. Then, I, too, was inside a WWII submarine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Watching an immersive film inside the Vision Pro is an odd thing. On the one hand, it\u2019s hard to forget you\u2019re in a headset. But, unlike a regular film, I have a ghostly sort of agency inside the narrative. The action can be happening with the main characters, but I\u2019m not obligated to watch them. You can instead focus on the extras in the background. I can \u2014 and did \u2014 occasionally choose to turn my head to stare at the rivets in the submarine\u2019s metal walls or beads of condensation in a torpedo tube (also, rudely, a roach skittering across the floor). Sometimes, I\u2019d turn around to see if this Submerged<\/em> world had 360 degrees like the real one. Spoiler: it doesn\u2019t. This fictional world spans 180 degrees, and once you reach the border, it fades to black.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The experience feels like a cross between playing a video game and viewing Sleep No More<\/em><\/a>, an immersive version of Macbeth<\/em> where the audience traipses through a creepy hotel as the play unfolds around them. Scenes move slower, as if you\u2019re being invited to gawp at your surroundings. At the same time, you\u2019re not fully free to explore. There\u2019s still a story that Berger is trying to tell \u2014 you\u2019re just along for the ride.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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All of that is a natural part of adapting traditional filmmaking to a more immersive 180-degree field of view. \u201cThat frame is very large and you need to fill that frame with things that happen, things that could be of interest to the audience,\u201d Berger says. \u201cEvery extra counts in this, every piece of equipment, every piece of bursting pipe or element in the frame counts. You can\u2019t really cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That wide field of view comes with its own obstacles. Mics and lighting have to be built into the scenery. Berger says he had to storyboard everything, create a short animated film based on that, and then watch it in the Vision Pro to get a sense for how the camera would move. Berger also wore the headset when filming started to figure out how shots would look.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 180-degree view created technical challenges for the film.<\/em><\/figcaption>Image: Apple<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The result is impressive. As water rushed into this fictional submarine, I could taste the faint memory of salt water on my tongue. When characters walked down narrow submarine corridors, I felt claustrophobic. During a scene where sailors shoved a torpedo into its launch tube, I instinctively stretched my hands out. For a split second, I thought they were loading it straight into my chest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy main agenda is to make you feel what the main character is feeling, to sort of have you go through what they\u2019re doing,\u201d Berger says. On that front, Submerged<\/em> is incredibly successful. It\u2019s when you remember you\u2019re in a headset that the rest of the world comes rushing back in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Watching the film, you become very aware there\u2019s no one else experiencing this with you. There\u2019s no one else gasping at harrowing moments. There\u2019s no one to lock eyes with, as if to say \u201cWhoa, did you see that, too?\u201d If you were to SharePlay this<\/a>, you\u2019d just see the ghostly Persona of a friend who isn\u2019t actually there. And then you\u2019d miss out on the whole immersive aspect. When you think about it that way, Submerged<\/em> is something you have to experience alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Watching the film, you become very aware there\u2019s no one else experiencing this with you<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Owning (or borrowing) a Vision Pro is also the only way to see Submerged<\/em>. That\u2019s inherently lonely. The only people I\u2019ve really been able to chat about this experience with were Apple employees and Berger himself. Now that the film is available, I\u2019ll have to wait for the two people I know in real life with a Vision Pro to carve out time in their schedule to see it. When I try to explain it to my spouse, they are unmoved.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ostensibly, Apple wants these immersive films to serve as a selling point for the Vision Pro. Come, spend $3,500, and see for yourself what the magic is all about. There\u2019s a logic to it. Submerged <\/em>is truly a technologically impressive proof-of-concept for high-quality immersive content. It\u2019s just also a hard experience to share. I can\u2019t say with a straight face that this<\/em> is the killer reason anyone should buy one of these things, especially since this was only a roughly 17-minute film. That\u2019s long enough for things to feel snappy and fresh. I\u2019m not sure how well the immersive aspect would hold up over a two-hour feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNot every movie is going to be made on these headsets. It\u2019s not necessary. It would be a waste of resources and waste of time,\u201d Berger acknowledges. Instead, he sees the Vision Pro as another tool in the belt. \u201cNot every movie is supposed to be for every medium. But if I have the right story, I think, \u2018I\u2019m excited about telling this and about pushing the medium forward.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s sort of the quagmire all mixed reality tech is stuck in. It can<\/em> be magical. When you try it, you can see why some people are inspired and excited. And then, when you inevitably take the headsets off, it\u2019s hard to explain to anyone why the world inside the headset is better than the one outside it. \u201cPushing boundaries\u201d isn\u2019t all that convincing of a reason. Watching Submerged<\/em> is like this, too. For all the artistry and technological prowess that went into making this film, I\u2019ve never needed the Vision Pro to imagine how terrifying a sinking submarine could be. It\u2019s just not necessary for immersing yourself in a good story. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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I don\u2019t like submarines. The idea of being trapped, several hundred feet underwater, in a narrow, creaking death trap? No thanks. I already knew that going into a screening of Submerged, the first scripted short film shot in Apple Immersive Video for the Vision Pro. Now that I\u2019ve seen it, I\u2019m triply sure. Written and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-130203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}