Project Overview
Immerse yourself in the wildest places on earth and meet the humans protecting our most precious wildlife. Explore the great savannahs of Kenya, discover the ancient jungles of Borneo and dive into the rich coral reefs of Raja Ampat. Encounter elephants, orangutans, manta rays and some incredible humans, all in stunning cinematic Virtual Reality (VR).
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Narrator:
Anna Friel
Directed, Edited & Filmed by:
Joseph Purdam
Produced & Written by:
Angie Davis
Daniel Huertas
Executive Producers:
Eric Cheng
Trent Clews-de Castella
Full Project Credits: https://bit.ly/3dmA9gh
Project Brief
ecosphere sets out to transform documentary filmmaking for good, redefining the limits of 180 capture and playback in VR. Each episode combines the world’s best in VR capture technology, natural history storytelling and conservation filmmaking. These narratives gently guide viewers to a greater understanding of the earth’s fragile biomes. The emphasis is on creating space; when human beings create space, wildlife thrives. ecosphere spotlights indigenous and community led efforts to protect the natural world, nurturing a deep empathic connection that encourages positive engagement with nature and more conscious human actions.
Project Need
As we enter a new decade, we are confronted with the threat of a climate crisis and the extinction of many precious wildlife species. It’s critical that the world takes action to protect nature, to help wildplaces recover from the impact of modern human life. To get there we need to leverage emerging technologies to transform conservation messaging into experiential storytelling.
PHORIA developed the concept of ecosphere, a best in-class VR 180 documentary series. To turn the concept into a reality, we brought to the table an international collective of innovators and thought leaders: experts in Virtual Reality (Oculus VR), immersive storytelling (Anicca Media), aerial cinematography (XM2), environmental conservation (WWF) and natural history production (Silverback Films). The collaboration between these teams has ensured that ecosphere is crafted around never-before-seen cinematic VR footage, shot at some of the most remote and beautiful locations on earth. Each episode is produced using a prototype stereo VR 180 camera built specifically for this project. These cameras achieve perfect human interpupillary distance (IPD), ensuring realistic stereo effect while maintaining cinematic quality image capture. With a bespoke camera stabilisation platform, we were able to capture footage from drones and one the ground in some of the most remote, technically challenging environments ever filmed in VR.
Coupled with master narration from Emmy Award winning actress and WWF Ambassador Anna Friel, ecosphere is an uplifting VR documentary series that ignites a sense of hope and inspires a deeper appreciation for the natural world.
User Experience
ecosphere combines a bespoke VR player with stunning 3D animations as a foundation to showcase each episode of the series. The entire experience runs for 60 minutes, from the opening sequence, menu interactions and episodes through to the credits.
The ecosphere app presents a number of unique and powerful interactions that elevate the messages of the experience. Following the opening sequence, users are able to explore the menu screen — they are free to interact with the central ecosphere planet, before selecting an episode to view. The loading screen for each episode (Kenya, Borneo and Raja Ampat) features a custom biome, carefully crafted to reflect the real wildlife and environments shown in the episodes. Users are encouraged to spin the biome, viewing the incredibly detailed 3D modelling and animations from every angle.
From there, they are invited to download and view the 5k Stereo VR 180 episode. Through the immersive storytelling users are met with crisp visuals, an emotive original musical score and evocative narration from Anna Friel. Each episode presents not only an awe-inspiring environment, but the challenges faced by the humans on the ground to ensure a positive future for their community and for nature.
This narrative structure accentuates the focus on behavioural change and social good - only when humans change their behaviour can precious wildlife recover and regenerate.
Project Marketing
ecosphere is a global co-production and as such, as we have a multifaceted digital marketing strategy aimed at driving downloads of the app through the Oculus store.
Our goal is to promote ecosphere across the launch and post-launch phases through an epic trailer, dedicated website, sneak previews of the app and plenty of behind-the-scenes content from our VR shoots in Kenya, Borneo and Raja Ampat.
In addition, launching ecosphere through the festival circuit was another key component to our marketing strategy. Film and technology festival organisers are undoubtedly facing challenging circumstances this year, as many are forced to indefinitely postpone or cancel events, or pivot to virtual alternatives. While this is disappointing for us all, we’re working to ensure that we participate in online festival channels, such as Hot Docs.
All the partners behind ecosphere are dedicated to raising awareness for the natural history and conservation messages at the heart of the series. We hope to cross-promote content that shines a light on local rewilding stories that raise hope and awareness for environmental causes, as well as showcasing the best in-class VR technology used to create the series.
Project Privacy
PHORIA is committed to providing experiences within a secure environment and is dedicated to respecting the privacy of all users. Safeguarding the privacy of ecosphere users is a priority to us and measures are in place to guide how we collect, store or use any personal information provided to us.
Our full developer privacy policy will be made available through the Oculus Quest and Oculus Go stores respectively upon the official release of the ecosphere application.
Digital - AR / VR - New Experiences
This category relates to AR / VR - New Experiences.
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