Blog Archives
The Virtual Reality of Our Dreams
How different is virtual reality from dreaming?
Expanding on yesterday’s blog post (“What Will Be Your Spinning Top?”), a primary rationale for trying virtual reality is escapism. The same goes for movies, TV, music, art, vacationing, etc. Escapism is powerful. Escapism is an amazing thing. In realizing so, virtual reality (VR) can take this universal dreamlike pursuit and characteristic of virtually everybody in the world and capitalize on this frequent need and want to explore and immerse ourselves into all sorts of places, real and imagined. It’s not far-fetched to speculate the world we live in today, on planet Earth day-to-day, could become just the ground level of myriad worlds and realities, customized by the individual.
One of the connections made in “What Will Be Your Spinning Top?” was between VR and the movie Inception. While I am in no way predicting a shot-for-shot vision of the film for the evolving technology of VR, I do believe there is an argument to be made that VR will feel more like an indistinguishable dream than a static experience standing in the middle of a Best Buy aisle.
With a headset, of course.
Take a visual ride into what I’m talking about.
Accomplishing something in five minutes that usually takes an hour? Not such a bad reality.
Or dream-like world?
Or reality…?
What Will Be Your Spinning Top?
(Inception, IFC.com)
The depth to which virtual reality (VR) is integrated into multiple facets of our lives and society in the coming decade or so could very well begin the process of introducing a burgeoning world akin to Christopher Nolan’s 2010 mind-bending cinematic epic Inception.
You ever have those days when real life doesn’t quite seem like real life? Get ready because that feeling may be redefined in ways (or dimensions) we can’t yet imagine.
VR is a technological gold mine that has yet to officially strike, well, gold. In essence, VR has amounted to something closer to fool’s gold. Perhaps that’s not an entirely fair analysis, but the promise of an ever-expansive, seamless virtual world with newfound capabilities (fantastical and realistic) has been in the development phase for many decades. Yes, there are virtual reality headsets and games here and there. However, the technology has yet to be streamlined into our day-to-day lives.
In other words, VR has not been given the Apple-treatment.
By Apple-treatment, that means no individual or company has figured out the long sought-after universal approach to personalize VR like an iPhone or iPod with an overarching, dynamic, connected and reactive infrastructure. And that’s the key to VR becoming a technological gold mine. This streamlined achievement would be the pivot from intriguing accessory to necessity.
When will this happen? Likely in the not-so-distant future. Why? The pieces are here, scattered and evolving as they may appear. Whether used for gazing up at the stars and planets or for gaming or for the growing VR for educational purposes (to name just a few), people continue to crave alternate worlds and realities. Or, at the very least, new and imaginative perspectives. The bottom line is that enough of the necessary pieces are around if someone or some company (new or established) has the ingenuity to envision the most expansive virtual reality ever imagined that will allow us to immerse ourselves in with animated curiosity.
And you thought the movie Inception was confusing with its dream world, subconscious and spinning top…
just wait until Inception is your new reality.
The Stellar Sound of the Space Around Us
They say that “tails never fails.” Except for, you know, roughly 50% of the time. Anyways, how about this:
The ear can hear what we fear, and cheer.
Be kind, it’s a first draft with rough edges galore.
This blog has made the case that orchestral numbers can strike something profoundly powerful inside us that doesn’t necessarily offer confirmations to our myriad of questions, but stirs a wonderful mixture of mystery, caution and, incredibly, an unyielding pursuit of discovery. Once again, Christopher Nolan’s space operatic epic Interstellar is the focus of yet another blog post. This time, the form is the music from the film’s long past third trailer from late 2014 (with admittedly the faintest hint of audible lyrics at the end).
To quote a line from a fellow Nolan cinematic achievement, “And here we go.”
So, where will that music take you?
Wherever it leads you, just know that attempting to save the human race is always a crowd-pleaser. However, I myself may start with something slightly less grand…for the moment anyways.
The Instrumental Heartbeat of Cinema
When a story is so unique and stellar, it’s difficult to let it go.
Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer are film making BFF’s (perhaps not the bonding phrase these reserved movie maestros would use). The many collaborations with Mr. Nolan writing and directing and Mr. Zimmer composing powerful accompanying movie soundtracks have left audiences in awe and amazement in the theater and in the years beyond the film’s premiere. The video below has been featured on this blog before, yet its story of how the score of the emotionally-driven Interstellar (2014) evolved from a rather ambiguous note is remarkable.
And Throwback Thursday seems like a fitting day to showcase the kind of random spark that creates movie magic.
That’s why we go to the movies…
and it’s inspiring that there are movie-makers who know why.
Jimmy's Daily Planet 