Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

MWM Immersive is finally combining virtual reality and location-based immersive theater

Using the timeworn and trusty narrative of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as its platform, MWM Immersive, a division of Madison Wells Media, is finally taking location-based virtual reality to its logical conclusion and merging it with an immersive theater experience.

Called Chained: A Victorian Nightmare, the new production combines live actors and an immersive setting with virtual reality to recreate Victorian-era London.

The new production is premiering at experiential studio GreatCo on Friday and will run through January 6, 2019. It include a full Victorian-era set in which one audience member at a time is fitted with a virtual reality headset by a professional actor. The individual audience experience is designed for the viewer to interact the entire time with live actors and objects.

Co-produced by MWM and the virtual reality studio Here Be Dragons, the Chained experience was created and directed by Justin Denton, who was also responsible for the immersive Legion experience that debuted at San Diego Comic Con in 2017. The executive producer for the project was MWM Immersive’s Ethan Stearns, who was the shepherd behind Carne y Arena the Academy Award-winning virtual reality project from the famed Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu.

[gallery ids="1752184,1752185,1752186,1752188"]

“By combining the best of VR and immersive theater, Chained surpasses the limitations of each medium and lets the audience see, converse with, and even touch the impossible,” said Justin Denton, in a statement. “I grew up with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but in my mind’s eye I always imagined the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future as much darker and more intense than most adaptations. Audiences will walk away from Chained as though they have just awoken from a dark and beautiful fever dream full of self discovery, fascination, fear, and wonder.”

Tickets, which cost $40, are available for purchase at Eventbrite.com and the company is planning to bring the experience to more cities after its initial run through January.

Combining immersive theater with virtual reality has long felt (at least to me) like the best use case for the technology. Unlike a cinematic experience, immersive theater benefits from movement in an established environment and interaction with a cast in real time. A production like “Sleep No More” would obviously lend itself to an enhanced experience in virtual reality and if this is successful, the MWM Interactive experiment could become a road map for increasing and encouraging the technology’s adoption among a broader base of users.

It’s a great gateway to the best use cases for virtual reality and something that more companies will likely pursue.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line...

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted a...