Oculus Rift, the groundbreaking virtual reality company bought by Facebook earlier this year for a whopping $2 billion, has been primarily used in the world of video games to employ their technology. However, as the technology has evolved, more conceptual experiences have emerged, many involving immersive filmmaking techniques. Earlier this year at Sundance, Oculus offered visitors to their pop-up booth an opportunity to watch a Beck concert filmed specially in 3D for the helmet. There was also a successful Oculus demo as part of the Game of Thrones museum tour, that let fans experience Westeros in a more intimate manner. In yet another excellent use of the technology for marketing purposes, you can take a three-minute tour of a spaceship, The Endurance, from Christopher Nolan‘s upcoming space adventure Interstellar.
Reminiscent in presentation to the Disney Star Wars tour (albeit with less active things going on), the virtual experience is relatively straightforward yet immediately captivates the imagination through it’s use of the Oculus technology. As you drift through the corridors of this computer-generated space ship, you can fully observe subtle details with a full 360-degree viewing angle. At one point, you become weightless in zero gravity and the feeling of floating in space never felt so real. This level of immersion is remarkably stunning and transportive, and clearly highlights the immense potential for the possibilities of interactive experiences alongside virtual reality based films. When filmmakers and artists begin to wrap their minds around the potential for creating content for this medium, there will truly be some breathtaking results, like the one found here.
Check out an image from the actual experience above — one that Nolan says “was just like being back on set” — and see some photos we took below. We’ve also included a video of physicist Kip Thorne discussing his work on the film.
The exhibit is open from 11:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. local time at the following locations: AMC Lincoln Square 13 in New York (Oct. 6-8), AMC Gulf Pointe 30 in Houston (Oct. 17-19), AMC City Walk in Los Angeles (Oct. 25-27), Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA (Nov. 5-19).
Interstellar opens on November 5th in select locations and November 7th nationwide.