MPC Takes Felix & Paul Studios into Space for Oculus 'Introduction to VR'

For the release of the Samsung S7 for the Gear VR, Felix & Paul Studios updated their earlier Gear VR focused film, Introduction to VR. The revised film, a three minute, 360° stereoscopic piece, includes excerpts from Felix & Paul’s recent VR films, with snippets from their works including Cirque du Soleil’s Inside the Box of Kurios, Nomads: Herders, LeBron James Striving for Greatness and Jurassic World: Apatosaurus.

Introduction to Virtual Reality is a Felix & Paul masterclass in VR pacing, immersion and technical craftsmanship. For this updated version the directors turned to the VR team at MPC to create segments that both open and close the film.

The scenes Felix & Paul asked the visual effects studio to provide are situated in space.

For the opening, MPC takes users up to a stunning view high above Earth, where we see the sun rise over one pole while the other slips into darkness. Below, on the surface, cities can be seen lighting up like constellations while clouds rise through the breaking rays of the sun.

The closing shot takes us into the further reaches of the Universe, where we find a beautiful Nebula in full bloom. The audience finds themselves out in the void, sitting in an asteroid field amongst the space dust, in full glorious view.

“Our main challenge was to use the various compositional elements in the opening and closing scenes to convey a sense of the vastness of the universe and the scale of our planet,” says MPC Creative Director Rob Petrie of the project.