The animated VR experience tells the real stories of refugees — placing you at the heart of the story.
BBC has released their first VR short film for the Oculus platform. Now available to download for free on Rift, We Wait is a dramatized story that brings you along a Syrian family’s journey to embark on their second perilous attempt to cross the sea to Greece on smuggler boats.
Based on real accounts gathered by BBC News and brought to life by Aardman Animation, We Wait is part of the BBC’s ongoing work to explore the potential of VR as a future medium. Known for their stop-motion claymation films starring the characters Wallace and Gromit, this is also Aardman’s first foray into immersive storytelling as well.
The animation team brings a sense of style with their artwork that makes this one uniquely powerful experience, highlighting a sense of suspense and anticipation felt by displaced people journeying to Europe. The team had to experiment with the motion capture equipment and figure out the best way to portray all the characters within the restrictions of the project. “In a sense, it’s more in tune with a theatrical play and this is what I found exciting from my experience in true VR,” explained Darren Dubicki, Director at Aardman. “We’re skirting between these worlds of theatre and screen and giving the audience the most immersive seat in the house.”
The human stories uncovered by BBC News and brought to life in We Wait makes this a documentary VR experience that can help shed light on the crisis, where according to figures from the International Organization for Migration, the same journey was taken by almost 130,000 people in the first three months of this year, with 418 either dead or missing.
We Wait premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest on June 10th and is available to download now on Oculus.
