In March, VICE announced their partnership with Samsung to co-produce a documentary series that follows VR creators as they take on various projects within the new immersive medium. These documentaries will be distributed not only on VICE and Samsung’s platforms but will also air primetime on VICELAND TV, VICE’s 24-hour television network.
Now VICELAND and Samsung are giving us a look at their first episode in the series. “Point of View” is a 6-minute documentary film that speaks to the power of virtual reality as a new human experience through interviews with renowned VR creators Chris Milk, Gabo Arora, and Scott Harrison (CEO of charity: water). The first episode focuses on how VR can transport viewers directly into another person’s point of view, and thereby engendering empathy and heightening our understanding of global issues.
The VICELAND x Samsung episodes will air on television adjacent to several other VICELAND series, with each documentary being additionally edited into 30-second spots to air during the network’s regular commercial breaks.
VICE will also be sharing a number of 360-degree videos from different projects that were shot on the Gear 360 on both Facebook and YouTube.
This first episode is worth a watch and should introduce many new viewers to the power of virtual reality and hopefully inspire a new generation of VR creators. As Chris Milk shares in the latest episode, “Its the most powerful medium that we’ve really ever invented as a species, and that’s both life-changing for us as individuals and potentially world changing for collective humanity.”
