WEVR is Giving $1 Million to Immersive Storytellers

WEVR is is a virtual reality community and media player for creatives based in Venice Beach. The company has been making a name for itself recently in the VR world. You might recognize WEVR as one of the select few development partners chosen by Valve to create a demo for the Vive at GDC. Earlier this week, the company made an announcement at SXSW a “new initiative called OnWEVR, a $1 Million grant program aimed squarely at the VR storyteller to help get their VR projects launched and to market.”

Today we launch a $1 million Virtual Reality content fund for immersive storytellers. http://t.co/MAGcQaBUJ2 #VR pic.twitter.com/dwCYdSs55l

— WEVR (@onwevr) March 17, 2015

How it Works

OnWEVR is designed to enrich a virtual reality community driven largely by the hard work, talent, and imaginations of independent creators driven to produce stories and experiences never before conceived. WEVR co-founder and CEO, Neville Spiteri, said in the announcement that “Funding for VR producers will provide a fast lane for VR projects to get to market. We will all learn from collaborating with these creative producers.”

Barriers to entry are intentionally low. Qualifying projects must be VR experiences a few minutes in length and use WEVR’s VR media player software. For consideration, the only requirement is a short written pitch, a video explaining your VR project, and a URL containing any supporting files. The program is open to everyone in the VR community. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned vet or a dabbling VRGIN.

The grant is similar to the Unreal Dev Grants announced last month. It’s an exciting time to be a creator in virtual reality as platforms like Unreal, Unity and WEVR continue to take steps to support the people responsible for using these tools to take storytelling to brand new worlds.

Winner Winner

The first two awards have already been granted. The first went to Ben Vance, an indie game developer from Buffalo Vision. Ben will be using the money to create an original room scale interactive VR experience in deep space for the Valve/HTC Vive called Irrational Exuberance. The second award wen to Roger Avary, a film director and Academy Award™ winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction and Beowulf. Avary is directing a 360 cinematic series we hope to learn more about soon.

If you’ve ever been curious about creating your own VR experience, now is the time. Submit your creation at OnWEVR (now closed).