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My name is Camille Donegan and
I am a Virtual Reality Producer

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working on the TRACTION project
with Virtual Reality Ireland.

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I have long brown hair, brown eyes,

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I am wearing navy and gold glasses

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and a blue and yellow jumper
with stars on the sleeves.

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Virtual Reality is disrupting pretty much
every sector you can think of,

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primarily due to the
immersive nature of the medium 

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and the power that’s inherent in that.

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VR is used extensively for training
across a multitude of sectors including 

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Healthcare and Wellness, Manufacturing, Sales,
Tourism, Law Enforcement and Military training.

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When it comes to entertainment,
R offers unique characteristics.

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We can experience Scale and Depth in new ways.

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For example in a VR experience called
Richie’s Plank,

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you walk out of an elevator 100 stories up
and have to walk the plank!

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Your palms start sweating even though
the graphics are cartoonish in nature.

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Then there's a VR experience called TheBlue,

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where you're situated in a boat under the sea
and get a full body thrill 

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when a huge blue whale swims by!

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Right now all storytelling genres
are up for grabs

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and its a great time for creators
to experiment and play!

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Last week I experienced a steampunk
VR Opera called MIRANDA

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and next week I'm going to be exploring
Alien Adventures in the Metamovie project.

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Right now, we are at
a huge turning point in our industry.

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Some of these are related to the Covid pandemic.

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For example, many consumers
have bought VR headsets during lockdown, 

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so headset sales are ahead of expectations.

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However, previous to the pandemic,

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many people in organisations
would use shared headsets for training.

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Now we are looking more at users
having a personal VR headset.

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This is aided by hardware
becoming more affordable.

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For instance, the new Quest 2 from Oculus,
owned by Facebook,

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is completely tetherless,
so it has no wires, it’s all in one,

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and it has 6 degrees of freedom
so you can walk around,

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and it’s retailing at €350,
that’s nearly half the price of its predecessor.

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Also, it looks like
the telecommunications companies 

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are soon going to offer subsidised VR headsets
with their pricing plans.

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The industry needs many more people
to have headsets 

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in order for it to really take off

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and those headsets need to keep getting lighter,
more comfortable,

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have screens with improved
resolution capabilities 

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and become more affordable.

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Competition from more headset providers
will help to drive these advances

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VR works best when the viewer is
transported somewhere else.

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This can be to the Moon, to Africa,
or even into another person’s perspective, 

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experiencing the world through their eyes.

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VR has been dubbed the
‘Empathy Making Machine’ for this reason

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and the UN have created several documentaries
where you walk in someone else’s shoes.

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This could be a refugee in Syria, a Roma Gypsy
or someone protecting endangered wildlife.

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The nature of the story being told
really defines

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whether that content is created
with computer generated graphics,

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like animation, or filmed with a 360 camera, video.

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For example, if I was producing
an interactive VR experience for training,

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computer generated content would work best
as you need to programme interactive triggers.

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Whereas if I wanted to tell the story
of say a fire ceremony that takes place 

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every year at a sacred site in Ireland,
360 video would work best for that.

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To an extent, this is already happening
with 360 degree video.

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Go Pro have developed some excellent
consumer grade VR cameras.

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Many people are filming themselves
surfing or horse riding for example.

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Regarding computer generated
Virtual Reality content,

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this usually requires advanced hardware,
software and skills associated with those. 

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However, there are platforms
that enable non coders to create.

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One example of these platforms is called VR Chat,

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where non-coders can go in
and create worlds or characters and stories,

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and interactivity.

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Well one of the aims of TRACTION
is to promote Opera to new audiences,

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especially disenfranchised communities,
via novel formats.

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It has a strong focus on utilising
the power of technology to extend reach

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and offer new possibilities
for dissemination of content.

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In the Irish trial with Irish National Opera

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we are working with community groups
over the next 2 years,

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to co-create a virtual opera
which will be presented in 2022.

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Along with Irish National Opera
and our director Jo Mangan,

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we are exploring areas including
live performance and motion capture,

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and are passionate about exploiting
the medium of VR

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to connect audiences with Opera
in new and innovative ways.

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You can see more about
Virtual reality Ireland’s work at 

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 www.v (for virtual), r (for reality) .ie.

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that's www.vr.ie 

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Thank you, goodbye :)