Earlier this week Jurassic World: Blue from Felix & Paul Studios released as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the Jurassic Park series. The immersive, 360-degree series follows the story of Blue, the velociraptor from the Jurassic World films. Now only a few days later Oculus in partnership with Felix & Paul Studios have released a behind the scenes look at how this immersive series has been created.
In an interview that was posted to the Oculus blog, Felix & Paul Studios Directors Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël, as well as VFX Supervisor and CTO Sebastion Sylwan, talked about some of the work that went into creating the title.
Talking about how the experience evolved from Episode 1 of Jurassic World: Blue for Episode 2, Félix Lajeunesse said: “In Episode 1, we get a glimpse of Blue’s everyday life, hunting for food on Isla Nublar, after all humans have left the island after the events of the first Jurassic World film. Episode 2 starts in the wake of a catastrophic event that threatens her home and survival, and Blue’s instincts kick into overdrive. It’s a look at how she survived the last four years on Isla Nublar—with an unexpected twist.”
The team revealed during the interview as well that the response to the series’ first episode was very positive. Noting that viewers were taking to social media to share their feelings about it along with the comments and reactions on YouTube. Lajeunesse notes comments such as “We want to see more!” as being the general reaction to the first episode.
For the project the team at Felix & Paul Studios collaborated with Industrial Light & Magic which VFX Supervisor and CTO Sebastion Sylwan commented on saying: “This is our second time collaborating with ILM, and it’s a privilege to continue our working relationship with so many talented people there. We have a lot of creative and technical synergy when we create together, and there was a lot of innovation on this project in particular. For example, we worked very closely with the ILM team to adapt their CG cameras to fit with a technique we developed to preserve proper stereoscopy at the bottom of the 360° image, which was essential to convey the sense of shared presence with Blue.”
With a lot of experience working in the VR space, Felix & Paul Studios have been pushing the boundaries forward with every new project. When asked about how Jurassic World: Blue built upon their earlier work, Paul Raphaël said: “In Jurassic World: Blue, we tried something new with the viewer. In most of our VR work, the viewer is either themselves, such as in our documentaries, or a character in the experience itself, such as in our narrative piece Miyubi. For Blue, we made the viewer an extension of Blue’s senses. This meant not literally seeing through Blue’s eyes, but instead allowing us to still see Blue while creating a sense of connection and identification with her. By following this principle—having the viewer be an extension of Blue—we maintain presence, while getting us closer to liberated VR camera movement.”
You can read the full interview over on the Oculus blog and see the accompanying video below. Jurassic World: Blue Episode 1 and Episode 2 are available now on Oculus Go, Oculus Rift and Gear VR. VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest on the Jurassic World: Blue series in the future so stay tuned for more.