This was a brilliantly entertaining project with lots of interesting challenges due to working in virtual reality and I enjoyed every moment of working on it.
The Ridley Scott Creative Group needed a screenwriter to pull together story for a Virtual Reality experience that would be the centre piece of a new museum being launched by Viking Planet in Oslo.
The section I worked on was a VR experience where visitors can go on a Viking raid in 3D, sitting amongst the crew on the long ship as it hunts for likely targets amongst the fjords.
Between takes the brilliant director, Erik Gustavson (left) with Wolfie Huges (centre, who plays Captain Grim) and Odd Meling, a producer who got roped into being a Norse king.
It was thrilling to work on because of the unique challenges of VR. Unlike cinema, the viewer can look everywhere and yet you don’t want them to miss the important action. This combined with the exacting historical standards of the team at Viking Planet made every day exciting. If there wasn’t historical evidence for a beat or action, it couldn’t be in the experience.
My personal challenge was to make the viewers care about the crew in the shortest amount of time. I wanted everyone on the ride to almost feel like they were part of the gang of Vikings and really be invested in the outcome.
The experience takes advantage of ‘volumetric capture’ where real actors can be inserted into the virtual world, in this case on board a long ship in about 600AD. Capturing actors moving in 3D uses some absolutely cutting edge technology and that’s before you have them rowing and fighting.
The Museum opens in Oslo in June, and I couldn’t be more excited for the public to finally meet the Vikings I’ve spent so much time with.