Thin Air: Making use of 360 space to tell a story
Thin Air is a music video. It tells the story of a breakup. A man and a woman were in love, but things have got tricky, she’s cheating on him, they’re fighting, it’s over.
So far, so familiar, and yet Thin Air tells this story in a new way. It’s a 360 film, and the story plays out several times simultaneously in different parts of the frame.
The story is set in their apartment. As you turn around you see the kitchen, the living room, the door to the outside. If you look up you can see the mezzanine, which seems to be where their bedroom is. (It’s really nice to have this use of vertical space within the frame. So often the vertical axis isn’t used to much effect in 360 video, despite it being a new toy to play with in this emerging format.)
As you look about you, you see the different parts of the couple’s break up — she is throwing bedlinen down the stairs, she is texting someone else, he is grabbing her phone to have a look, they are dancing, he is leaving — all taking place around you.
It is clear that this is not supposed to be happening simultaneously — perhaps they are different possible outcomes of the same basic scenario. And yet they all play out around you at once. You can choose to follow one thread of the story, should you choose to.
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I chose to enjoy the slight confusion and indulge my curiosity as it piqued me to look in one direction or another. I might be watching one instance of the woman, but then another would cross her frame and I’d wonder what she was up to and my gaze would follow her. The first one I would have to leave behind to her texting, or packing, or whatever it was she was doing.
Multiple stories playing out at the same time across 360 space is a really strong and repeatable idea for 360 storytelling. There are endless possibilities for structuring stories and directing attention to create very different emotional and narrative experiences using this method.
It’s a very inspiring watch. I’m reliably informed that it’s worth watching enough times to understand each of the narratives separately. I highly recommend and will be going back to it myself when I get more Oculus time.
Thin Air was one of the VR experiences showcased at the Limina VR Weekender, curated by Catherine Allen at the Watershed in Bristol, in November. Let’s hope more cities get VR Weekenders to experience more of this kind of work.
