The VR Diversity Initiative had several workshop leaders teaching throughout the day. However it was Sam Perrin, Kyaw Tun Sein and Alex Rühl that provided participants with constant guidance, support and advice throughout the day.
Sam Perrin, Founder of Virtual Vault has a history in creating videogames. During the VR Diversity Initiative he helped teach participants how to create a virtual reality (VR) project in the videogame software application Unity. He has been a keen supporter of the VR Diversity Initiative and says that it’s an: “absolutely fantastic initiative where they help and assist under-represented groups of people get into the development and 360 video creation process, and hopefully make the industry a bit more diverse and representative.” Perrin explains that he believes the key to creating more diverse and inclusive content lies in the diversity of those behind the scenes. The people creating the content have to come from diverse backgrounds so everybody can enjoy it equally.
Alex Rühl, founder of CATS and not PEAS was responsible for leading the 360 film workshop. With a GoPro Fusion her objective was to make participants feel confident enough to take a 360 camera and create their own films. They experimented with perspective, size, scale and how the movement of camera effected viewers. She says: “It was very interesting, bringing together a group of people that had varying levels of experience with VR. Some of them had none at all, never even seen a 360 film, two people who had already been toying with the idea of buying a 360 camera.” She believes that the medium of VR is still at early stages and believes that more people need to simply pick up a 360 camera and experiment to help develop the new language of 360 filmmaking.
Kyaw Tun Sein is co-Founder and CTO of Ikigai Factor. He was another Unity workshop leader and was sceptical of the VR Diversity Initiative at first. Why would anybody need a workshop if all the information needed was online? After teaching for a day he changed his mind. ” I was thinking how much impact this workshop can make and I realise the impact is huge.” He says, “within a few hours, they are now confident to continue the deployment.” He feels like the participants are now more confident to return back to working with Unity and continuing their journey to create VR content after the workshop.
To find out more watch the video below.
via Mint VR