‘Play, don’t show’: How VR storytelling compares to movies

After working on triple-A blockbuster games, virtual reality experiences, blockbuster VFX films, digital TV, and feature animation, I wanted to share what I’ve learnt along the way. In particular three elements I think great stories all have and tools to use in your stories. With that though, people often say games, movies, animation, TV, and VR are opposing mediums. I’d argue they’re all same — bar the audience’s participation with each medium. Here’s how they’re similar, and how they’re different.

My journey

My perspective started in Sydney, Australia, where I joined the animation teams for Zack Snyder’s Legend of the Guardians: Owls of Gahoole and George Miller’s Happy Feet 2. On both feature animations, the story was paramount, driving entire departments and productions of hundreds of talented artists and technical directors. Shots were prevized, reviewed, updated, and tweaked endlessly to capture the storytelling beats. After learning this in Sydney, I moved to London, England and joined Prometheus, World War Z briefly, and Gravity’s VFX teams, and all of these films had a huge attention to detail and once again focus on storytelling.