{"id":1913,"date":"2014-09-27T14:40:55","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T19:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/newsroom14\/?p=845"},"modified":"2021-06-22T18:40:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:40:10","slug":"project-steps-into-virtual-reality-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2014\/09\/27\/project-steps-into-virtual-reality-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Steps into Virtual Reality Storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"

By training, most reporters\u00a0are not designers, programmers or landscapers, but walk into any digital newsroom today and you’ll see writers doing mockups on InDesign and tweaking code in the CMS.<\/p>\n

Now journalists might become architects of fully-immersive,\u00a0virtual reality experiences that take audiences straight to the scene.<\/p>\n

Gannett Digital and The Des Moines Register shared\u00a0their summer experience in the ONA panel “Virtual Reality Storytelling<\/a>” on Friday.<\/p>\n

In the Midway, they also demonstrated\u00a0their\u00a0Harvest of Change<\/span><\/a>\u00a0project working with Oculus Rift<\/a>, a virtual reality headset priced at $350.<\/p>\n

Through the narrative of four\u00a0farm families, three journalists reported on the effects climate change brings to the agriculture business.<\/p>\n

The team collaborated with 3D artists to render the Dammann farm – located in Page County, Iowa – and recreate the\u00a0environment in a virtual reality experience to tell the story through videos and data visualization.<\/p>\n

Once on the Dammann farm, users can walk around and interact with the different elements of the story\u00a0\u2014 interviews, informational videos and aerials of the farm.<\/p>\n

To get the proportions and distance of everything as accurate as possible, the team sported GoPro cameras and Google Glass for first-person perspective walk-throughs.<\/p>\n

According to the company, the\u00a0project took about three months from May through July and cost under $50,000. Gannett says audiences have been responding well to the story.<\/p>\n

Dan Pacheco<\/a>, the journalism innovation\u00a0chair at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, came on board this summer as Gannett Digital\u2019s innovator in residence to work on the project. There is huge potential for virtual reality experiences even outside journalism, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the next great Lexus car comes out or some kind of\u00a0hybrid or even Tesla, these brands can begin to stop telling people about how cool their cars are. They\u2019re going to say,\u00a0\u2018Jump inside. Take it for a virtual test drive.\u2019 People will do that,” Pacheco said.<\/p>\n

Anthony DeBarros, director of interactive applications at Gannett Digital, thinks virtual\u00a0reality is a natural next step for storytelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think as journalists we always want to be sure we\u2019re not being left out of a medium,\u201d DeBarros said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s really just the very beginning of this medium, but we wanted to\u00a0start to see what are they\u00a0possibilities and how do we tell\u00a0stories in a non-linear way using this.”<\/p>\n

One frequently asked question\u00a0the team receives\u00a0is why they chose to focus on “a desolate farm.”<\/p>\n

DeBarros shared what their virtual reality producer responded to a reporter: “For this first project, we could have gone to\u00a0a rodeo. We could have gone to Mardi Gras. We could have gone to the end zone of a NFL game and done something that would be\u00a0spectacular at that kind of level.”<\/p>\n

“But again, we brought this back down to local journalism, which is where\u00a0ultimately within\u00a0our company it’s going to have to live and where it’s going to really grow up from,” DeBarros said.<\/p>\n

Though exciting, experiments need, well, experimenting. It\u2019s too early to tell how newsrooms will begin to incorporate virtual reality storytelling in their reporting. They may follow the\u00a0template\u00a0of The Register, or they may not go there at all.<\/p>\n

It all depends on the kind of story outlets want to tell, and, as always, just because a tool is new and shiny doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s\u00a0the right tool.<\/p>\n

If you plan on taking the plunge, here are some tips from Pacheco on how to get started:<\/p>\n