Features Overview

Abstract

This practice-led research project begins by recognising the fundamental difference between the condition of an embodied viewer or witness present within a Virtual Reality story world and film language informed by the viewer as an outside witness of events presented within a frame. This difference poses a fundamental challenge for filmmakers wishing to utilise established techniques of film language to create a story and emotional engagement (Milk, 2016; Brillhart, 2017; Murray, 2017; Dooley, 2019, 2021, 2024). This research seeks to contribute to a new screen grammar for live-action Cinematic Virtual Reality by addressing the central question: What are the implications for film language when the viewer is positioned as an embodied presence within the story world? Its primary mode of enquiry is through a practice-based, comparative study of film language grounded in narrative film theory informed by Bordwell’s (1979) `arthouse narration’ through creating a live-action narrative short film, CVR prototypes, and final cinematic VR work.  

The research focuses on two key areas of film language: camera staging and montage. Camera staging refers to camera placement and movement, with an acknowledgement that this includes the choreography of performance and position of the embodied viewer in relation to the 360-degree camera. Montage refers to the editing of images and sound. This research contends that these two film languages are the key areas requiring practice-based enquiry to define new knowledge for live-action CVR's screen grammar. 

The research’s grounding in applying language techniques to production processes also assesses implications for production methods and technical documents, particularly the screenplay. 

This work also considers CVR’s affordances as a technological medium that engages with cinematic realism, resonating with André Bazin’s notion of a ‘total cinema’, not as a mechanical reproduction of reality, but as a heightened, subjective construction made possible through cinematic techniques. In this framing, realism is not opposed to stylisation but is refracted through it to support experiential immersion and emotional resonance.

Keywords: Virtual Reality, Cinematic VR, CVR, live-action, film language, screen grammar, montage, camera staging, cinematography, performance, immersion, perspective, subjectivity, embodiment, screenplay