Now through October 14, you can relive the first lunar landing for yourself at select AMC Theaters.
What did you want to be when you were a child? Maybe a firefighter, a scientist, a chef, a teacher. Plenty of us stuck to our guns, going on to become the daily heroes we all admired. Unless, of course, you wanted to be an astronaut. That one’s a lot harder to swing— until now.
Ahead of the October 12th, 2018 release of ‘First Man’, a Neil Armstrong biopic starring Ryan Gosling, you— yes, you, civilian with the shattered childhood dreams of space travel— can finally taste what it’s like to be an astronaut all for yourself. Virtual reality cinema pioneers Positron have created the Voyager: a pod-like, full-motion chair capable of creating an immersive VR experience like none other. Now, they’ve partnered with Universal to bring the ‘First Man’ VR experience to audiences. Sit in that plush red seat, lean back, and you’ll suddenly find yourself in Neil Armstrong’s shoes. Sat in the cockpit of the Apollo 11, with copilot Buzz Aldrin by your side, you’ll launch into space— an experience that gave even this cynic chills.
And lest the queasy among us begin to worry: don’t. The Voyager is the first VR experience of its kind to eliminate motion sickness, a concern that creator and Positron Founder/CEO, Jeffrey Travis, was especially determined to fix. The Knockturnal had an opportunity to sit down with Jeffrey to learn more about this process, the future of VR, and new experiences you can expect from Positron soon. Read up below, and don’t miss your chance to try out the ‘First Man’ VR experience for yourself, at select AMC theaters until October 14, 2018. Locations and times are listed below.
New York City: AMC Lincoln Square
Washington D.C: AMC Loews Georgetown
Los Angeles: AMC Universal CityWalk
San Francisco: AMC Metreon
M-F: 5-10pm. S-S: 12-10pm. (All times local.)
The Knockturnal: What do you think an experience like the Voyager does for audience access?
Jeffrey Travis: For me, it really is all about that. There’s a lot of content out there, and there are a lot of brilliant creators making content and they just don’t have an easy way to get it to their audiences. It’s a new technology unless you’re someone who is a huge VR enthusiast and has a VR system set up at home. What we want to do is make this all much more accessible to people, in all kinds of places they would normally go to, and make it a night out–– an experience with your date or your friends.
The Knockturnal: When it comes to virtual reality, a concern for a lot of folks is disorientation or motion sickness. How much research went into solving this problem, and what have the results been like with the Voyager?
Jeffrey Travis: The motion sickness is something we thought about from the very beginning in creating this chair. We know it’s a problem for a lot of people— there was a study that said 20-25% of people experience nausea in VR, and so when I was thinking about this chair, one of the motivations was to actually use motion to combat motion sickness. We found through a study that now less than 0.2% of people get motion sickness in this chair. We have a neuroscientist on our team, so by design, there was a lot there to ensure that you’re not getting sick, and so that you’re not afraid to be hopping in.
The Knockturnal: Where and how do you see virtual reality placing in future of cinema?
Jeffrey Travis: I think VR’s not going to replace cinema, in the same way that cinema didn’t replace live theatre or radio. To me, it’s fundamentally a new medium, but it certainly can borrow and learn a lot from cinema. We use the term cinematic VR to talk about storytelling, but I think in the future, it’s actually the last frontier. When you think about perfect VR – where you almost can’t distinguish if it’s really happening or not – as a storyteller, to some degree, that’s the goal: to really suspend belief, to let yourself be carried away by the story. So I see the future for us as creating a distribution network with thousands of chairs, whether in cinemas or locations like hotels or airport lounges, where people can experience this content and you can take content from other VR creators and find a way to bring it to audiences.
The Knockturnal: Do you a see a future in which these chairs become a main local medium for watching film?
Jeffrey Travis: There are already ways to watch traditional films in here— you can get a Netflix app and set yourself in a virtual theater that’s like a giant screen. I think movie theaters won’t be going away any time soon, but I do think, more and more, this is going to become a platform and people are going to have a lot more options for entertainment.
The Knockturnal: Are there any other upcoming VR experiences that we can expect from Positron soon?
Jeffrey Travis: We at Positron have actually produced one called ‘Shady Friend.’ Right down to the script, it’s designed for this chair. It’s a psychedelic comedy starring Weird Al Yankovic. You as the viewer are going to have scent and motion, and the experience will carry you on a crazy trip! We’re slating that for early next year.
