It’s just days before the Venice Film Festival begins, and a dear friend of mine who works in film criticism and I receive an invitation to one of the press premieres for the live immersive show UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY, directed by Stephen Butchko and Rick Treweek and produced by Ferryman Collective and Virtual Worlds Company.
For both of us it is a very welcome invitation: we’d been eagerly awaiting this project. Partly because we remembered the world of Uncanny Alley, a blend of Asimovian and Blade Runner influences created by Rick Treweek on VRChat and showcased at Venice Immersive in 2022. Partly because of the Ferryman Collective’s compelling social campaign in the weeks leading up to the 2024 Venice Immersive, which left us deeply intrigued. And partly because… Ferryman Collective? That’s always a mark of quality.
Upon entering the story’s world in VRChat, we find ourselves whisked almost in medias res inside this strange, fascinating parallel universe. We find ourselves in a cell, bathed in an eerie, cinematic red light, where stern prison guards shout orders at us while bewildered companions search for our virtual gaze. In one corner sits a bathroom (I won’t spoil its potential virtual uses). And if, like me, you tried to be a hero and didn’t raise the X card against the cockroaches (an option that team generously offered pre-show), you’re now treated to an unsettling swarm of those “adorable” little critters scuttling toward you.
We’re thrown headfirst into a sci-fi/action movie atmosphere – how dare you shout at me, you evil guard? Just open the door and I’ll Jason-Statham kick you to Mumbai – with immediate camaraderie with fellow prisoners/headset colleagues, with whom even the technical entanglements of accessing VRChat’s menu become strangely narrative.
It’s an intriguing start: none of us are actors, yet you can sense immediately that we’re all eager to dive into the story which, as I know from experience, will make all the difference over the next 50 minutes. Especially when we reach the most poetic moment of UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY. The moon hangs high above us, and the life-altering question, the one that comes straight from the protagonist’s soul (and yes, they are portrayed by an actor), is directed… right at my friend.
I confess: the team had no idea how much of a gamble they’d taken, asking that question of her, the woman who has elevated cynicism to a wonderful art form and a refreshing human quality.
And in that instant reality and fiction suddenly mix. Far from breaking the immersion, this mix makes me even happier to be there, because at that moment, you’re not just a character… you’re also yourself, having a once-in-a-lifetime experience with someone dear to you, shared with a team of remarkable creators who are offering you an unforgettable memory.
To me, as an audience member, this is what immersive performance is all about: a personal, relational moment within a vast, imaginative world. Of course, that’s only a glimpse of the intricate work behind these productions – technical artistry, world-building, scripting, interpretation, and improvisation all seamlessly woven together. But when done well, these elements almost go unnoticed by you, the user, allowing the two things that actually matter most to you to shine through: the story and the human experience.
The story is a gift to you, the audience
Our focus is on our audience. The show is truly all about them: getting them involved and accepting their gifts of words or of doing something mischievous. We try to cater to all of that and bring them into the show and make them feel like the center of it all. Because they are, after all, the reason this entire experience exists
Deirdre Lyons, producer at Ferryman Collective and actor on the show
However you approach the content, this show is yours. It’s a gift to you. Together, we’re co-creating a unique story that will only happen in this exact way, this one time. So if someone is a cynic, they’re a cynic; if they’re quiet, they’re quiet. It’s their experience. When people realize that’s the intention, it puts everyone at ease, creating that indescribable liveness of it
Brendan Bradley, actor on the show
UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY in Venice doesn’t win the Venice Immersive jury prize, but in many ways, it wins the audience’s hearts. It secures a spot among the top ten most-loved experiences in the XRMust and Voices of VR Podcast survey conducted among industry experts and receives the XR Fan Experience award from the fanheart3 cultural association, a collateral prize at the 81st Venice Film Festival recognizing productions of greatest interest to fan communities.
This success is because, since the immersive sector began its journey across film festivals, home distribution, and unique venues, narrative immersive productions like UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY have often managed to meet a fundamental need for audiences:
“When I was nine my parents took me to see Star Wars, the original one from 1977”, told XRMust Jason Moore, director of the wildly popular interactive experience ALIEN RESCUE, in our first interview with him in 2021. “There was a scene when Luke Skywalker was in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, shooting at the tie fighters and Han Solo turned to him and said “Great shot, kid”. And there, in that moment, was when I realized that all I wanted was to be in that spaceship right next to Luke.
Every kid who saw that movie probably felt that way. We wanted to be part of that story and of that universe. And this idea has always stayed with me. […] And when virtual reality technology became more widely available and I started to see what immersive storytelling could be like, I immediately knew that VR could help me reach this goal in ways I had never believed possible before”
It’s been nearly four years since this conversation with Jason Moore. Four years during which ALIEN RESCUE has continually evolved, opening up to new audiences and possibilities. But also four years in which we’ve seen several (though never enough) examples of how this goal could be pursued.
The non-exhaustive list includes works such as WELCOME TO RESPITE, GUMBALL DREAMS, FIND WIILII, LE BAL DE PARIS, NON-PLAYER CHARACTER: A VIRTUAL REALITY MUSICAL, and a few other interesting pieces.
This collection of diverse genres and approaches to immersive performances that engage with virtual reality paints a picture of a beautiful but still-small world – one that we hope will continue to expand, allowing each user to find, in some way, the story that best suits their narrative and experiential needs. This very theme was one of the key topics that emerged in our conversation with the team behind UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY: the theatrical director Stephen Butchko and artistic director Rick Treweek (MetaRick); Deirdre V. Lyons, producer and assistant director with Whitton Frank, producer, and Brendan Bradley (themselves directors of extraordinary pieces of immersive reality who also perform in the show), and Christopher Lane Davis (AKA Screaming Color), who creates visually stunning animations that complement the world MetaRick created (the show’s lead designer and visual artist) as well as the music and sound manager.
In this in-depth conversation, we reflected not only on this but also on the motivations, inspirations, and visions for the future that drive these tireless creatives and passionate storytellers, world-builders, and technologists. Through their words, we rediscovered the challenges that immersive performances in VR present to artists, and how their work has become increasingly refined over the years to meet these challenges head-on.
Challenge 1: Leaving perfectionism behind for a (rigorously) controlled chaos
Did you think, like I did, that playing a role was complicated? Now imagine how much more challenging it becomes when you also have to manage: a technology that you’ve had to adapt to your needs, which sometimes encounters inevitable bugs; users who have never handled a headset or navigated a VRChat menu; an audience of experts looking to dismantle your world because sometimes it’s just fun to challenge the system; and a thousand other situations that someone on a physical stage can only have nightmares about.
In these scenarios, the ability to improvise is undoubtedly crucial. However, improvisation is never improvised; it requires extensive preparation, constant collaboration with the rest of the team, and a keen awareness of the audience’s needs. Our discussion began precisely on these topics.
“We had to shape our performances to maintain what works while also exploring new avenues and refining what it means to be a performer in VR”, says Whitton Frank, producer at Ferryman Collective and actor on the show. She reflects on the essential skills needed in this industry and what performers must grasp about the medium to excel. “A key quality is the ability to adapt on the fly, even more so than in live theater, because we deal with an immediate and intense technical environment that can go wrong at any moment. We need performers who are not only quick-thinking but also flexible and empathetic to what’s happening outside their performance, able to navigate those challenges with grace and poise”.
A point also confirmed by Deirdre Lyons: “Performing in VR has definitely cured me of perfectionism. In this environment, perfection is impossible, so you learn to trust your ability to handle whatever comes your way as a performer. Whether it’s calling for an intermission or directly addressing someone who is disrupting the experience, you become adept at pivoting to solve tactical problems“.
Director Stephen Butchko further expands the reflection, looking specifically at the needs that have arisen with their latest production:
“Since UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY is in VR, the performances and the whole theatrical part are built together with the technical elements. They go hand in hand. You can’t just do one without the other. As a performer as well! Finding actors that are able to offer a grounded, sincere performance, to Whitten’s point, is sort of the baseline where we start. But then on top of that, these actors need to be able to operate and deliver that performance with all of this apparatus on their head. They need to be able to stay in VR without getting sick for a long time”. He then adds, “In our works, the actors get to do most of the stage management. They’re accessing hidden menus to trigger certain things in the world that are rehearsed much like the choreography of a dance. It’s hard to find actors that can do all that. Furthermore, now we’re starting to reflect on the language barrier. Many events are visited by not-English speaking audiences, so a thing that we’re going to have to start asking actors is how many languages they speak”.
Stephen reiterates again, however, a fundamental element, that underpins the entire acting process for those involved in these complex productions: the welcoming, both emotional and psychological, of the audience and their reactions, which serve as the basis for modulating one’s role:
“In this kind of work, there are substantial sections of improvisation woven into the script. As actors, we never know what will happen, since the audience doesn’t have a script and we can’t predict their reactions. Learning to let go of the script is crucial. We understand the narrative well enough to know when it’s time to steer it back on track and move it to the next point. Balancing improvisation with the script is an intricate process: when it clicks, you gain insights that go deeper than what any audience member experiences, leading to a profound connection with your performance”.
Thus, a first challenge that emerges with increasing force as the immersive field progresses is related to the selection of performers. There is an increasing need for performers who can cope with improvisation that responds both to narrative situations related to audience behavior and to situations determined by technology. Finding the right performers, however, can truly lead to the development of a unique and immensely rewarding experience, not only for those who are living it but also for those creating it at that very moment.
Find out more about the other challenges in part 2 of this very long, very in-depth interview (what can I say, talking with the Ferryman Collective team is always a blast!)
For more info about Ferryman’s next shows, click the link.
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