On April 26, 1986, there was a catastrophic nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine rated as the highest severity of level 7. Thirty years after the disaster, there are still ongoing construction projects to confine the disaster within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. A number of Ukrainian filmmakers are in the process of making an interactive documentary titled Chornobyl360 about these ongoing remediation efforts as well as the impact that it’s had on the surrounding area. I had a chance to catch up with producer Kirill Pokutnyy at SVVR to talk about the interactive documentary innovations, the long-term impact of nuclear energy disasters, and creating an empathy piece for the earth.
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Music: Fatality & Summer Trip
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. My name is Kent Bye and welcome to The Voices of VR Podcast. Today I talk to Kiro Prokutnyi, who is a producer on the Chernobyl 360 Project. This is an interactive documentary about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its aftermath that is still happening to this day. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had a catastrophic nuclear accident that was classified as a Level 7 event, which is the maximum classification as just about as how bad you could get. And so, I didn't know this, but there are still quite a lot of construction activities that are ongoing to try to completely confine and contain this disaster. And so, Kiro took some 360-degree footage of some of these projects, as well as some of the aftermath of how this impacted the area around Chernobyl. And so this is an empathy piece about both the people that are impacted, but also the earth of the long-term impact of these nuclear technologies. And it's also a bit about the technology of how they're making this into a little bit more than just a 360 video, but an actual interactive documentary. So I'll be talking to Kiro about all of this on today's episode. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by the Virtual World Society. The Virtual World Society was started by Tom Furness, and their goal is to become the Peace Corps of VR. They want to transform living rooms into classrooms, and so they're in the process of trying to recruit potential subscribers, as well as content creators who are interested in creating educational experiences that help solve the world's problems and help make the world a better place. So if you're interested, go to virtualworldsociety.org to sign up and get more information. So this interview happened at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference, and Kidro had approached me right after I had completed an interview, and he had me come check out their demo of the Chernobyl-360, and I was impressed with the level of interactivity, as well as just the overall message of what they're trying to communicate of the long-term impact of nuclear energy. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:31.697] Kirill Pokutnyy: My name is Kirill Pokutniy. I'm an author and producer of Chernobyl 360. This is a documentary which uses different technologies like 360 videos, photogrammetry, interactivity, and some CGI for instance. So we are making like an episodic documentary and every few months we will release one episode. The first one is going to be about New Safe Confinement, the biggest moving construction in the world, which is being built by 50 countries around the world. involving something like 2,000 people. They are working day and night. And you spend these three days there shooting 360 videos from the moving vehicles, from the ground, even from drone. We have very exclusive content. No one's seen before such point of view of Chernobyl and the place of disaster. Next one is going to be about, it's actually a nuclear power plant. We scanned the control room of the reactor. We made it in photogrammetry and we want to make it reconstruction of 26th of April, the day when the disaster happened. We'll be using some motion capture or something like videogrammetry. We're still researching which technology will be the best and we'll have resources to make it. So we'll make it something like a reconstruction where the people are working and you can be there in the time and see what happened. The next one is going to be about the Polisska culture, the culture of that region and we want to make the world based on the paintings of a famous Ukrainian painter Maria Primachenko as a world where you can walk around and learn more about the culture of this territory and of course with additional 360 videos and interactivity there. So the idea of our project was started something like five years ago and at that time we actually hadn't virtual reality and when I was thinking about this project how to make access for people from around the world to see what is going on in Chernobyl I was thinking about something like CAVE, the projection room, but of course it was also expensive and actually I'm from Ukraine and it was very hard to make such a room in Kiev, but two years ago we started working with virtual reality. We made some projects like FULLY, 3D sense and using some Kinect and Oculus, Cardboard, Gear VR, Oculus, so it was like first We owned first the Oculus and from that time we understand that it is a very, very interesting field and a lot of possibilities. And we decided to make this social project about Chernobyl to involve as much as possible attention from young generation. to the problem of nuclear energy and actually Chernobyl and what is going on there. We think that virtual reality can involve young people in the field of social themes because they are interested right now in virtual reality and it can help to educate them in some hard problems and so on. Also that's why we are making like educational mode We have a remote control which can control multiple cardboards or multiple gear wires and the teacher can use it to discuss about Chernobyl and showing what's going on there on their lessons.
[00:05:49.975] Kent Bye: And so maybe we could take a step back and talk just a little bit about the content of what you're showing, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and then how you're using virtual reality to really tell that story.
[00:06:02.121] Kirill Pokutnyy: Yeah. Actually, this disaster is the biggest disaster in humankind. And it involved something around 600,000 people from the USSR, and also spent hundreds of billions of dollars to liquidate this disaster and still these days it's still not liquidated and it's going to be affected for thousands of years. So this is a very expensive lesson for humanity and people need to know about this and remember and that's why we think that the medium of virtual reality can help to remember the next generations of people. Of course, it needs to be recreated every few decades, maybe, to remember about this catastrophe.
[00:06:49.594] Kent Bye: Yeah, so it seems like for people that live in the West, Chernobyl may be something that happened a long time ago and is over with. But I think the message that I get from watching some of these sequences is that they're still actively trying to build stuff to contain it for the next 50 years, it sounds like. These huge construction projects. So maybe you could talk a bit about what is happening for them to try to logistically deal with trying to contain what happened.
[00:07:18.432] Kirill Pokutnyy: Yeah, actually the biggest problem in the world is about decommissioning nuclear power plants because in the world there are around 450 nuclear power plants and something around 30% of them need to be shut down in the nearest time and after this needs to be like removed and put in the containers. All the equipment was used on the nuclear power plant. It is highly radioactive and some of these nuclear power plants was built without idea how they going to decommissioning it. So this is a big problem for the whole world.
[00:07:52.489] Kent Bye: Yeah, so the impression that I got was just that, was that, you know, we're building these nuclear power plants with no plan to ever stop. Like, there's no easy way to break it down and to contain it and make it safe. So it's a little bit of like short-term thinking of like, hey, let's get some power. but yet the long-term implications is that we have to deal with this for like literally thousands of years.
[00:08:14.322] Kirill Pokutnyy: Yeah, yeah. Actually, the problem is that there's no technologies these days to solve the problem of Chernobyl, to put all the nuclear fuel, which are still there, to the containers. So we need something like very advanced robotic technologies, more powerful even than Boston Dynamics, right, to these days. And what is going on in Chernobyl right now, there's building new safe confinement. We guarantee on 100 years. But talking with engineers who are working in the nuclear power plant, they say that they don't have technologies in the world which can be used to take out this nuclear fuel. Even in Japan, there's like in test mode some robots, but it's still not so good and goes down very quickly.
[00:09:03.416] Kent Bye: One of the really striking moments in your experience is standing at the base of this enormous structure that they're trying to build over the Chernobyl reactor. What is it that they're building? How big is it? And why do they need to do that?
[00:09:15.323] Kirill Pokutnyy: This is a very big construction. It's higher than the Statue of Liberty. and in the wide it's like two stadiums so it's very very big but when you're standing there it looks like not so big because optical illusion that this construction is not so big but it is something like 120 meters high and wide something like 300 meters this like moving construction it's standing like on the special rails and from 300 meters from first block and in the end of the year it's going to be moved by this rail so this way it's like the biggest moving construction in the world and inside of it there is few cranes which have like robotic arms to cut some stuff inside the first block but the idea is it is going to be used in 100 years But what is next? This is a question for me and the team of our project to find out what is going to be in the future and how we can use these territories and how we can achieve this challenge with the commissioning of Chernobyl and make it a green and safe place.
[00:10:24.487] Kent Bye: So they have to build this container, and you said it only lasts for 100 years, or that within itself is a short-term solution?
[00:10:31.591] Kirill Pokutnyy: They have a guarantee of using under 100 years of this new safe confinement, but someone says that maybe after this new safe confinement there will be needed to build one more safe confinement so it will be something like matryoshka style because right now there is first shelter which was built 30 years ago but it's almost broken That's why they are building a new one and it is possible that in the next decades or maybe after 100 years they need to build it one more. So it's a very strange situation. But of course the time goes very fast and technology is developing very fast. So I think maybe in 20 years there's going to be really some advanced robotics that can achieve this challenge.
[00:11:19.617] Kent Bye: Right, so the impression I get is that right now they're having to build these enormous construction structures to be able to contain the Chernobyl reactor and that part of what you're doing is trying to tell that story of what's happening as well as how it's impacted the area. So tell me a little bit about some of the other stories that you're trying to tell through virtual reality about Chernobyl.
[00:11:39.687] Kirill Pokutnyy: The interesting part is about nature, because nature is very quickly growing there, and it's very beautiful, a lot of animals, a lot of trees, even trees are growing on the roofs of the ten floors buildings, so it's very, very interesting. When people go away, nature started taking out what people have stolen from nature. And other story is going to be about the stalkers, the people who are getting there illegally, and why they are going there, what they are thinking about these territories. Also, one idea from this episode is going to be about actually this territory, visiting every year something like 10,000 people, tourists, are going there, like this is like dark tourism. and why people are interested in this, what they want to find out there. Another one story is going to be about self-settlers, the people who are living there and those people who are working there. What they have actually is self-settlers, they are like living there by their own and government can't help them. they are growing the food in their villages and actually in old times in those villages was living something like a hundred people but now there's maybe two or one people per village live there. So the idea is we'll make as much as possible episodes. To this day, it's something around, we have ideas for six or seven episodes, but it, of course, depends on how much money will rise on the Kickstarter. And we also want to make these episodes not only like 360 videos, as I said, but also photogrammetry, and the photogrammetry is more expensive for us. Also CG, 3D content. So it will depend how much we can involve the community of the world in this project because to this date we spent our own money for researching and making the technology for one year and now we spent almost everything and we hope that by Kickstarter we will move the project on the next stages and releasing episodes every few months.
[00:13:56.180] Kent Bye: Yeah, I mean personally I think this is a project that's worthy of all of humanity to look at and at least educate themselves about and you know one of the things that you're doing from a virtual reality design perspective that I think makes it engaging and interesting is that it's not just a straight video of just showing you a bunch of stuff but it actually has like the little modules and little circles where you go back to a main menu and then you kind of dive into an experience and then you have these little interactive elements where there's a video that's playing and then it'll stop and then there'll be a place that you have to look at and click and so it's really a way of directing attention in a way that's really interesting on one point to get to people to focus on what you need them to focus on in that moment but also if they wanted to just look around and take their time and just kinda check things out and you know when they're ready then they have the choice as to when the next chapter of that story unfolds and so Yeah, maybe you could talk a bit about when you were designing that, what you were trying to do there.
[00:14:50.991] Kirill Pokutnyy: Actually, yes. So this time, we placed trigger zones visible to the people. But also, we have ideas how to hide, maybe like hiding objects, Easter eggs. When you're looking on some object, and it can change the editing of the storytelling road. So you can look to some object, and it will change where it goes next. In some time, if you want to just watch and relax, it can be a liner, but if you're involving it, it can be non-liner and you can switch from sand to sand, depends on what you're interested in and how you're involving. Of course, it is very interesting. part that we found that very simple mechanics something like play-pause that is really interesting for people we shoot it like we have sand with measurement radiation in drums there is like big scanner and we recorded it in 360 video but then we decided that we can put on different parts of the sand in different time some like triggers and that you can control the system So we found that it is very simple and it was even used in the past in old games. If you know there was a lot of games based on video. So we took some this interaction from the past and also we have something like measuring radiation. You have like virtual dosimeter. and the mission is to find the most radioactive objects. Actually, when we were there, we measured these objects, so it is based on real information. That's why this is, in some part, gaming mechanics, but we want our project to be a documentary as much as possible. Also there is like some content with compositing. We used rare footages of 1986 of people who lived in the Pripyat. We cut them off of these rare footages and put inside of 360 videos. So it's connection from the past and the present. So we are trying to use different techniques, mechanics, searching for and making R&D in the field of virtual reality.
[00:17:12.909] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I think the interactive components give you a level of engagement, and it kind of took me into the story even more, I found, as well. And, you know, when you take a step back and look at this project to put it into context, it feels like it's an empathy piece. Like you're trying to build empathy with the people that went through it, but also the earth of what humanity is doing with these decisions that we're making and the long-term impact of this.
[00:17:37.088] Kirill Pokutnyy: Yes, actually empathy is very important in our project. We are thinking about it a lot. How to involve people in the problems that actually they can think that they are like on the other part of the planet or even maybe on other planet. But actually this is not so far and we live like on the one big planet but it's not so big and Disaster on the Fukushima also showed that all the world can be affected as it was also in the time of Chernobyl disaster. And actually, as for me, I'm looking on technologies, what is going on in the world and I'm also like interested in what's going on in synthetic biology. and artificial intelligence. So I see that it's also like dangerous and this technology is like more powerful can be than the nuclear power and they also can make the bigger disaster for all humanity. Actually we haven't started to talk about this in our documentary but I'm thinking about this and maybe we will say something about this also in our documentary.
[00:18:43.690] Kent Bye: What is it about synthetic biology or artificial intelligence that scares you?
[00:18:47.173] Kirill Pokutnyy: I know maybe some people, some people who can use this technology, they can use it in a bad way. Something like bioterrorism or other countries with government like Korea, they can use it to make some artificial intelligence for war. to control the machines. So this is very, very dangerous. But of course it can be used in a peaceful way. Synthetic biology, I think, it can of course bring more food for the planet and artificial intelligence can help people to solve problems with energy and the food and how to live more safer on the planet. But on the other way, like the nuclear power can be used in also for helping people or killing them. And in some period of time, it can happen something that people wasn't thinking about. So they need to be very, very careful with these technologies.
[00:19:51.335] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:19:58.960] Kirill Pokutnyy: Actually, there is a lot of possibilities in virtual reality. Of course, the very interesting part is social. Taking part in the High Fidelity Hackathon, which is going to be today, starts. And we'll try to add, experimenting how to add some social possibility in our content like this control room, which was made in photogrammetry. Also, we had an idea to collaborate with a project like Pripyat 3D. They are making the city of Pripyat. It was not affected by the disaster like it was in 1986. And we were thinking about how to make it social. People can visit there to talk about the problems and maybe to imagine how the city can look these days if it wasn't a disaster. So I think that virtual reality has a lot of possibilities and it is really, really fast growing and changes. And actually I was reading like Vired, the last Vired, and there is very, very interesting stuff by Kevin Kelly. And actually, as I see, some part of virtual reality, I think it needs to be a lot of money in the future to make it more like a powerful tool. But sometimes, like indie developers, they also can make something very, very useful and powerful and involve a lot of people around the world in the scene.
[00:21:28.607] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say?
[00:21:31.408] Kirill Pokutnyy: Thank you very much for this possibility. I'm actually first time on SVVR, and I see that the community is very friendly and it's very powerful, I think. It's very, very cool. I was reading the books about hackers, the heroes of computer revolution, and actually I feel this here also, because everyone is talking to each other, sharing the information, trying to find the best way how to use these technologies. Awesome.
[00:21:59.474] Kent Bye: Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much, too. So that was Kiro Pukutni, who's a producer on the Chernobyl 360 project. And just a couple of quick takeaways is that, first of all, I was not really aware of what was happening and is continuing to happen there in Chernobyl and the surrounding areas about what they're trying to do to still completely confine and contain this nuclear disaster that happened over 30 years ago now. And so I think it's a really important message and there is an ongoing Kickstarter campaign for this project. So do look up the Chernobyl 360 Kickstarter. They're just about 22% funded at this point and there's about 24 more days remaining on that Kickstarter. So it ends on Sunday, May 29th. So if you're listening before that, please go check it out and donate and help make this happen because I think it's a really important message and something that we shouldn't forget. I was just really impressed with the scale of some of these construction projects that are going on. I was really struck by a certain moment when they're dismantling this nuclear reactor and they're saying, yeah, this really wasn't designed to ever be disassembled and so they didn't really plan for that. So to me it just had me asking like how in the world did we get to this point where we're creating these technologies that have this impact on the entire world for thousands of years and yet we're just kind of looking at the short-term benefits of it all. And I also really like the interactive components of this that, you know, it went beyond just a normal 360 video and it allowed me to have the spaciousness to kind of look around and to kind of go at my own pace as they're walking me through these different processes of trying to contain and store these radioactive nuclear rods. And Kiro also mentioned the article by Kevin Kelly in the May 2016 edition of Wired Magazine, which was about the untold story of Magic Leap, the world's most secretive startup. And this is a pretty epic 10,000 word article. And it's not just about Magic Leap, but it's also about virtual reality in general and where this is all going. I actually had an opportunity to talk to Kevin Kelly for about 45 minutes to an hour and got a brief little mention and quote in that article. And for me personally, this was kind of like the first time that the work that I've been doing here at the Voices of VR podcast has started to enter into more of the mainstream. And it was just an honor to be a part of the story and to talk to Kevin and to share some of my thoughts about what I see from doing all the work from the Voices of VR podcast. So it was nice to see some of that overall sentiment of what I'm doing kind of translated and communicated by Kevin Kelly in that pretty epic article about Magic Leap. And if you haven't had a chance to sit down and just really sink into it, I highly recommend it because it's just a nice overview of this moment in time of what's happening with AR and VR in this new immersive computing revolution that is just starting. So with that, I just wanted to send one more shout out to the Chernobyl 360 interactive virtual reality documentary. It's on Kickstarter. It's got about 24 more days left. So just go, please support it. I want to see projects like this get funded and out there into the world and to start to remind people and educate people about some of these stories that we may have forgotten, but I think are worth telling over and over again. So with that, thanks for listening to the Voices of VR.
