SHELTER is a 360 video documentary telling the story of civilians in Ukraine seeking protection in bomb shelters. The film poetically transports you the many different ways Ukrainians are sheltering from small cramped basements to parking garages to hospitals. It also contrasts these underground spaces to the aftermath of war from bombed out buildings to funerals for Ukrainian soldiers. The experience always documents how the dream lives of Ukrainians are impacted by the war as they also overlay these dream sequences over billboarded videos of drone strikes. Overall, it’s a meditative and powerful journey of cinéma vérité, observational durational takes that are juxtaposed together to tell a much larger story of the human impact of war. . Check out my deep dive with director Sjors Swierstra and producer Justin Karten for more insights in how they put this piece together.
Apple’s push for 180-degree immersive video has brought up some broader discussions about the merits and downsides to 360-degree films. From a creator’s point of view, 180-degree filmmaking is a lot easier to do logistically as it is closer to existing production pipelines, which is brilliantly demonstrated in CURRENTS. The main downside is that it is difficult to control where people are looking, but the main benefit is that you’re able to preserve the full context of a place. SHELTER was one of two films that really leaned into being able to be fully transported to a place without having to worry about selecting a constrained frame or point of focus.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling in the future, especially in computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different immersive stories from Southwest Southwest 2025, and I'm going to be starting to dive into a number of episodes around like 360 video specifically. And then the last episode in this series, I'll be talking around 180 video with Currents. So there's some discussions that are happening with Apple Vision Pro is 180 degrees. It's sort of like opening up a whole new genre of 180 filmmakers and creators, especially as there's more and more affordable tools that are coming up on the market, just because you're able to leverage a lot of your existing skill sets. And also it's just easier to produce 180 video than 360. However, I do think there are some pieces that benefit from having the full context of 360 degrees. And this piece in particular called Shelter, it is shot in Ukraine, really focusing on the citizens of Ukraine and the different sheltering contexts that they have. So whether it's a bomb shelter or a basement or like a parking garage or the basement of a a hospital. There's a number of these different observational, durational takes, really sparse in terms of like explicit narrative architecture. You just kind of see these scenes and it's the juxtaposition of those scenes together that is telling a larger story. They also happen to speak to a lot of Ukrainians about their dreams. And so there's some sequences where they have like a billboarded 2d image of some like video of drone strikes because they didn't want to have shots from above ground not just below ground and so you have this juxtaposition between people being sheltered in place and these shelters and these bomb shelters but also scenes of bombed out buildings and scenes of a funeral of a soldier going to a cemetery so it's kind of juxtaposing these different scenes and And the fact that you're able to look all around, to me, when I was watching it, it really gives me this sense of a place. So I think this is an example that is really leveraging that and also telling a really powerful story of the impact of war on Ukrainian citizens. So we'll be covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Sjors and Justin happened on Saturday, March 8th, 2025 at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:40.660] Sjors Swierstra: Yes, my name is Sjors Vistra. I'm a documentary filmmaker and I'm one of the two directors of Shelter. And it's a VR film about the war in Ukraine from a civilian perspective.
[00:02:52.728] Justin Karten: Hello, my name is Justin Karta. I believe I'm a VR producer, creative producer. And my role for Shelter was the producer, obviously. And within my company Scopic, I'm the creative producer and I'm in between the clients and my production team.
[00:03:08.818] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into this space.
[00:03:13.735] Sjors Swierstra: Yes, I'm a historian and at some point during my studies I started making documentary films. So I didn't do film academy or something, I just did it on my own and I made seven documentaries and that's like television productions, I work a lot for cultural institutions, museums, artists and this is my first VR film. So it was quite an intense experience. I'm sure we'll delve into that a bit more but it's a new language that you need to learn and it's fascinating but it's also really difficult to feel what you're doing and to understand what's happening. So that was for me the big challenge but also the rewarding thing that you're learning something new, you're exploring a new dimension.
[00:04:01.365] Justin Karten: Yeah, so I studied once economics, but after my first commercial job, well actually within a year I quit my job. And I joined a friend of mine who started a video production company. And there I learned the job as an intern. So as an intern for a year I did some production, editing, filming. And then in 2013, for the first time, I put on the DK1, the Oculus. And then that blew my mind, obviously. And then we discovered also that we can, you know, use 360 video to make VR. And back then the vision was, okay, let's like reproduce everything that has been made so far for the television screen for VR. And that's where Scopic started.
[00:04:42.230] Kent Bye: Great, so you're showing Shelter here at the World Premiere at South by Southwest, and so maybe you could give me a bit more context for where did this project begin?
[00:04:49.455] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, I think for me the origin was a feeling of numbness. When the full-scale invasion was on its way, I think for maybe a couple of weeks, a month, at first I was really trying to follow all the news. All the news events were going really fast. But at some point I felt it was harder and harder to actually feel something while watching the news. Then I talked with Justin, who was preparing another VR production in Ukraine. We talked about doing a film there and we figured that VR might be a way of showing this world and also keep it on the emotional agenda. So we keep being involved in this story because Of course, we can lose track of the story and let the people be, but I think it's our responsibility to keep on watching and keep on feeling also something.
[00:05:48.331] Justin Karten: Yeah, that's the story. From my perspective, I was on the couch, but I think it was Corona, right? It was COVID time back then. I was working from home anyways. I was home, working from home, and I had a phone call with Sjors and then I told him that I was doubting about a VR project in Ukraine, because before I made one documentary, a VR documentary called Meet the Soldier, and that same team wanted to redo the same concept in Ukraine, but I thought it was too early. And I explained it to Sjors and he told me, yeah, that's not the right way. And then he told me his vision. I was like, yeah, that's it. So simple, so pure, that will work. And then, yeah, then a super small idea. Yeah, two years later, we are now here at the Saab Besatquist.
[00:06:26.219] Kent Bye: What was that vision that you pitched to them?
[00:06:28.140] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, it was not really a proper pitch, actually. I was just like, if we bring a 360 video camera to the metro station in Kyiv, where people were camping back then for weeks because they were under constant attack from the air, if we just bring a camera there and capture your life as it is, That must be extremely powerful to watch with the goggles on. So that was my pitch. And we started building a coalition of filmmakers that we could work with. First, we worked with a Dutch journalist, Hans-Jaap Melissen, who was going to Ukraine a lot. And he brought a 360 camera with him. He did a lot of test shots, some beautiful stuff he brought back. And at some point we started developing the story more, the Dutch Film Fund got involved. And then we figured that it might be a better idea to try to pursue an equal collaboration between the Netherlands and Ukraine. Because for me it didn't really feel right to bring a Dutch team in there and shoot a film about their suffering and bring it back to the Netherlands and gain the financial and the cultural rewards and leave them with nothing. So we discussed that with the film fund and they were on the same page. And they asked us basically to start building this coalition. And Erik Jan Bijfank, he's the partner of Justin at Copic Labs, one of the founders. He had refugees from Ukraine at his home. And they had a huge network in Ukraine and they hooked us up with Ivana Kicinska. And she's a brilliant producer. And she later became the co-director of the film.
[00:08:18.525] Kent Bye: and she assembled a great ukrainian team to create the story with and so maybe you could talk a bit about some of the different locations that you chose and what you were trying to show or hope to discover when you were doing these long durational takes across all these different locations
[00:08:37.560] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, I think we filmed in maybe 10 different locations. We collected shots from a variety of shelters. The thing is, people are sheltering because there's an air raid alarm. And since the start of the invasion, full-scale invasion 22, the air raid alarm has gone off over 56,000 times in the whole of Ukraine. So people are sheltering in basements, they're sheltering in metro stations, parking garages, basements of churches, schools, hospitals. And we figured that it might be the best idea to try to get an impression from all of these locations and build a story from there.
[00:09:24.060] Kent Bye: I found it really powerful and also had just watched it after I had a discussion with Adam Lisagor of Sandwich Vision. They have a theater app on Apple Vision Pro and he was making the argument saying that he prefers the cinematic 180 degree video. He prefers that to 360. And I feel like this is an example of a piece that I think wouldn't work quite as well just on 180 just to see half of the scene because part of it is to get the full context of like you might... have a shot of the people but turn around and see oh you're in a parking garage and so there's something around understanding the full context of a place of where you're at and so i'd love to hear some reflections on because you still have to guide attention and you do that through some of the edits but but it's also really nice as a piece where you're able to get that full context of a place
[00:10:12.160] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, that's an interesting remark. We saw the film maybe hundreds of times already. So when I have to watch it again, because we have to check some technical details, I try to look for something new in the scene. And yesterday we had a scene in a church in Lefevre where a soldier is having a funeral or... Yeah, his family is having his funeral because he died at the front line. And that's a scene where the attention of the viewer is pretty obvious. I mean, a church door opens. That's your point of interest when you get into the scene. And things are starting to happen straight away. People come in with a coffin. The family comes after that. And I think 99 out of 100 people will follow this story. But since I have seen it so many times, I was looking in the opposite direction yesterday. And I saw two priests talking to each other. And they were looking for some Bible which they lost. And they had to put it on the coffin. And then I was like, yeah, there's another story here as well. And that's something that I love about. 360 video that there are so many stories going on at the same time and yeah you're really invited to explore the scene yeah love to hear some of your thoughts on that since you've been working on 360 video for a while now
[00:11:33.243] Justin Karten: Yeah, then I think I want to go back to the pitch offshores. The thing is, I think with VR is that many people overthink it. Like it's, you know, when somebody puts on a VR headset, they go wild and everything is possible. But it's super difficult to find the right grammar for VR. And I think 360 video is a super simple, basic way of making impressive VR content, especially when you use environments or locations that you don't know. we as europeans i will talk for myself me as a person from amsterdam i didn't know that much about ukraine but when you see those images from the news they really curious you know how that really could feel or how that works and what is the context and i thought then 360 video would be the perfect medium to explore this and discover this so Yeah, super powerful. Again, so the pitch, maybe you don't see it as a real pitch, but I think the simplicity of the concept of the film was super powerful and exactly what many people are needing at the moment in those days to see this context of people being in a trap like rats, being bombed and they had to feel this.
[00:12:33.365] Kent Bye: One of the things that Adam Lisagor had said in our conversation is that he really feels that the 360 video is about a place. And I feel like that this is a story about these places. And also it's telling the story of the people. But the advantage of 360 video is that you get a sense of the full context. And I find myself wanting to have that full context when I watch 180 and then I turn my head and then I immediately get punished by, you know, having it cut off. So I appreciate the ability to have that agency to look around. And I actually did watch this piece twice because there were some scenes where there's a distinct focus, like there was some children coming out from underneath the school. And the first time I watched the dynamics of these students coming out, and the different relationships and there's so much information that's happening as they're coming out but then they're also walking out into another building and so the second time I watched I just watched that scene but then I was like oh I don't see their faces and I'm like missing that but you know in some of the scenes there are like multiple points of focus to focus on but it does seem that there's still a core story that's being told you know if you just sit front facing and you don't move at all you'll still catch the gist of most of the story that you have in this piece but um Just curious to hear about your editing process because it's a new medium and because you have the option to rotate around those points of focus. And yeah, just love to hear some of that process.
[00:13:53.038] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, first word that comes to mind is nightmare. I've done a lot of editing and I think this was one of the worst jobs that I ever had to do because first film in VR. So you really have to understand the grammar and the language and the power, but also the limitations. I always love to work with spoken text in film. It could be poetry or stories. And we had a great idea. I think we collected a lot of dreams from people from Ukraine, because since the start of the full scale invasion, the dreams and the dream landscape has changed as well. And some of the stories that people are dreaming about at night are really powerful. And my first idea was to combine them with 360 video and keep the whole film underground. So you have this subconscious space of the dream and you have to subterranean space of the shelters. But at some point we figured that it was too much. People said, you're trying to tell me all the stories. I don't feel them. I just want to explore the scene. Don't bother me with it. So what we did is we created Yeah, space in a game engine with a 2D screen with found footage and we used that as a backdrop for the stories that we're telling. So we separated them from the 360 scenes. So that was the first reason why the edit was super difficult because we had to learn this stuff on the fly. Second reason is that war is extremely difficult as a subject to cover. it's fragmented everybody has his or her own reality and that's something that i also really struggled with to find the right structure for the narrative and what we found out in the edits is that let me put it like this, that it is fragmented and war is like that. So we shouldn't try to make it into one round story, but we should use the element of fragmentation. So that's what we try to do in the film. We just bring the audience into different spaces, different atmospheres, and let them experience it for themselves. And it's a range of emotions in the film. Some of it is obviously very sad because there's trauma and tragedy involved. But there are also stories that are really kind and friendly and beautiful and they show the resilience of the people. So I think with this fragmented structure we could also tell a more nuanced and multifaceted story about war.
[00:16:36.960] Kent Bye: I'd love to hear some of your thoughts or reflections on all that.
[00:16:42.403] Justin Karten: That's a lot. The edit process was tough. There was a vision. We had to adjust it. It's always complicated. Big team, editor, advisor, great guy, Daan Weideveld. Hernández, the editor, veteran editor, over 10 years we are making 360 video. Me with my opinion. But at the end we came down to a certain edit and we all felt it. What I really like about the story now that it's like it's a broken chain. The circle of life is broken. And I think it comes out beautifully. And it's very simple, but yeah, that's I think at the end what gives you goosebumps and what you feel and what you taste almost and smell. So, yeah.
[00:17:25.580] Kent Bye: Yeah, I definitely felt as I was watching it, there are these moments of, you know, because you're watching these scenes unfold and what is referred to as these durational takes, these long takes where you're watching something unfold. Whether it's something mundane, some instructions like starting in a maternity ward with a nurse giving instructions to these pregnant women and, you know, you've got... other people in different sheltered contexts. You've got people who are not sheltered and they're just dancing and playing music, a number of different funeral scenes. And I thought being in the cemetery was actually really quite powerful and for me, like an emotional climax as well. Just being in the center of that cemetery and just having that symbolism of all the lives that were lost. So yeah, I'd love to hear any reflections on if you yourself were building up to that moment or how you also think about that scene.
[00:18:19.506] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, I think for me the emotional climax is a bit earlier. But that's, I think, a personal thing. Yeah, that's something that we really try to work with. There's a sequence and for me it starts at a soldier's funeral. And that's a really long take. It's two minutes. And it's like going to a real funeral. You really don't want to be there. Everybody's relieved after a funeral that it's over in a way. And I wanted to keep people there and let them experience like the full range of emotions and the full drama that was going on there. And because you keep people stuck in that place for a relatively long time, After that, we see women with newborn babies in a maternity ward. So that's contrast between death and life. Then there's room for the third scene. That's kids coming out of a shelter and they're moving from the dark into the lights. They're young, maybe 15, 16. They're the new generation, maybe the hope for Ukraine, for the future. But there's also, yeah, what future is that going to be? And for me, that's I think maybe the only place in 360 video that we're really pushing the emotions a bit with music. And that's for me the place where everything comes together. And I feel a lot of different emotions about hope, about drama. And I think for me, that's the most beautiful thing.
[00:19:56.431] Kent Bye: Yeah, love to hear some of your thoughts.
[00:19:58.053] Justin Karten: Yeah, yeah. What I think is super interesting is that everybody has his own moments where they're identified with. So today we had a lady, she could identify with the children in the school. She said like everybody, you know, went to school, most likely. So you can imagine that, you know, when you're younger, you have to sit in such a shelter that is insane. One other thing that was super interesting, I think, was my wife. She got emotional, of course, and she was wondering herself, like, why are those women allow us to film them in such a sensitive situation? I was like, what do you mean? And she said, well, you know, they are screaming for attention. This is, like, the only way for them to get help. And that was, for me, like, mind-blowing that everybody is seeing their own thing in the film, and it's super powerful. And if we can achieve that a lot of people can identify with other people in the film, then I think we achieve the goal.
[00:20:51.781] Kent Bye: And I noticed in the credits, you're referencing a couple of the drone strikes that happened in 2024, like in June and July. You have this footage that you have that's archival footage that's more 2D, but it's put onto this really long billboard in this really sparse void space. But that's also an opportunity for you to have the voiceovers. So I'd love to hear you maybe elaborate on those choices to take some of this archival footage that is showing, I guess, the threats of these drone attacks that were happening in different cities in Ukraine.
[00:21:24.757] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, we used these different story elements in three different parts. So we start with a shot. I think it's a CCTV camera that is just filming a street in Kharkiv. There is a lady walking there with a handbag. She's probably going shopping. And then there's a huge explosion. And it's a miracle that she's walking out of it alive. But that's sort of found footage. We have a second scene. That's a news clip. You see, I think, a fragment of a drone reaching Kiev. And we really slow-mo'd it and combined it with a story of a young child named Jana. And she tells about a dream that she had. her hands and turns into a magical stick and that really resonates with the news clip that we manipulated a bit with slow-moing it and the third thing is a story of a brother who has a brother on the front line and this brother is encircled by the Russians and he knows that he's going to die and the last thing that he does is phone his brother which is Really weird, but it's possible, apparently. And we have footage from a point of view camera of a soldier on the front line. So we really looked for footage that resonated with the story elements that we were trying to tell. Yeah, and I think it's also a good contrast to the world inside the shelters, because if you stay in the shelters all the time, you don't know what's happening above the ground. But when you see the CCTV footage, when you see the point of view footage from the soldier, and when you see the drones hitting Kiev, then you know that it's real.
[00:23:16.316] Kent Bye: And there's a number of shots where you show the aftermath of some of these missile strikes as well. Different buildings that have just been struck and that you have the ability to bear witness to some of those as well.
[00:23:26.522] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, and we have two places where we shot in the aftermath of an attack. And there's some really horrible things that you see there. It's just some details that really struck me. For example, the firemen that are killing the fire and cleaning up the place, they wear bulletproof vests. Why do they wear that? They don't do that in the Netherlands. It's because the Russians strike twice often. First the attack and then the people who come to help the people who are attacked. So that's a thing that really strikes me when I watch it. And also there's a fireman there who's giving some water to a dog and the dog is just looking around spinning his tail and he doesn't know what's going on. And that's also something that it's difficult to watch.
[00:24:17.688] Kent Bye: I just wanted to follow up on your background as a historian, because it feels like that with 360 video and this ability to capture this visual anthropology in a way, there's all these subtle details with the bulletproof vest and stuff that I'm also not noticing when I'm watching it, but I think will both provide context for future historians as they're looking back, but also is also capturing the history as it's unfolding. So I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on that process of being a part of capturing that history.
[00:24:46.724] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, well, I think that's vitally important. Of course, there's a lot of projects that capture or record the crimes that are happening in Ukraine right now. And I think especially for future generations and also for the courts and the judges who are going to decide on these war crimes later on, it's vitally important to capture this.
[00:25:10.144] Kent Bye: From the producing perspective, this seems like it's a co-production from the Netherlands. And for folks inside of Ukraine, I'd love to hear some of the logistics for how you are managing this type of collaboration.
[00:25:21.966] Justin Karten: Yeah, it was actually a super nice collaboration in a way that Ivana, the service producer from Ukraine, is super talented and professional. So if we say we have to go to the left, we went to the left. If we say we have to go to the right, we went to the right. So she was really servicing us. but also in such a way that she was super proactive. So after a while we were like looking for dreams, but this is also the moment where she found the story of Bohdan. So she also went further than only like only get what we were asking for. So now Ukrainians are super hard workers. And I was really surprised also about the warmth of the people. We all have like this idea about Eastern European people being a bit cold, but they are super warm, loving people. And yeah, so from a production point of view, it was really nice project.
[00:26:07.836] Sjors Swierstra: Maybe I can add one small story to that, which shows the amazing character of Ivana. At some point there was a scene that we wanted to capture and it was really close to the front lines. It was pretty dangerous and difficult to get there. And we worked with a male crew who could be recruited, so for them it was a huge risk to go there. Ivana said, let me do it. I'm going to take a camera, explain me how to do it. And she went, she took some amazing shots and she just did it on her own. One lady in the eastern part of Ukraine, close to the Russian border. I have so much respect for that.
[00:26:50.704] Kent Bye: Well, it sounds like that she started on as a producer and then eventually got moved up to being a co-director. Maybe you could talk about that collaborative process with Ivana.
[00:26:59.301] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, she was super important for us because we went to Ukraine with her for a week and she showed us around and she showed us all the shelters. But I think what was as important is that she also shared some of her experiences in the shelters. Especially in the first phase of the war where everything was even more difficult maybe than right now, although that's also difficult. But especially in the first phase of the war, there was a huge terror campaign where people spent days and days and days and weeks in shelters. I read one statistic that children spent an average of 40 days in shelters in the first year of the war. And Ivana told us a lot about her experiences and also her perception of the war. It's not just tragedy, it's also people who are resilient and who are fighting back. And she also wanted us to see that and that turned out to be a great idea because then we could tell a much more nuanced and layered story and she was vital for that comprehension also of what war is.
[00:28:15.888] Kent Bye: Yeah, that reminds me of the scene of the children that are in the shelter. And there's such a range of different things that the children are doing. A lot of people are on their phones. Sometimes they're just sitting there staring off in space. Others are playing these different games. But people around the world can identify with the phenomena of doom scrolling. I don't know if they were doom scrolling. They were doing something on their phones. If I was in that situation, that's probably what I'd be doing. Yeah. But yeah, I'd love to hear any reflections on what people are actually doing as you're watching people taking care of kids, playing with the kids, a whole range of different things that people are doing, and just some patterns that you noticed.
[00:28:52.529] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, for me, it's just people being people. And that's what I love about some of the scenes. I think for me, the most beautiful scene is in a maternity ward in Kiev, in a bomb shelter, where I think seven ladies, pregnant ladies, are talking to a nurse. And the nurse is really comforting the pregnant women that everything is going to be okay, even though you might give birth in a shelter. So we have all the... technical equipment, we have operating rooms, everything is here. But what strikes me about that is her tone of voice. Because I'm a father as well, I've been in a hospital and I heard nurses talk like that in the same way. Everything is going to be okay, don't worry, you can do this. And then you're in a bomb shelter and your husband is at the front line. There are no guys there. They're all fighting for their families. I think that's just beautiful. It's small, it's soft, it's kind. I'd love to show that to the world.
[00:30:00.487] Kent Bye: I'd love to hear any reflections or things that are striking to you in the piece.
[00:30:06.775] Justin Karten: Now the first thing that comes to my mind is that we had an interview with a Ukrainian kid in Kharkiv. We just made some traditional film as well for other purposes. But we were asking about his dreams and he explained quite vividly what he was dreaming about. He was walking on the streets, being attacked by rockets. So I think many people are heavily damaged in Ukraine. Kids are not enjoying in the shelters. And I'm not sure what they're looking or what they're watching, but I know that many adults are just scrolling the news, Telegram, that's the whole day what they see. They are afraid of relatives dying and losing people. But another thing that popped to my mind is that Ivana also told us that when you are in a shelter, you're being attacked, that everybody is becoming religious. And you start to pray. But I thought it was super powerful because, you know, it was just saying like, you're just so desperate. You just, you think you're about to die. So these people are going really through a lot of shit. You can't imagine. So yeah, doom scrolling. Yeah, doom thinking. Yeah, that's for sure what's happening there.
[00:31:14.437] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's a subtle approach, but I think really powerful. Just, you know, I watched a couple of times and each time felt emotion. And just even hearing you talk about it now, just feeling wells of emotion, just it's really moving. And as you think about these contrasts of building and releasing tension or creating polarities of lightness and darkness and shelter and above and everything, Just curious to hear any other reflections you have of working with the VR medium and the way that you're able to take these subtle observational moments, but build them into a journey that is telling a broader story when you take them all together.
[00:31:52.955] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, then I have to come back a bit to what I said about the story in fragments. So we don't have characters that were falling around. We have three stories, but no characters. We have no obvious dramatic arc. So it's just, it's basically the Kuleshov effect. It's one scene echoing into the next one. And together, when you create a chain of those scenes, At some point, the magical thing might happen that you might feel something and you might get goosebumps or you might feel connected or close to somebody. And that's, I think, a real intuitive process. Eduardo Hernandez, our editor, is mastering that. Also, like the rhythm and the pace of scenes. When is the scene over? When are you going to a new storyline? And what I always feel like is that if I feel something at some point, then it must be possible that somebody else feels something too. And that's what I'm always looking for when I'm editing, that I feel something. especially the first moments where you have a real emotion is extremely important to remember because after a while you start editing and it's gonna be a big puzzle you're gonna lose the sense of feeling for the material so you get confused you don't feel it you don't know what you're doing you don't know if you're on the right track but if you get back to the original feeling the original emotion and trust on that, then I think that's the best you can do. And the same goes when the film is finished. There are a lot of screenings that I don't feel anything, but I was watching it this morning and I was really emotional. And then I felt like, yeah, we're doing the right thing here. So that's also good to experience it.
[00:33:55.333] Kent Bye: And I'm not sure if you've seen that quote from Rick Rubin. He's a producer, a music producer, and he's talking to Anderson Cooper. And he's saying that he doesn't have any technical talents to play in the instruments and that he has strong convictions about his taste and what he likes and what he prefers and that he finds that other people have found that useful. And so as a producer and you're watching all this content, just love to hear any reflections of your own intuitive hits of what's working or not working and any feedback that you're providing.
[00:34:24.427] Justin Karten: um that is a very good question let me think about it for a second so like at the end of the day you know you need to create something that flows it has to rhyme and like you said every shot has to echo into each other and then you create a chain that works but you also can easily break it it's crazy sometimes you create a flow you think you have it and you change one little thing and it's totally gone the soul's out of it and and Why? It's very difficult for me to explain. But at the moment, like you said, when you feel it and you show it to other people and they start to cry, you're like, okay, now lock it. This is it. Don't move it anymore. Then again, you have to move it and it's gone. But yeah, that's a struggle. I think that we both were fighting at the end. But yeah, at the end, we made it work. But I think that's creating soul in content. And that's very important. I think also for many digital artists, like if you make radio or television or games or any digital art, it's really about getting like that to get the ghost in the shell. And I think that it's all about that. But yeah, the trick. Yeah, I think it's a feeling. It's a talent that you need to have.
[00:35:31.087] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you each think is the ultimate potential for virtual reality in this type of immersive storytelling, and what it might be able to enable?
[00:35:43.134] Sjors Swierstra: Maybe you can start with this, and I can think about it a bit more.
[00:35:46.416] Justin Karten: Yeah, well, they asked me, what is your nightmare? Your digital, or no, your XR nightmare? Yeah, I think, of course, if you don't see the difference anymore. reality and the virtual world, if that blends and it's gone, you don't know if this conversation is real or fake. That's the biggest nightmare, I guess. But also at the end is also the opportunity. That's also the strength of the media, right? That we can lose reality. So it's a paradox at the end, what I'm not saying. But yeah, it's a very complicated, you know, to ask somebody to predict the future is impossible. But at the end we will go, yeah, of course, direct into our brain and then we don't need any devices anymore.
[00:36:28.399] Sjors Swierstra: Yeah, I think I'm not able to speak in these terms about the potential of the medium in the long run. But what I really feel strongly is that as things become so artificial with AI and everything, there might be backlash that people are going for more authenticity as well and especially for documentary filmmakers I think there's a huge potential to tell real and raw stories and in this case it's about Ukraine but I think you can really use this medium to keep this story an emotional agenda and that's for me the most important thing.
[00:37:08.566] Kent Bye: Awesome and is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community? We need to stand with Ukraine
[00:37:19.333] Justin Karten: I think at the end, if you can make content that moves people and adds something positive to this whole shit show, make it, man.
[00:37:27.867] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Shelter is really quite powerful, like spatial poem that's really capturing this moment in time and reflecting on, you know, like you said, creating these series of a chain of sequences that kind of add up to what was really moving as I was watching it. Both times that I watched it, having these moments of just real emotion and yeah, just really powerful piece. And thanks again for producing it and creating it and also being here in Austin to show it and to be here on the podcast to help break it all down. So thank you so much.
[00:37:56.542] Justin Karten: Thank you very much. Thank you for your time, man. Thanks a lot.
[00:37:59.740] Kent Bye: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. And there is a lot that's happening in the world today. And the one place that I find solace is in stories, whether that's a great movie, a documentary, or immersive storytelling. And I love going to these different conferences and festivals and seeing all the different work and talking to all the different artists. And sharing that with the community, because I think there's just so much to be learned from listening to someone's process to hear about what they want to tell a story about. And even if you don't have a chance to see it, just to have the opportunity to hear about a project that you might have missed or to learn about it. And so this is a part of my own creative process of capturing these stories and sharing it with a larger community. And if you find that valuable and want to sustain this oral history project that I've been doing for the last decade, then please do consider supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Every amount does indeed help sustain the work that I'm doing here, even if it's just $5 a month. That goes a long way for allowing me to continue to make these trips and to to ensure that I can see as much of the work as I can and to talk to as many of the artists as I can and to share that with the larger community. So you can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
