My original intrigue to take this VR Storytelling class was to learn how I could use virtual reality in order to tell journalistic stories. As a broadcast journalist, I've had experience in learning how to tell a story through video, but I wanted to expand my technological knowledge in order to tell stories in a different way. The point of telling stories through journalism is to teach the public about something that they don't have knowledge on already. 360° filming offers a unique and immersive experience for the viewer into the story that one can tell. The story I chose to bring the audience into is on the hard work that goes into any musical theater production-- especially a completely student-run one. My previous musical theater experience knew that this could offer a unique experience to those who have never experienced the creation of a production before and thus my partnership with Sammie was born to create the VR experience for the First Year Player's April production of Heathers The Musical.

With Sammie's help, we were able to get inside the rehearsals of Heathers The Musical where we filmed several scenes and musical numbers from the show. Our biggest inspirations for this came from Disney on Broadway's 360° video of The Lion King where the footage was shot from on stage as well as other VR experiences from Fox's Grease Live! where the viewer was given a more "behind-the-scenes" feel. This project for us was not creating an experience where the viewer felt as if they were watching the show from a specific point of view, but rather getting a peek at what it's like to be putting together the production from all aspects. This included putting the camera in the audience, near the pit orchestra, backstage, behind the audio booth, up in the balcony, and even on the stage itself for the final bows. Due to the limited amount of rehearsal time, we couldn't put the camera on stage in a scene as it would have been too disruptive to the rehearsal. Nevertheless, I believe that we were able to capture the essence of what it felt like to be a part of the action.

The actual filming nor the rehearsal went as smoothly as we would have hoped, but in both cases, the show must go on. There were often actors missing because they were sick and pauses for director notes or technical issues--these pauses actually came in handy for us because we were able to adjust and check on the cameras during this time. Our real trouble came when on the second day of filming, one of the cameras in the rig stopped working. We had to miss recording one of the musical numbers that we were especially hoping for. Once we eventually figured out how to get the camera back on, it had to be plugged in at all times to keep it on in order to capture the recordings. Even with this, many of the scenes that we recorded did not work because despite the "recording" light being lit up red, there was not video file recorded on the SD card. We made it work, however, and were able to still capture many of the scenes that we thought would make for the most visually and aesthetically interesting. Something else that is notable about our production is that while we originally wanted to film different scenes on the two diferent days of filming, it allowed us to film scenes such as "Shine a Light" and "Shine a Light (Reprise)" from different perspectives which allowed for, what is in my opinion great storytelling, as well as great video edits. I focused more closely on the audio perspective from different areas of the auditorium as that was the perspective I had as an outsider on this production. Sammie, who has been involved with this production for the entire semester, was able to offer more of the backstage and technical aspects of the story.

Our biggest concerns, other than the camera technical difficulties while filming, were the lighting and the proximity to the camera. We were concerned about how close we could put the camera to people that wouldn't create stitching issues. This prevented us from putting the camera in the pit orchestra, dressing room, and lighting booth. The lighting was an issue in the sense that because the stage was lit up so brightly, the camera's iris wasn't able to adjust to the darkness in the audience and backstage and the cameras weren't able to pick up the action in those places as clearly.

When it came to stitching and editing, our work did not get any easier as a new set of issues cropped up. Sammie focused her efforts on stitching together the footage from the first day while I focused on stitching together the footage from the second day. This was mostly divided by what footage was from the audience perspective and which was from the backstage/behind the scenes perspectives that we had divided between ourselves. We quickly found out that stitching in the dark auditorium where the ceiling and rows of chairs were barely distinguishable. Additionally, there was one scene that in the editing process would not let me edit on a certain computer. Luckily with a little hard work and persistence, we were able to stitch together the videos in which all video files appeared.

The over all process was frustrating but rewarding when we were able to piece together the story we wanted to tell. This was brought together in Adobe Premiere. I already had very basic knowledge of Premiere through using it in my broadcast and digital journalism classes, but I found that I was lacking in knowledge of the program when I was operating not on my class preset version of the program with my detailed cheat sheet. This lead me to doing my Independent Learning Assignment on a Lynda course on premiere. The most important thing that I learned from this class was how to get rid of the black holes that were created at the top and bottom of the video file in 360 due to the barely noticeable black lines at the top and bottom of the exported video when viewed in a "regular" format. The original black bars not only created these black holes, but warped the nadir when viewed in 360. The Lynda course also gave me a lot of other useful information in making the editing between scenes more seamless and professional.

Despite all of the bumps, I am extremely happy with the way Sammie's and my final project turned out. Without further adieu, here is First Year Players Presents: Heathers The Musical | The Virtual Reality Experience. Enjoy!