VeRy
Talk Show in Virtual World
Goal
VeRy is a talk show that features people who use the digital world to embrace themselves, cope with the real-life situation, voice up for social justice, and build up a supportive online community.
Eventually, I would love to
Publish the series on YouTube, Netflix, etc. Or any other experimental way of screening.
To redefine and curate the virtual spaces, embrace our being as a cyborg, and explore the future of storytelling.
To build a community for story sharing and support.
Form
Each episode has a theme to explore and invite the interviewees to have a deep conversation with the host while doing digital activities, such as playing games. The conversation will be audio recorded like a podcast, and the digital activities will be screen recorded like live streaming.
Agenda
Physical interview setup
It’s preferred to sit down with the interviewee face to face and have the conversation recorded by the same microphone for better sound quality. Audio chat remotely is also acceptable, as long as each individual has an audio recording device.
Virtual world setup
So far, I have explored two ways of shooting in the virtual world.
Original screen recording: mobile devices screen recording.
Pro: best visual and audio quality. Multiple angles.
Con: legging time, consume a lot of storage on mobile devices
DSLR recording of the screen: film the screens that display the digital world.
Pro: the recording doesn’t affect digital activities.
Con: flickering that affects image quality, and audio recording will capture environmental sound, limited angles.
The virtual world includes but not limited to:
Stage 1: Jude’s space built on Mozilla Hubs, like a newsroom? A library? A theatre? A living room? A cave? A museum?
Stage 2: Interviewee’s space -- Their second home online
Texting spaces: Medium,Sayana, etc.
Gaming spaces: Animal Crossing, Sky: Children of the Light, PUBG, Fortnight, Overwatch, etc.
Social VR spaces: VR Chat, Mozilla Hubs, etc.
Ep. 01 VeRy alone but not lonely: Hailey
Background
Hailey is an American citizen originally from Hong Kong. She immigrated to the States when she was around 12 years old while she thought she was just on a short trip. Graduated from college, she went back to China and worked in the music business. She came back to New York in February 2020 and was stuck here for the pandemic. Staying alone at her friend’s place in New York, she stayed up late almost every single night to play Game for Peace, the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile, a first-person perspective military competition mobile game. During our three-hour gameplay, we talked about her experience of the pandemic in both Hong Kong and New York, the story of her being left out in the States, and how she coped with the situation and got along with herself.