Chris Milk, the director behind notable tech-driven projects such as Google/Arcade Fire's award-winning "Wilderness Downtown" interactive music video and Lincoln's "Hello Again" multi-dimensional concert video featuring Beck, has teamed with industry production vets Patrick Milling-Smith and Brian Carmody to open VRSE works, an independent production company dedicated to virtual reality-focused projects.
The company's arrival coincides with the recent debut of its VR-projects at the Sundance Film Festival, including Mr. Milk's "Evolution of Verse," a 3-D, photo-realistic CGI film included in the festival's "New Frontier" exhibition, and "Vice News VR: Millions March." The Vice film, directed by Mr. Milk and Spike Jonze, takes viewers deep into the December 2014 protests in New York City against police brutality. In partnership with the UN at the World Economic Forum in Davos, VRSE also produced "Clouds Over Sidra." The documentary, directed by Mr. Milk and Gabo Arora, follows a twelve-year-old in the Za-atari camp in Jordan, home to 84,000 Syrian refugees.
These experiences can be viewed through the company's new VRSE app. Available on iTunes and Google Play, it allows viewers to experience the films through the low-cost Google Cardboard set-up, or on most late-model smartphones in non-VR mode. The app will ultimately work with other VR headsets, including Facebook's Oculus Rift.