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Brand Case Studies: Is Within VR the new Netflix?

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It was a few short years ago that Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin founded Vrse, their premier platform for Virtual Reality content creation which enables the technologies needed to create the most innovative and immersive forms of human storytelling. At the same time, Milk was also working with Patrick Milling-Smith to set up sibling company Vrse.works, a focused production studio supporting the world’s leading creative innovators in Virtual Reality spherical filmmaking. It was 2014 to be exact, and at the time VR was suspended in a bubble of ‘will it, won’t it?’ speculation.

Milk and Koblin founded Vrse “because there was no way to make the immersive VR films we imagined without building the technology to create, play, and distribute them.” The VR industry was in its infancy, if you wanted to move it forwards, you needed to do as this duo did and create the tools for yourself.

Vrse’s Android and iOS app brought the Virtual Reality experience to anyone with a smartphone by way of free, 360 degree videos which allow viewers to watch photorealistic, stereoscopic VR films with binaural sound. From the off, the company's aim was to explore Virtual Reality as a means to tell documentaries, narratives, and share live experience, whilst its production-company sibling, Vrse.works, sought out the partnerships needed to share these stories with wide and varied audiences. Shortly after launching Vrse, Milk worked with Spike Jonze to capture the Millions March in New York, which protested police brutality for Vice News. And Clouds Over Sidra, a VR documentary made in partnership with the United Nations, follows a 12-year-old girl's life in a Syrian refugee camp.

At the same time as Vrse’s efforts were taking flight, the world of VR was also hitting a runway of its own. On March 25th 2014, Facebook bought Oculus, prompting a domino-effect of investments which made the number of venture capital deals and total amounts invested in VR and augmented reality triple within the space of two years according to CB Insights. Mark Zuckerberg took a $2billion bet on a startup and the bubble of speculation surrounding VR popped - if Facebook was in on it then so was everyone else. Headsets such as Google Cardboard started retailing for as little as $15 and VR made the transition from sci-fi fantasy to sofa-born reality.

"At our heart, we’re about more than just a specific technology or buzzword — we’re about creating and sharing human experience. Technology is just a tool to get us there"

Having already undergone an early gamble of its own, Vrse was well positioned in the flurry of activity that ensued. Milk and Koblin had already piqued the interest of several major film studios, and so instigated a round of Series A funding with participation from 20th Century Fox which raised $12.56 million.

Alongside this funding round, Vrse also underwent a rebrand. The industry had grown so quickly that Milk no longer wanted to tie his brand name to the term VR, “as it may not be [a phrase] we use in future”. Elaborating on this name change on Medium, Milk explained: “At our heart, we’re about more than just a specific technology or buzzword — we’re about creating and sharing human experience. Technology is just a tool to get us there.”

As part of the rebrand Vrse.works also adopted a new title, Here Be Dragons, and the production company’s credits have since stretched across short-form commercials, music videos, feature film, theatre, design, photography and fine arts productions. Adorned with numerous awards including Emmys, Cannes Lions and a Grammy, the company hasn’t lost sight of it’s human storytelling origins though, and it recently partnered with the United Nations once more, to create the VR experience Waves of Grace. The film transports viewers to West Point, the most populous slum in the capital of Liberia, and follows the experience of Decontee Davis, an Ebola survivor who uses her immunity to help others affected by the disease.

So where does Within go next? Well recently, Milk and his team worked with Apple Music to help it realise its VR dreams on new releases from U2 and Muse. In the video for U2’s Song for Someone, singers from around the world sing alongside U2 within the virtual environment. The video is hosted on the Within app, but features the Apple Music logo as well as a link to listen to more of U2’s songs on the service. Speaking to WIRED about partnerships such as this, Milk couldn’t see any reason why they shouldn’t continue: “You’re on the phone, you’re connected to everything else on the phone, why can’t one app play with another app nicely?” If this means that Within may be able to integrate with giants such as Netflix in the future, then the possibilities for the company are bottomless.

That said, it’s worth looking at why Netflix became so popular in the first place - mainly because of a dedicated programming stream that centers around original documentaries and dramas. This is an area Within already excels at, in an entirely new medium as well, so perhaps you won’t need that Netflix app in the future, perhaps you’ll only need Within...

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