Earlier this week, one of the world’s very first virtual reality series was released. The Possible is the name of a five-part immersive documentary directed by David Gelb and featuring robots from the prestigious engineering company, Boston Dynamics. The series is intended to give people intimate peeks inside areas that they otherwise would never be able to access.
The first episode, Hello Robot, brings viewers up close and personal with the advanced robotics of Boston Dynamics. According to the episode’s official synopsis: “Go face-to-face with the world’s most advanced robots and get a rare look inside Boston Dynamics’ top secret lab, never before open to the public.”
The Possible is being made available on Within — a content curation app for VR videos. Within was formerly known as Vrse and is the creation of notable immersive filmmaker Chris Milk. In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this year, Milk said of The Possible:
“Everything feels very one-off in virtual reality,” Milk said in an interview. “We want to give people a reason not just to watch something cool but watch something cool and then come back. It’s a simple concept that we are very used to in television but not one that we have really fully explored in virtual reality.”
Gelb is the acclaimed director of popular documentaries such as Netflix’s The Chef’s Table or the critical darling Jiro Dreams of Sushi. He has a talent for finding the visual beauty in commonplace areas like food, and so it will be interesting to see what he’s capable of with more objectively frenetic material.
The robots featured in The Possible’s first episode are revolutionary and seeing them in full 360 inside one of the many Within compatible VR headsets is truly engaging spectacle.
Within and The Possible are available now for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR and PlayStation VR.
