The future is no longer now. The future was yesterday, and now we’re in the future of the future. Skeptical? You won’t be when you learn that Hulu is picking up two television programs that you’ll only be able to watch with one of those virtual reality devices strapped to your face. Variety reports that both shows from the Huffington Post’s RYOT Studios will be streamed to technophilic early adopters exclusively through Hulu’s VR app.
The Big Picture: News In Virtual Reality will, true to its name, be a news program in virtual reality. “We think really hard what stories lend themselves to virtual reality,” RYOT co-founder Bryn Mooser told Variety, citing examples of size and scope as being attributes suitable to the format, the Dadaab refugee camp in Northern Kenya in particular. “This is a news show that’s really built to the VR headset,” he explained. “It’s truly the first of its kind.”
More idiosyncratic will be Virtually Mike And Nora, a comedy show from SNL short filmmaker Mike O’Brien and The Office’s Nora Kirkpatrick. A desire to make the viewer a part of the show “changed the shape of our jokes and direction of our stories,” Kirkpatrick said. “I think we’ve come up with a way to break down the wall between performer and audience member, and explore comedy in 360 degrees.”
Unfortunately for the tiny demographic currently able to partake of this technological miracle, their reality won’t be virtual until later fall. Until then, VR fans will just have to make due with watching two old millionaires yell at one another.