Howard Tian is a media business strategist and an award-winning content creator. Holding a BA Media Arts degree and a Post-graduate Diploma in Finance Law, he is well educated in the fields of creative arts and business operations. He is also currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Business Administration (M.B.A.).

He gained significant working experience in the media industry from his positions at Salon Films. Between 2010 and 2012, he worked as a lead project developer with focuses on international and Pan-Asian co-productions; and he became the Head of E-Marketing since 2013, dedicated to create and implement new forms of digital, immersive and interactive business models and content formats for the company.

‘V’ refers to Vision Summit, ‘T’ refers to Howard Tian


V: Firstly, please introduce yourself and your team to the audience:

T: We are a startup company that specialises in providing high quality cinematic immersive experiences. Our team provides premium services from 360 video production, to making immersive VR content, Gaming and Mobile applications. We also provide cinematic VR Training as well.


V: Why would you choose the Infernal Affairs as your VR movie theme?Is there any other story you recommend to produce?

T: Infernal Affairs is a well-known cinematic property, probably the most acclaimed cinematic IP from HK/Chinese cinema. It is an honour for us to be working for and be associated with this property.

At the moment, VR content are quite limited to gaming, or stimulation-driven experience like horror or excitements, but not a lot of cinematic VR experience is out there. VR is a medium that is bound to go mainstream, and we want to tell stories with this medium, what better than to do it with such a well-known property.

Anything with a good story can be applied to VR i think, I dont think any medium should be limited by any genre. The most important thing is to construct the story-world, make the story universe interesting, make the characters interesting, and design the cinematic experience in a way to allow audience to feel engaged with the story, with the characters, because the sense of engagement is the most critical part for a good cinematic experience.


V: What is difference between the VR and traditional filming? What technologies andequipments you have used in VR filming?

T: First of all, the biggest difference is we are filming in 360 degree. There is no framing, you cant use the traditional cinematography of mixing closeups, mid-shots and wide-shots. You have to find another way to let your audience experience your story-world. E.g. you either treat the viewer as a third-person observing in the VR world or treat the viewer as a POV first-person character.

We used different 360 video filming systems, but not the amateurish gopro rigs which a lot of 360 video makers are using. Because we are filming with professional actors, filming dramas, we need professional filming systems that allow us to have real-time monitoring of live-stitched 360 visual, playback.

We will also use Unity and Autodesks shotgun in our post-production workflow to create the interactive cinematic VR experiences.


V: Now there are some teams choose unity for their cinematic production. Do you use unity and how do you think about it?

T: Yes, we did and we will continue to do so. Unity is a very powerful platform that allows us to easily create 360 degree VR environment and create interactive elements to build all kinds of interesting VR experiences.

V:What challenge did you face when preparing the drama？How your team solved it？

T: Because we are filming 360 degree, we need to find ways to hide our crew, and set up the lightings, equipment etc.

Most important is the planning of the shots and scenes. How you plan the character movements, camera movements, to create an engaging cinematic VR experience for the viewer, without making them feeling the simulation sickness. e.g. less cuts, less movement but without being too static, etc.

We also need to guess and manipulate the audiences viewpoint during the cinematic VR experience.


V: What facilities do we need to see the drama? And what advantage does it have?

T: Because our client is iQiYi, the Infernal Affairs VR shorts will be available to view on iQiYis VR app platform that is available on both Android and iOS. Viewers only need a cell phone with the app installed plus a cardboard goggle to view.

Everybody has a mobile phone, so mobile VR viewing is the easiest way to get mass viewership.


V:What else VR content have you and your team produced? What’s your VR filming plan in the future?

T: Weve done a lot of 360 video tours, for hotels and corporate clients. We also filmed musical and sports events in 360. We also developed cinematic VR games, which we will be also focusing on in the near future, making more interactive cinematic VR games.


V: What interesting speech will you bring to us on this Vision VR/AR Asia Summit 2016?

T: Mostly my experiences in making cinematic VR content, what challenges I faced, how we solved them and what I think the future of cinematic VR should and will be.


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