entertainment

'Nerve' Promo Puts Movie's Stunts In Your VR Headset

With its central premise about a young girl whose friends encourage her to experience more out of life by joining an experiential game, production company Lionsgate wanted a way to have audience members experience the same adrenaline rush.

So the studio created a first-person, virtual reality experience that gives viewers the point of view of one of its characters participating in three of the movie’s top “dares.” The first-person perspective provides a more immersive experience, says Tai Crosby, founder of SilVR Thread, the company that created the experience.

“With a movie like this, it’s all about getting the audience to imagine what it’s like to be in the movie, not just with a 360-degree view, but with a first-person [perspective],” Crosby tells Marketing Daily

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The film, featuring Dave Franco and Emma Roberts, features a group of thrillseekers playing an online game that requires players to participate in a sequence of increasingly dangerous dares and stunts. Shot at the same time as the film, the VR experience was created via a mix of live-action filming and and computer-generated imagery. 

Pressured by her friends, Vee decides to join Nerve, a popular online game that challenges players to accept a series of dares. It's not long before the adrenaline-fueled competition requires her to perform increasingly dangerous stunts. When Nerve begins to take a sinister turn, Vee finds herself in a high-stakes finale that will ultimately determine her entire future.

"Our goal was to immerse fans directly into the thrilling action of NERVE's insane 'dare' sequences, letting them experience these scenes from the same perspective as the characters on screen," said David Edwards, vice president of digital marketing at Lionsgate, in a statement. "A first-person VR experience was the ideal format." 

The VR experience can be downloaded via an app, and used on VR headsets such as Occulus, Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard viewers. The VR experiences depict situations such as crossing a ladder between two New York City skyscrapers and riding on a skateboard attached to a speeding police car. The first-person perspective allows people to dare each other to complete the experiences. 

“One of the best things about it is not doing it yourself, but watching your friends do it,” Crosby says. 

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