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‘We wanted to make it an experience’: Filmmakers Eddie Avil and Ashley Rodrigues

Filmmakers Eddie and Ashley on making India’s first stereoscopic VR horror short film

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A still from Crackle
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Audio engineers and ad guys Ashley Rodrigues and Eddie Avil have turned filmmakers with the first stereoscopic cinematic VR horror short film, Crackle, which needs to be watched wearing a VR (virtual reality) headset and swivelling on a chair... unless standing for 12 minutes and rotating to watch the wide-screen on-goings is your thing. Since it’s the first flick created in this format, shooting it also entailed making their own 18-camera rig and remote-controlled dolly as the equipment to shoot VR content wasn’t available when they commenced the project in 2017. They have also used ambisonic sound to guide the viewer to turn their head in the direction of the action. 

Crackle is about a group of friends staying at a deserted resort and calling spirits. Events that take place when the séance goes horribly wrong constitutes the rest of the story. The short has been selected for five international film festivals and even won at the Miami Fear Fest 2018. The VR storytellers talk about the challenges of making the project. 

Tell us about your experience of making Crackle...

It’s a horror flick, so it’s filmed mainly in the dark, which meant we had to rely on the actors because we could only hear and not see what they were doing. Post-production was equally challenging because we first had to stitch footage from all the cameras to make one image. And a 30-second clip would take us four to six hours. It took us a year to finish since the post-production was extensive and we funded it ourselves. It was a relearning process of every aspect of filmmaking for us.



Ashley Rodrigues and Eddie Avil

Why choose horror as a genre?

We thought it would be fun to play with the fear factor — you hear something, turn around and get a glimpse of a ghost. We wanted to make it an experience and not just a film. We included only slow movements like walking to prevent the viewers from feeling nauseous because of fast movements. For that, we created a remote-controlled dolly since the equipment wasn’t available in the market. Every time a viewer watches the movie, they get a new perspective.

Did you expect it to make it to film festivals?

No. In fact, we thought we were late by a year since it took us that long to complete the movie and the VR technology was fast catching up.

What’s next?

We want to sell this movie and get budgets. We’ve done commercial projects for brands. We are also building a platform for a VR/AR (Virtual/Augmented Reality) conference, film festival and expo slated for March 2019. We want to drive VR into the ecosystem because it’s the future of entertainment. We are also working as aggregators to help start-ups get a push. We have ideas for reality shows since India has a market for it.

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