I recently had the amazing opportunity to be the assistant director for a short 360˚ film titled Knot For Sale through the Writing 420 filmmaking class at the University of Victoria. A 360˚ film is made with a series of cameras that capture all angles around a single point, and is then viewed using a virtual reality headset.

A question the class was posed on the first day was whether virtual reality is a “a gimmick or game-changer.” Go search those terms and you’ll find dozens of articles asking the exact same question. That phrase pops up perennially whenever some new tech bursts onto the scene. Remember when 3D TVs and curved screens were going to become the fixture of every home? And then they weren’t. Google Glass has mostly met a similar, whimpering fate.