A crew of four storytellers, wildlife enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and tech innovators are risking life and equipment to tell the story of the world’s biggest mammal migration like you’ve never experienced it: in virtual reality.

VR is the year’s biggest tech buzz-word, and for good reason.

This new video format allows viewers to be a participant in a scene with the ability to look all around. However, the format has rarely been used to capture a story which, were it experienced in person, would mean certain death. Until now.

Deep VR, a South African cinematic virtual reality studio, is heading to Kenya to film the Great Migration in early August.

Earning its place on the Seven Natural Wonders of the World list, the migration sees three million wildebeest and nearly a million gazelle and zebra grit through a multi-country trek for food. The content will be used to create a short-form, narrated wildlife documentary called ‘Exodus: The Great Migration’.

“Our goal is to forever change how people experience wildlife through technology”, notes Ulrico Grech-Cumbo, co-founder of Deep VR. “The wildlife documentaries we all love and have grown up with have always been filmed from the relative safety of a vehicle and as such, kept viewers separated too. With the advent of VR, the frame of your TV falls away and you’re teleported to the thick of the action.”

This type of shoot poses many technical challenges.

For one, to capture the stampede from the point of view of its constituents, an unmanned, 360-degree camera rig has to be placed inside it.

“We have developed a payload drone designed to pick our cameras up and drop them into the stampede”, explains Telmo dos Reis, fellow co-founder.

Other innovations include stampede-proof “black box” cameras designed by the team, and remote triggers that increase the triggering distance from 5 meters to over 2 kilometers.

wildebeest great migration kenya

All of this development comes at a tremendous cost.

Deep VR is self-funding the entire expedition and has just launched an Indiegogo campaign to further increase its production budget. This crowd-funded budget will be used to build more cameras, maximising the capture of awe-inspiring shots. Deep VR is calling on the public to get involved in the project in exchange for rewards.

Visit their website to see a list of perks and to support storytelling history in the making.

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About the Author

Brent Lindeque is the founder and editor in charge at Good Things Guy.

Recognised as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South African’s as well as a Primedia LeadSA Hero, Brent is a change maker, thought leader, radio host, foodie, vlogger, writer and all round good guy.

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