I Watched Citizen Kane in VR
I've never been more sweaty after watching an 80 year old film. After I was done, it took a moment to remember what I was doing and where I was. It genuinely threw me for a massive loop to use our household's new communal VR headset to set up a virtual screen that filled my entire field of vision with what many people say is the Citizen Kane of films: Citizen Kane.
Today's adventure was only my second experience with VR in any capacity—the first was in 2018 at Midwest Furfest's game room. I played Beat Saber and had a miserable time. I couldn't stop thinking about how many strangers had put their faces in there already that weekend and the headset pinched my glasses. Once I also started getting a bit queasy after about 20 minutes, I had officially written off VR entirely. Hadn't really considered it to be an option for entertainment again until my roommate and girlfriend got very into the idea of having a headset for the three of us to use for whatever we wanted. VRChat and gaming were the two main draws for them. I figured, well, okay I guess I could give it another shot. We got it the other day to treat ourselves after a really miserable, um, year. It was my turn to use it today and I thought "Maybe I'll try something stationary, something I know I'll enjoy. Something like... watching a movie... But which one? Something visually compelling, something I've seen before so I can compare the experience to traditional viewing methods, something with Rosebud in it...". I could really only think of the one.
For anyone reading this who has not seen Citizen Kane: please, leave this tab open and click away to your nearest torrent site. Get the highest quality rip you can find, 4K UHD ideally. Throw it on the biggest screen you can find. This blog post will be here when you come back in 2 hours. Enjoy!
...
Hey, welcome back. It really is that good, I know! What a story! I'm glad you found the biggest screen possible, too. With everything in every shot in such deep focus, you want it to envelope you. At least, that's how I feel. That's why I blew up my virtual screen to as big as it could go without introducing artifacts in the video stream. It was like my own personal IMAX. I thought this would be a real laugh and a half but I actually got kind of awestruck by how well this effect was working. It really did kinda look like I had a giant projection floating in my room, dimming the lights around me as if the headset turned down the sun. I thought the gimmick would grow old quickly before I pressed play, but as soon as I saw the Criterion logo spin up and threaten to swallow me whole, I knew this actually was going to slap.
It looked like this... kinda.
(...Hm.)
Yeah, so for whatever reason, the screenshots I took with the headset (I'm not naming the brand because I'm slightly embarrassed to own it and have to see the logo every time upon bootup lol) turned out a little dinky. Not quite the massive, towering screen that felt like it was physically looming over me. But like... imagine if the screenshots I have were awesome. That's what it was like.
(Put your face really close to the screen, it was sort of like that.)
At one point, I had accidentally changed the projection mode. I was watching a 2D thing projected as a simple plane, but you could also switch it to VR 180 mode. If you have a 180 degree VR video, that's a great mode. If you're watching Citizen Kane and you don't know how you made it go through an infinite vertical time tunnel, it's a bit disorienting.
(smoking on that shit that turned Kane into a citizen)
It was smooth sailing from there once I got that fixed. I love this fucking movie, and it gets better with every rewatch. The VR gimmick I had gone into the movie with got forgotten fairly quickly and I got lost within the deep deep focus. Leaving the virtual theater was very strange because of how hard I fell for this digital place. I sat there on my bed squinting for a minute, thinking about how I wanted to turn the sun down again. Right now as I type this blog post, the sun just set and I keep thinking it's because of the headset. My brain got used to that shit way too quickly lol.
I'm actually slightly annoyed at how much I enjoyed it all? It feels like I'm letting the techies win me over if I admit that this VR stuff is actually pretty neat and not a terrible way to watch a film (it's a million times better than how a lot of people watch them these days, at least). The Metaverse will never be a thing though, they still haven't gotten me there. Nice try, nerds!!! I'll play with your toys but I'll NEVER think you're all that clever for making them!!! HAHAHAHAHA
(a post-post addendum)
(P.S.: Shout out to Sonny Bupp)
Nicky Flowers - 10/13/24 - I'm serious, go watch Citizen Kane if you didn't do so in the middle of the post! (send any comments/questions to hello at nickyflowers dot com)