You’ll soon be able to send messages to Mars and climb Mount Everest in LIFE VR’s next virtual reality pieces expected to launch in 2017, managing editor of LIFE VR Mia Tramz announced Friday.
LIFE VR is a multi-platform virtual reality brand that brings to life the content of 25 brands under Time Inc. including People, Time, Sports Illustrated and InStyle.
“When we launch pieces, we launch them across all of our networks,” Tramz said during a panel at the VR On the Lot two-day event at Paramount Studios.
In the next few months, Time Inc. along with partner 8i, will bring “Buzz Aldrin’s Message to Mars” to LIFE VR’s audience. The project, which showcases holographic messages recorded by former astronaut Buzz Aldrin and musician Reggie Watts, is meant for future Mars astronauts to ease their loneliness after spending time isolated on a rocket ship.
The messages will also feature Aldrin talking about his own experiences space traveling and his vision for sending humans to Mars.
“We wanted to enter into the market with something meaningful, we didn’t want to just do VR for VR’s sake and we have these brands that have a legacy and a history,” explained Tramz. “I can’t let that go to waste.”
LIFE VR is also launching “Lumen,” which works to de-stress you in less than 5 minutes, according to Tramz.
“I really was fascinated in delivering something to our readers that would help them better their lives,” said Tramz of the interactive experience, which takes viewers on a journey into a bio luminescent forest where they’re able to control the life cycle that surrounds them.
Continued Tramz: “Certainly our brands are known for delivering news and entertainment, but we’ve also historically given you tools to lead a better life and this certainly speaks to that.”
And if you can’t jet set to Nepal, Sports Illustrated has you covered. Sports Illustrated will debut the first-ever complete virtual reality climb of Mount Everest, which will be available on SI.com in 360-degree video and on the LIFE VR platform.
Along with Time Inc.’s LIFE VR, other companies are also taking on virtual reality. Sony Music announced a new way to experience music with the virtual reality debut of Kygo’s hit “Carry Me.”
Next month, Google is set to release their new VR headset, Daydream View, which will feature apps and games like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them based off the book written by J.K. Rowling.
For Fifty Shades of Grey fans, director James Foley is even bringing the film’s latest installment, Fifty Shades Darker, to virtual reality as well.
“Yeah, there’s marketing material that’s been done for … behind-the-scenes [of Fifty Shades Darker], where after we finished some principal scenes, shooting for the day, the actors would stay over and the VR people would come in and kind of re-create a facsimile of the scene … which was very eye-opening,” Foley said during a VR On the Lot Q&A on Thursday.
He added: “My own personal instinct is that cinema is just going to move to VR because it’s an expansion of the visual language. For myself, watching the material that they generated in the behind-the-scenes, re-creation of the scenes, it just kind of expanded my brain.”
