Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives John Bucher 9781138629660

Storytelling for Virtual Reality serves as a bridge between students of new media and professionals working between the emerging world of VR technology and the art form of classical storytelling. Rather than examining purely the technical, the text focuses on the narrative and how stories can best be structured, created, and then told in virtual immersive spaces. Author John Bucher examines the timeless principles of storytelling and how they are being applied, transformed, and transcended in Virtual Reality. Interviews, conversations, and case studies with both pioneers and innovators in VR storytelling are featured, including industry leaders at LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox, Oculus, Insomniac Games, and Google.

For more information about story, Virtual Reality, this book, and its author, please visit StorytellingforVR.com

John Bucher is an award-winning writer and narrative consultant based out of Los Angeles, California. He is a regular contributor to VirtualRealityPop.com, LA-Screenwriter.com, HBO.com, and MovieMaker Magazine. He co-hosts The Inside Out Story Podcast, The Westworld Watch Podcast, and currently teaches at the LA Film Studies Center, where he leads courses in Virtual Reality storytelling and filmmaking. A popular speaker, John has given talks on five continents regarding story, technology, and art. He is completing a PhD in mythology and depth psychology and is the author of several books including Master of the Cinematic Universe: The Secret Code For Writing in the New World of Media, Storytelling By the Numbers, and The Inside Out Story. He can be found on-line at his site, tellingabetterstory.com, and on social media @johnkbucher.

"Bucher has positioned his work as a mid-level survey of topics with the potential to revolutionize fiction and non-fiction storytelling. He surveys the complexities of POV where camera placement is ubiquitous, and where audiences are fully immersed and are, in effect, the directors of their own narrative journeys."

-Kim Walker, Ph.D., Full Professor of Digital Film and Media Arts, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

"A remarkable synthesis of cutting-edge VR practice and storytelling interwoven with ancient myth and philosophy for context and clarity, interviews crucial and illuminating, and finally, a pivotal, needed framework for future VR storytelling. Master teacher John Bucher gently guides the writer into unpacking her own rich and seamless VR script."

-Rebecca Ver Straten-McSparran, Director, LA Film Studies Center

"It's the kind of book that will inspire you to consider what might be possible in VR storytelling and the kind of mental unpacking and re-thinking that's required to transport our storytelling impulses into an entirely different realm of world building. (...) [The book] delivers a great combination of accessibly written academic-style theory and conversational insights which help to make the book more of a page turner than it might otherwise be. (...) this is an excellent and inspiring read for anyone looking to learn more about the emerging present and tantalising future of this new art form."

- Jonny Elwyn