M+E Daily
Technicolor Jack Daniels Experience Shows VR Ad Potential
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It’s not just video games and Hollywood entertainment looking for an edge with virtual reality.
Technicolor-owned VFX house The Mill — which was acquired for nearly $294 million a year ago — recently produced a virtual reality piece for Jack Daniels, giving VR fans a 360-experience of America’s first registered distillery, showing everything from the Jack Daniels’ famed barrelhouse, to the hills of Lynchburg, Tenn., to the natural spring that flows from a cave on the distillery’s grounds.
And Technicolor and The Mill believe they’ve upped the ante on what VR can do with the Jack Daniels experience: The two minute-plus-long piece uses a new, mixed-time visual style, developed by The Mill for the “Jack Daniel’s VR Experience.” The style features moments that slow down and speed up in a cinematic ways that the company believes hasn’t been tried before in other VR experiences.
The Mill pointed to the style of cinemagraphs, where still photos are repeated slowly to mimic movement, similar to the way GIFs are created online. That combined with real-time elements in one shot gave the “Jack Daniels VR Experience” a new look.
“Placing the viewer at the center of a dreamlike, transportive film, we introduced a new language to VR in this experience: mixed time,” said Rama Allen, executive creative director for The Mill. “The use of an entirely new cinematic approach both provides a heightened sensory experience for the viewer, and mirrors the quality and craft that are both synonymous with Jack Daniels whiskey.”
The Mill provided all the VFX, production, color, editorial and design services for the VR experience, which can also be viewed as a simple 360 video on YouTube, and the VR experience will debut live at numerous concert venues this year and next.
