WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Virtual reality started for me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in sort of an unusual place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was the 1970s, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I got into the field very young, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was 7-years-old. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the tool that I used to access virtual reality 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was an Evel Knievel stunt cycle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is a commercial for that particular item: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Commercial: "What a jump! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Evel's riding the amazing stunt cycle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That jiro-power sends him over 100 feet at top speed." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So this was my joy back then. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I rode this motorcycle everywhere, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I was there with Evel Knievel: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we jumped the Snake River Canyon together. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I wanted the rocket, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I never got the rocket. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I only got the motorcycle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I felt so connected to this world, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I didn't want to be storyteller when I grew up, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I wanted to be stuntman. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was there, Evel Knievel was my friend, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I had so much empathy for him. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But, it didn't work out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I went to art school. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I started making music videos. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this is one of the early music videos that I made: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Music: "Before the day you die, you gon' touch the sky." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Chris Milk: You may notice some slight similarities here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I got that rocket. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, now I'm a filmmaker, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the beginning of a filmmaker, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I started using the tools that are available to me as a filmmaker 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to tell the most compelling stories that I can to an audience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And film is this incredible medium that allows us to feel empathy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for people that are very different than us 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and worlds completely foreign from our own. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Unfortunately, Evel Knievel didn't feel the same empathy for us 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we felt for him, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and he sued us for this video 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shortly thereafter. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On the upside, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the man that I worshiped as a child, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the man that I wanted to become as an adult, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was finally able to get his autograph. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Applause) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let's talk about film now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Film, it's an incredible medium, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but essentially, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's the same now as then. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a group of rectangles that are played in a sequence. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we've done incredible things with those rectangles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But, I started thinking about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is there a way that I can use modern and developing technologies 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to tell stories in different ways 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and tell different kinds of stories 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that maybe I couldn't tell using the traditional tools of filmmaking 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we've been using for 100 years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, I started experiementing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and what I was trying to do was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to build the ultimate empathy machine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And here's one of the early experiments: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Promo: "This is a Chrome Experiment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Arcade Fire: 'The Wilderness Downtown.' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Chris Milk: So this was called "The Wilderness Downtown", 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it was a collaboration with Arcade Fire 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to put in the address where you grew up at the beginning of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a website, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and out of it starts growing these little boxes with different browser windows. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And you see this teenager running down the street, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then you see Google Streetview and Google Maps imagery 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you realize that the street he's running down is yours. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when he stops in front of a house, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he's in front of your house. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this was great, and I saw people having an even deeper emotional reaction 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 than the things that I had made in rectangles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I'm essentially taking a piece of your history 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and putting it inside the framing of the story. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But then I started thinking, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Okay, well that's a part of you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How do I put all of you inside of the frame?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, to do that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I started making art installations. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is one called "The Treachery of Sanctuary." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm going to show you the third panel: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So now I've got you inside of the frame, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I saw people having even more visceral emotional reactions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to this work than the previous one. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But then I started thinking about frames, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and what do they represent. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And a frame is just a window. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, all the media that we watch 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -- television, cinema -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they're these windows into these other worlds. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I thought, "Well, great. I got you in a frame. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I don't want you in the frame, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't want you in a window, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I want you through the window, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I want you on the other side, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the world, inhabiting the world." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So that leads me back to virtual reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let's talk about virtual reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Unfortunately, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Talking about virtual reality 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is like dancing about architecture." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this is actually someone dancing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about architecture in virtual reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, it's difficult to explain. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Why is difficult to explain? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's because it's a very experiential medium. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You feel your way inside of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a machine, but inside of it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it feels like real-life, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it feels like truth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And you feel present in the world that you're inside 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you feel present with the people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that you're inside of it with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, I'm going to show you a demo of virtual reality film: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a full-screeen version of all the information 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we capture when we shoot virtual reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we're shooting in every direction. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is a camera system that we built 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that has 3D cameras that look at every direction 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and binaural microphones that face in very direction. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We take this and we build, basically, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a sphere of a world that you inhabit. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So what I'm going to show you is not a view into the world, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's basically the whole world stretched into a rectangle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So this film is called "Clouds over Sidra." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it was made in conjunction with our virtual reality company 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 called VRSE, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the United Nations, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and a co-collaborator named Gabo Arora. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we went to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and shot the story of a 12-year-old girl named Sidra. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And her and her family fled Syria through the desert into Jordan 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and she's been living in this camp for the last year and a half. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Video: "My name is Sidra, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I am 12-years-old. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I am in the fifth grade. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I am from Syria in the Daraa province in (?). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I have lived here in the Zaatari camp in Jordan 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the last year and a half. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I have a big family: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 three brothers, one is a baby. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He cries a lot. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I asked my father if I cried when I was a baby, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and he says I did not. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think I was a stronger baby than my brother." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Chris Milk: So, when you're inside of the headset, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're not seeing it like this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're looking around through this world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You'll notice you see a full 360 degrees in all directions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when you're sitting there in her room, watching her, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're not watching it through a television screen, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're not watching it through a window, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're sitting there with her. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you look down, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're sitting on the same ground that she's sitting on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And because of that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you feel her humanity in a deeper way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You empathize with her in a deeper way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that we can change minds with this machine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we've already started to try to change a few. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we took this film to the World Economic Forum 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in Davos in January. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we showed it to a group of people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whose decisions affect the lives of millions of people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And these are people who might not otherwise be sitting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in a tent in a refugee camp in Jordan. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But, in January, one afternoon in Switzerland, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they suddenly all found themselves there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Applause) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they were affected by it.