UNFEAR: The Journey
What if you could be the protagonist of your own story and learn a new, powerful insight with the power to improve yourself as a person and your life, all achieved through an entertaining, interactive VR experience? UNFEAR: The Journey is a highly immersive VR experience that allows the user to overcome fears, improve personality and abilities, change perspectives, and become a better self through personalized, interactive tales with a positive cathartic effect.
Interview with Writer Christopher Kühne
Congratulations! Why are you writing your VR experience?
Storytelling in general is a great way of impacting the world. When a character we emotionally connect with suffers a catharsis in a story, we suffer it with him/her as well, thus learning what he/she learns. Stories have the power to change, heal, and improve human beings – even more so when you can experience them in a fully immersive medium such as VR. The brain can’t differentiate between past or imaginary experiences and real ones. Once immersed in VR, although the user consciously knows the experience is not real, the brain actually believes it is. This opens the possibility of directly entering into and impacting the user’s psyche.
Now, if, for instance, films have the power to transform us just by sitting in a theatre or at home, imagine how much impact a fully immersive experience that becomes real to the brain can have. The possibilities are limitless. This is why I chose to write the concept I have as a VR project – because the nature of the experience precisely aims at helping the user overcome fears, improve physical and mental abilities and personality traits, as well as treating habits through highly immersive, interactive, and entertaining narratives experiences.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this VR film?
On the surface, this VR experience is pure entertainment where you get to complete interactive experiences with an engaging narrative by doing things you couldn’t do in the real world. At the core, you don’t only become the protagonist of a story tailored around you but you also achieve your very own character arc with a real, positive impact on your daily life.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
I’m a big advocate of the power of story, and, as such, I envisioned this project with the main purpose of providing the audience an outlet to experience the effects of story on a whole different level – one that transcends the screen and which makes you an active participant in the story.
The main theme is based on the relationship between stories and us as human beings in connection with the way stories can change the course of our lives and the world. The point here is that our lives are big yet small stories with a beginning, middle, and end encased in an infinite universe that follows the same pattern and repeats it in an eternal cycle. In a sense, an interactive tale in this VR experience allows you to experience the “story of the universe” in a small scale, through an entertaining narrative. The best part is that each tale is tailored around your psychological needs and demands so you can then apply the insights you learned about yourself to your life as a way of improving your view of the world. In the end, you learn that it´s not You vs. The World but You and the World as parts of a whole.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The idea came to me like bolt of thunder one night, when I was driving back home. I was thinking about the strange similarities between hypnosis and VR. Both of them immerse you in a trance where the brain is made to believe an idea is real. Tell a hypnotized patient that he’s standing in the middle of Antarctica wearing nothing but a swimsuit, and his body temperature will literally decrease, causing him to shiver. Immerse a person in a VR experience where she has to walk on a rope across an abyss, and she’ll actually feel afraid of the fall. It’s not magic – it´s the unexplored power of the brain. The unconscious mind acts based on what it knows through association.
Immediately after realizing this, there followed a thundering stream of thought that gave me a whole picture of the concept from beginning to end, where I merged principles of psychoanalysis with story structure and mythology to create an intimate yet universal experience.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The project has impacted people as an interesting mix of metaphysics, psychology, and narrative into a unique high concept that can be highly entertaining in addition to its depth and application. The principles at the core are somewhat complex and elaborate, which I had to dumb down for the audience to digest. Fortunately, the concept has significantly appealed to the people I have pitched it to.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
It did. As I mentioned above, the first challenge I had to address even before pitching it to anybody was to make the concept presentable and easy to understand. Although this posed a tough task since my full pitch document is 20 pages long, I remembered one of the best tips on writing, in my opinion: keep it simple. I took the essence of each topic at the core and presented it with a narrative experience in mind. The main observation I got during the initial stages of the project concerned the visuals and color palette. Luckily, there’s a video game franchise I love that’s a perfect visual reference both in style and tone.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
My objective with this project goes beyond profit and artistic cravings; I really want people to discover and experience the power that stories can have on us. It’s something that changed my life and perspective on literally everything, in the blink of an eye. It somewhat felt like the first time I went scuba diving but to a much higher degree, transcendental-like; you dive into seemingly peaceful and almost monochromatic waters only to find a whole world of color and life underneath, beyond your sight and comprehension, yet it’s there. And then, you understand. This is exactly what I want people to experience, and I believe this project provides just that – or at least close to it.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
I’m in talks with a producer who has access to the equipment and to potential investors looking to enter the VR industry. If I continue along this path, I would bring someone with considerable experience in the field onboard. However, as a second option, I’m considering reaching out to companies that particularly specialize in VR and new media to pitch the project to them. I want this to be done by the right people, in a way that best ensures its impact and scope. The advantage of approaching an already established VR production company is that they may already know distribution outlets and other important entities in the field.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I’m not primarily looking for the awards/recognition and/or profit with this one. I’m hoping the audience will find this experience as fruitful and insightful as stories have been to me. I hope it will expand people’s perspectives on the power of story, themselves, and the universe to give them a new way of enjoying and applying stories to their lives.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
What’s the real reason we consume stories?
Interview: December 2018
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
UNFEAR: The Journey
What if you could be the protagonist of your own story and learn a new, powerful insight with the power to improve yourself as a person and your life, all achieved through an entertaining, interactive VR experience? UNFEAR: The Journey is a highly immersive VR experience that allows the user to overcome fears, improve personality and abilities, change perspectives, and become a better self through personalized, interactive tales with a positive cathartic effect.
Length: 15-20 mins per scenario.
Producer: Dr. Kenneth Atchity
Writer: Christopher Kühne
About the writer, director and producer:
CHRISTOPHER KÜHNE (writer) is a storyteller, screenwriter, developer, and translator who fervently believes all stories come from one universal story -- the cycling journey of life in eternity. He began reading classic mythology and literature during his childhood with an ever-ardent fascination for the deeper meaning of stories and the secret wisdom contained in them. His brand focuses on converging concepts of highly commercial entertainment value with depth of story to find a balance that can both entertain and intimately connect with the audience successfully. This, he believes, is the formula for complete storytelling. He began working in development with producer Dr. Kenneth Atchity, and has collaborated with filmmakers such as Emilio Ruiz Barrachina and Jaime Carbajal.
DR. KENNETH ATCHITY (producer) is an author, producer, literary manager, professor, and editor. He and his companies, Atchity Entertainment, Atchity Productions, Writers Lifeline, and Story Merchant, have developed books, screenplays, and films for television and theatrical. His clients' books include nearly 20 New York Times bestsellers, including Jerry Blaine and Lisa McCubbin's The Kennedy Detail (Emmy-nominated Discovery documentary), Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin's Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Dacre Stoker's Dracula: The Un-Dead, Steve Alten's Meg (in production with Warner Brothers), James Michael Pratt's The Last Valentine (The Lost Valentine with Hallmark Hall of Fame), Jesse Ventura's I Ain't Got Time to Bleed. His own books include Brae Mackenzie: A Romance of Mythic Identity, The Messiah Matrix, A Writer's Time, Writing Treatments that Sell (with Chi-Li Wong), and Sell Your Story to Hollywood. He also co-owns and manages The Louisiana Wave Studio in Shreveport, LA, the only automatic wave-generating tank in North American. He has given countless webinars on all aspects of entertainment, notably Master Class in Achieving Your Dreams. He's a member of the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the PGA.
Looking for: Producers, VR/Production companies, Distributors, Filmmakers, Directors, Motion capture animators
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? TBA/Oculus Store, Google Play Store, PS VR