Interstellar Cinematic VR Experience

Enter the awe-inspiring world of Christopher Nolan’s cinematic masterpiece Interstellar. Framestore VR Studio’s challenge was to create an unforgettable experience for Paramount Pictures, to be shown at SXSW, to excite and engage audiences leading up to the film’s premiere. The work needed to generate excitement around the film, without revealing the plot.

silhoutte of an astronaut holding a helmet walking on a planet

The Insight

Audiences want to be transported to a different world. By placing them in the pilot's seat, at the heart of the action, we use virtual reality to bring them closer to the story than they ever thought possible.

I was impressed with how the experience is able to put you in the cockpit of Interstellar’s spaceship, The Endurance. It was just like being back on set.

Christopher Nolan

Director, Interstellar

The Idea

We created a 4D virtual reality experience using the Oculus Rift to take fans deeper into the world of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Touring across the US at IMAX theaters fans were invited to climb on board The Endurance spaceship and explore in zero gravity as they began their space adventure.

The Innovation

Built entirely in the Unreal 4 game engine, our VR Studio painstakingly recreated The Endurance in CGI. Taking a team of 20 people two months to produce, delivering a truly world class sensory journey. The challenge of creating a complex cinematic ship in CG was intensified by our drive to bring fans into the film in way that had never been done before. It came down to really capturing zero gravity. We created custom rigged chairs to simulate weightlessness. By all accounts, this was an unparalleled success.

The spacecraft was so realistic that participants were unable to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds, often reaching out for floating objects within the virtual experience.

The Reaction

The Interstellar experience let viewers immerse themselves in a truly unforgettable journey through the solar system. For sci-fi fans this is the closest they will come to going into space without joining a SpaceX mission.

The experience was an unprecedented achievement with crowds of festival-goers lining up to give the virtual reality adventure a try. It generated millions of media impressions and social buzz around the movie, inspiring thousands of fans to go see it in theaters. This is an entertainment industry game-changer.