A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) launched ARR Immersive for Apple Vision Pro.
With over 150 million records sold and 170 industry awards including multiple Academy Awards and Grammy Awards, Rahman is excited about immersive experiences because of how they “demand your full presence in a way no other medium does.”
ARR Immersive offers original content blending music, dance and performance in formats including 360- and 180-degree experiences. More releases are currently in production for the app such as a “making-of” for a song from an Indian film called Peddi, live captures from his concerts, and also experiences tied to “carnivals”, “rituals” and “rare talents.” I’m looking forward to experiencing moments like these that we have not yet been able to visit through Apple Vision Pro videos. While the subjects will range, it is clear that the music will still be a key component of the content.
Clips from experiences included within ARR Immersive
Some of the app’s experiences are 360-degree video, but Rahman explains that his preference for immersive storytelling is for 180-degree experiences because “with 360, you're constantly wondering if you missed something, you keep looking behind you. But we only have 180-degree vision as humans, so it goes beyond us. 360 is beautiful for a place or a monument, something you want to look around. But for storytelling, 180 3D is where it's at.”
ARR Immersive launches with a small but diverse set of video experiences. The app is free to download but many of the experiences require individual purchases with different price points. The pricing is rather high given the length of each video and comparative pricing, and there is currently no discount for purchasing many of them which I hope is reconsidered as more content is added. The free experiences include live concert and dance videos as well as a few short 3D videos.
For Rahman, each video is special for a different reason. For example, Clair de Lune, Rachmaninoff, Für Elise (Kathak Piano Series): “...came from something unexpected. I found extraordinary young Western classical piano players from my conservatory, and we were celebrating my mother's birthday. I saw a Kathak dancer and a piano in the same room and thought: what if we put these together? We did a test shoot, and it was fascinating to see how these two worlds collide. Then we shot all three pieces in VR.” The Dance of Unity features Ambika Gomez interpreting the Bombay theme in a moving way. Several of the immersive videos available in the app which were completed in 2017 were part of his project Le Musk which premiered at Cannes XR in 2022. And, there is a Teaser and Trailer for the highly anticipated Indian film Ramayana available on the app for the first time ever in 3D, which includes some music from the upcoming feature film by the legendary composer Hans Zimmer and Rahman.
Rahman and team have been using a range of methods to create the experiences so far. He explains “We shoot on multiple different rigs simultaneously, usually four or five sets at once. We have a Panasonic rig we've assembled ourselves, shooting at 60 frames.. A Blackmagic VR camera… Canon and Sony VR lens cameras for cutaways, close details, fingers, things like that. We intercut and layer those together to get the full experience. When you have that many capture points running at once, you can create something that feels genuinely alive.”
