Rahman's multi-sensory VR debut film 'Le Musk' has its world premiere at Cannes
New Delhi, May 17: Music maestro A.R. Rahman donned his debutant director's hat, premiering his virtual reality film, "Le Musk", at the Cannes Film Market's Cannes XR programme, which focuses on cinematographic content that uses immersive technologies.
Taking to Instagram, the 'Mozart of Madras' shared a picture of people wearing AR/VR headsets watching the film sitting in their immersive VR chairs designed by the Los Angeles-based company Positron. The chairs integrate motion, scent, immersive sound and haptics, or technology that creates the experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations or motions to the user.
Soon after Rahman shared the post, two-time Grammy winner Ricky Kej reacted with the comment: "Oh wowwww ... need to find this place asap!"
Reporting on the 36-minute film shot in Rome, 'Variety' had said that it is billed as "a cinematic sensory experience incorporating virtual reality, with motion, music and scent integrated into the narrative".
It follows the heiress and musician Juliet Merdinian (played by Nora Arnezeder, previously seen in "Army of the Dead"), who, 20 years since she was orphaned, "seeks out the men who changed her destiny with one powerful memory -- that of their scent". The film's cast also includes Guy Burnet ("Oppenheimer"), Munirih Grace ("Pure"), and Mariam Zohrabyan.
Rahman developed the story from an original idea by his wife Saira. "They share a love for perfume and wished to employ scent as a narrative device in immersive cinema," 'Variety' had reported. Rahman directed from a screenplay by Gurachi Phoenix, besides composing the score.
"Le Musk", according to 'Variety', features inter-disciplinary expertise coming together from around the world. "It was shot on 14 different cameras capturing super-resolution quality video. Post-produced in stereoscopic 360 VR workflow at higher resolution and frame rate, 'Le Musk' was finished by 10 VFX houses from around the world with close to a petabyte of data."
One petabyte is the equivalent of one quadrillion bytes, or one million gigabytes.