VISUAL PARADIGM COMMUNITY EDITION PRO
Marketing for Apple's Vision Pro (and, to be fair, most other AR headsets), depicts a lot of scenes from outside of the user’s field of view.
Add to that that technological feasibility isn’t a determining factor in fiction, and it would seem that AR isn’t quite ready for Hollywood… Or is it? So why isn’t sci-fi loaded with Augmented Reality? Well, for one thing, it’s quite difficult for a camera to see what’s happening within a headset. In 2015 when revealing their AR product, Microsoft depended on the fictional concept of the sci-fi hologram rather than name their device “Microsoft Augmento Reali-Lens.” AR today can already genuinely create “holographic-like” effects. We will likely have ubiquitous AR or some kind of shared spatial ecosystem long before we have useful light-projected holograms. While infinitely useful for displaying plot points and context in film, the cinematic hologram won’t be real anytime soon. They associate it with its history-blue holograms are from the future, or harnessed by the most technologically savvy. The moment it is on-screen, the audience accepts this concept. The imperfections ground the concepts and make the implausible more plausible.Īnd while you could describe the glowing blue hologram pejoratively as a trope, its tropey-ness is of tremendous value to filmmakers and screenwriters. This is also why this fictional tech is often loaded with glitches, flickers, and static. This is why a lot of past future-visions have obvious hallmarks of the period in which they were created (like a Buck Rogers supercomputer with reel-to-reel tape). If some part of it is familiar, other parts can be more extreme. Since 1977 the greater film-going audience has come to accept that glowing blue projections are a technological paradigm.įamiliarity is a powerful tool, increasing comprehension of radical concepts. The design was clever and well executed within the film, but the film's legacy and cultural impact has made that image persistent, and familiar. This element blended the visual language of an analog film projector’s beam of light, with static and flicker seen in cathode ray televisions. Created in 1977, this was the first truly iconic hologram seen on film. I typically point to Star Wars' hologram of Princess Leia: "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope…".
So in fiction, where advanced technology could be anything, why is it almost always glowing blue shit? This is not something we experience in our present reality. Holograms, as depicted on film, do not exist. It’s a paradigm so familiar, we can imagine it with our eyes closed. The glowing blue hologram is now ubiquitous across the film landscape: sci-fi or espionage, distant future or present-day, Marvel or DC. And because it is holographic technology, it looks just like the other holograms-it’s glowing blue. The hologram rises out of the conference table, or a wristwatch, or just fills the entire room. Do they hand out print-outs, fire up a 4K projector, or share a Google doc? No. A highly-trained operative in the inner sanctum of a slick HQ is about to debrief the main characters (and you, the viewer). You watch the latest blockbuster, and you see a familiar, almost comforting sight. John LePore (JL) is a creative consultant designing the future for film, technology and automotive.
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