Virtual reality studio Start VR has signed Jake McDorman and Analeigh Tipton to star in its interactive cinematic VR film “Awake,” Variety has learned exclusively.
Start VR’s chief content officer Martin Taylor is the creative lead and director. Financial partners include Screen Australia and HTC Vive. The project will be co-produced with animation and VFX studio Animal Logic, with creative collaborators that include Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios, Mike Jones, and Christian Cantamessa.
McDorman will play a misjudged man with a mysterious past and unique insight into the unseen worlds that exist around him. Tipton will play his wife and the love of his life at the center of his favorite memories. The fictional series is aimed at showing how cinematic stories can be told through unique virtual immersion and interactivity.
Through spatial narrative, dreamworld encounters, clue-hunting, and object interaction, viewers bear witness to a broken man’s harrowed past, somber present, and unforeseen future. The audience will take on his rare ability to escape into his dream world, relive key memories as the best version of himself, and try to solve the mind-boggling mystery behind his life’s mission.
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“Awake” is slated to launch early 2018 and will be available for the HTC Vive and other headsets following its debut, including Microsoft’s Mixed Reality headset.
McDorman’s credits include “Lady Bird,” “Limitless,” “American Sniper,” and “Shameless.” Tipton’s credits include “Crazy Stupid Love” and “Lucy.”
