The New York Times Co. | Wired
On Monday, The New York Times offered a view of a virtual reality experiment, according to a press release from The New York Times Co. The virtual reality film, “Walking New York,” focuses on the artist who created the art for the most recent cover of The New York Times Magazine.
The virtual reality film, titled “Walking New York,” takes viewers through the making of the Magazine’s cover, for which JR took a photo of a recent immigrant to New York and pasted a 150-foot-tall version of the portrait on the Flatiron Plaza in Manhattan. The final cover photograph is a shot of the portrait taken from a helicopter above the city. The film, narrated by JR, lets viewers experience every aspect of the process, from the initial photo shoot on the street, to the studio work, to the pasting, to the helicopter ride.
On Monday, Angela Watercutter reported on the Times’ virtual reality experiment for Wired.
In the last two years, VR has been touted as the future of a lot of things: videogames, filmmaking, gender-swapping. Now, the Times Magazine is showing what it can do for journalism. It’s a small step, sure, but Silverstein says it’s also a test case for what’s possible when it comes to actually bringing people into news stories. “We’ve been excited to try to figure that out,” he adds. “You can imagine the ways in which VR can really amplify some of the work we do—particularly with international reporting.”
Last September, Adam Hochberg wrote for Poynter about Gannett’s experimentation with virtual reality. Virtual reality journalism was a topic at this year’s South by Southwest, and last November, Erin Polgreen wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review about where virtual reality could take journalism.
Here’s a timelapse video showing how JR created the art for the cover:
