Virtual Reality porn is not like normal porn (obviously). So, porn companies now have to think a little differently about how they shoot footage. (NSFW warning!)
Wired recently spoke to Kink.com about how they shooting VR porn, and it’s a fascinating watch:
The video goes into more detail about the differences between normal porn and virtual reality porn, but broadly speaking:
- VR porn has fewer cuts, because the idea is to make it look realistic—and actual sex doesn’t really come with all sorts of different viewpoints and angles. It’s all first-person.
- Performers have to stand back a lot in VR porn, so that the camera gets a better view. The women in the video say that holding positions is more difficult because of this.
- Performers say VR brings a new level of vulnerability, because it’s much harder to hide flaws when a viewer potentially has a 360 degree view.
- Here’s the the camera they use to shoot VR porn. Really, it’s seven GoPro cameras bundled into a single rig. They weave all the footage together in post production.
- Once the footage is captured, a program maps the clips onto a dome, which is how one can then look around on a VR headset.
Mashable dives even deeper into a lot of these issues in a piece titled “Virtual reality porn is here,” and it’s also worth a read. Here’s the author, Chelsea Stark, on the difficulties of filming certain positions while in VR:
Videos that focus on point-of-view experience also suffer from position restriction; you can’t perform a lot of popular sex acts, because doing so might give you motion sickness. If the camera is moving in VR, but your head is standing still, the effect on the inner ear is pretty much instant nausea. In practical porn terms, that means “goodbye, doggie style.”
And here’s a performer’s take on filming VR porn:
“Filming a scene for VR is a lot more physically challenging because the male performer can’t really move, so most of the performance is up to me. It can also feel a bit awkward at times because he can’t talk, so it’s like I’m talking dirty to myself,” she said. “The male performer can’t say anything back to me or say anything at all. I’d say it just feels a little unnatural.”
Sounds kind of uncomfortable, yeah? But, the performer says the end product is worth it, so there you go.