89th Academy Awards: Google VR Film 'Pearl' May Win Oscar [Video]

• comments
• 
• 

For the first time ever, the 89^th Academy Awards has won an Oscar nomination for the virtual reality (VR) movie "Pearl". The 360-degree video is available on YouTube for everybody to see. Viewers can use Cardboard for iOS or the YouTube app on Android to pan around and view different landscapes as they see the movie. For a more elaborate experience, it is advisable to use HTV Vive that allows users to move around the car in which the entire movie is set.

The Oscar has announced "Pearl" as the first VR film to receive a nomination in the "Best Short Film - Animated" category for the 89^th Academy Awards. Made by 360 Google Spotlight, this short animated film is less than six minutes long. It follows an itinerant musician who travels around the country with his daughter in an old hatchback. The movie shows how the musician gets struggles between his passion for performing and his desire to provide a stable life for his daughter. As the daughter grows up, she inherits her father's love for music and adventure.

According to the 9to5Google, 360 Spotlight stories were a part of Project Ara that had been commenced by the Google Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP). Ara has been envisioned as a modular phone with six flexible shots. It contains all the flexibility of a smartphone and allows for upgrades, innovation, and style. The Google Spotlight Story series gained recognition with time and now, one of its stories "Pearl" is running for an Oscar at the 89^th Academy Awards.

Oscar nominee "Pearl" has been directed by Patrick Osborne. Osborne had also directed another Oscar nominee animated short film called "Feast". If this VR movie wins the Oscar, the 89^th Academy Awards will always be remembered in history to feature a movie offering an immersive experience.