Technology is advancing at rather unsettling rates, with AI (or even just word prediction software) becoming a legitimate threat to people’s livelihoods in a variety of institutions. Something that hasn’t been touched on as much, however, is the implications of AI and virtual reality like ‘the Metaverse’ on actual human relationships. How will it affect romance, dating, marriage, adultery, and morality itself? Is it cheating if you have sex with someone in virtual reality, or is that just a form of pornography? Can you fall in love virtually?
Love Virtually is a new indie film which explores some of these themes within the context of a lo-fi rom-com. The film stars Cheri Oteri, Paul F. Tompkins, Peter Gilroy, Ryan O’Flanagan, Adam Ray, Nikki Howard, Tom Virtue, Paige Mobley, Vincent Washington, Ksenia Valenti, Harper Frawley, L.E. Staiman, and Stephen Tobolowsky. The synopsis reads as follows:
“In a world where the Metaverse has become widely adopted, four couples go to ridiculous lengths to find true love in a virtual world. Love Virtually is a retro-future satirical rom-com for the Metaverse era, blending live action and 3D animation as it explores and exposes the absurd reality of our world and where we are heading, while probing life’s deepest questions such as: How does a celebrity find someone who loves them for their true selves? Is it cheating if it’s in VR? Is it cheating if it’s with an AI?”
You can watch the official trailer and learn about the lengthy and impressive indie backstory of the film below:
Love Virtually “Should Never Have Been Made”
Love Virtually is yet another cinematic product of the COVID pandemic, a time when smaller crews and casts were needed to make smaller films. Some of the best movies from this period include Host, Windfall, In the Earth, and Language Lessons. Love Virtually was filmed during the pandemic, but its DIY virtual reality animation resulted in two whole years of post-production. The film is now finally being released after a lot of passionate work from a small team. L.E. Staiman described the lo-fi production in a charming director’s statement:
“Love Virtually is a movie that, for all practical purposes, should have never been made. It was way too ambitious, and executing the concept required technical skills that neither I nor my filmmaking partner, Cheston Mizel, possessed.
“In April 2020, just weeks after the pandemic started, I found myself frustrated at my parents’ house in Florida after deciding to abandon my post in L.A. to ride out what might be the end of the world. I was a single, struggling filmmaker, scraping by shooting low-budget commercials, music videos, and bar mitzvahs […]
We were both itching for something creative to do to distract us from the potential end of civilization as we knew it, so we started throwing around ridiculous movie concepts over the phone.
“The original idea was to shoot it all over Zoom, with actors filming on their iPhones and the big culmination would take place at one of those short-lived 2020 Zoom parties. That was enough to get the ball rolling, and we quickly outlined and wrote an absolutely absurd script about four couples trying to navigate their ridiculous relationships in the digital age. The problem was, as we wrote, we got more and more ambitious and the Zoom party quickly turned into a VR nightclub. All of a sudden, half of our movie would require expensive and complicated animation. And like the idealist idiots we were, as soon as we had a first draft of the movie, we forged ahead with an ultra-low budget […]
“This undertaking should have scared the hell out of me, but I don’t think I actually believed the movie was going to happen. Somehow though, things kept moving forward […] After several weeks and little success in finding a legitimate animation house willing to do the job for what we were willing to pay, Cheston decided to purchase a couple of MoCap suits to animate the film himself.”
It was probably one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard in my life. But with the shooting date looming, we were out of options. I held my breath and prayed for the best.
“It took us nearly two years in post-production. I edited the film on my laptop and sent scenes back and forth to our one VFX artist who did more than 600 VFX shots by himself […] And so, here’s to the film that should have never been made and the two know-nothing nobodies from nowheresville dumb enough to try the impossible and somehow fortunate enough to actually pull it off.”
You can see the result of all that work when Love Virtually releases on digital and on demand November 7, 2023.
This news is republished from another source.
