'Submerged' Plunges Us Into a Possible Spatial Movie Future
"Gentlemen, you had my curiosity, now you have my attention." The Calvin Candie quote from Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained probably best summarizes my thoughts upon watching Submerged – the first scripted content shot specifically for Apple's Vision Pro. It's short – 17 minutes – but it's super interesting. Perhaps more so in what it points to for the platform.
In many ways, I should be the least surprised about this. Back in February, shortly after I received my Vision Pro, the angle I chose to take in my review of the product was, to me, obvious: Behold: The Apple Television. While Apple had been playing up the device as a new paradigm for all of computing, I thought this was a mistake. They needed to focus on one or two things it was truly great at – and one of those things, again, was quite obvious. As I wrote at the time:
If you haven't used it yet, it really is hard to describe just how good content-viewing is on the Vision Pro. This is true for television shows, for Hollywood movies, for 2D content, for 3D content, for Apple-created experiences, for viewing your own images and videos, for viewing panoramic photos, and for spatial videos. They're all varying degrees of "holy shit" but they're all amazing in their own way.
I've spent the past few weeks watching the new Apple TV+ show Masters of the Air on (in?) the Vision Pro. It's amazing to behold. It feels far more grandiose and cinematic than it does on my (previously very impressive) 70" OLED TV. As someone who watches a lot of sports, relatively late at night – sometimes very late at night – by myself, this device was more or less built for that. Even before the content itself was built for it. Which is coming. Fast. The only real question is how fast the other leagues get on board. That Apple/MLS deal... smarter by the day.
More impressive still is Dune – in 3D. Aside from the original Avatar experience all those years ago, I've more or less hated the forced resurgence of 3D movies. But they work well in Vision Pro. Because they're less "3D" and more "visually immersive". Watching Dune in IMAX a few years back was the most impressive theatrical experience I can recall seeing. DO NOT TELL DENIS VILLENEUVE I'M SAYING THIS, but Dune in Vision Pro might be better. Certainly some aspects are better, if not exactly the aspect ratio. But you start the film and you are completely and utterly immersed. Certain scenes play as if you're lost in them, rather than watching them. Again, it's something that's hard to describe, but after the novelty of the device itself wears off, and you let yourself go, you truly feel one with the movie. Like you're breathing in it. The spice!
It's better than the vast majority of movie theaters you will go to. Maybe not the best IMAX theaters, but certainly the average theater.
And what's wild is that this cinematic content is not nearly as visually immersive as the actually immersive content which Apple shot (with special cameras) specifically for the device.
Even just the bits of content which Apple has ready on day one are truly incredible. Something not only better than on a regular television or cinema, but not even *possible* on those screens. Apple needs to be working as quickly as possible to ship more of these experiences at a regular cadence. And to break beyond the short ones included with the device (which really do just ultimately feel like demos of what's possible). I want a full movie presented this way. An entire sporting event. A full album recording session.
The problem was and has remained that there's not nearly enough content for the device. Sure, you can watch anything on the Vision Pro, but the truly amazing experience comes from 3D content – or really, Apple Immersive content. Again Submerged is the first scripted, Hollywood-style endeavor. And Apple could not have picked a hotter director at the moment to create it: Edward Berger is not only coming off of an Oscar win for All Quiet on the Western Front, he's also rumored to be in the running to direct both Ocean's 14 – coming back after a 17 year+ hiatus – and perhaps even the next James Bond film.
He talks about the process for creating Submerged in a video released alongside the short film. And while clearly he's going to say the right things to help promote his content and Apple, having now watched the movie twice, I do feel like it's potentially a new chapter in the art form.
If the whole idea of a movie is to create a narrative and experience in which you can be lost, this Apple Immersive content actually makes that a technical reality. Your peripheral vision is taken out by the device and characters dance in front of you in a way that feels eerily real. It's not 3D as you've known it, it feels far more dimensional than that. And it sort of lingers in your head after it's over, like an actual memory. So there's that!
In some ways, this is too jarring. At times it's simply like you're watching something unfold from your point of view, even though you're never a character that's acknowledged in the film. Other times it's almost like you're watching a home movie rather than a giant, cinematic production. It feels too close, too real. It's both a good thing but also a bad thing, in ways. That's probably not helped by the fact that this movie is set in a 1940s-era submarine. You'd expect everything to look a bit grittier on film, but in Vision Pro, it looks... well, perhaps like how it would look if you were there. In the 1940s. In a submarine. We're not used to that!
Another element that takes some getting used to are the cuts. This also came up during some of the sports content Apple has released in the format. While part of it was that Apple was simply using too many cuts, the reality is that in this format, it's so immersive, that any cuts are far more jarring than they are in a regular movie or show or sporting event. This is exacerbated because you can actually look around the scene in ways that weren't possible before. So if you're looking to the side and then it suddenly cuts, it's even more jarring.
Speaking of, while you don't have full 360-degree field of view, of course, this extra dimensional POV is something filmmakers are going to both have to think about and have fun with. You better make extra sure all those extras are doing what they're supposed to be doing now! You never know who might be focusing in on them...
On the opposite end of the spectrum, because the device cuts off your peripheral vision, you feel a bit like you're watching the content through a periscope. Fitting for a movie set in a submarine! But still new and different. Not bad, but it takes some getting used to – especially because, again, you can also look around.
I also have to imagine it was intentional to make the first film about a submarine to naturally leverage that claustrophobic feeling here... Also, tracking shots coming down those narrow halls... very cool.
I guess my main takeaway from this first attempt at a Spatial/Immersive movie is that there's a lot that filmmakers are going to have to learn, unlearn, and/or re-learn to nail this format. Submerged is a great first stab at it, but you can definitely see ways it can be improved as a creative team settles in to the format and tries new things. I wrote about this notion back in that February post:
One other thought: will this new canvas lead to the creation of a new type of content that's different from television or film, or does it extend those concepts? Sort of in the way IMAX has been able to allow certain filmmakers to create even larger and more immersive cinema experiences, Vision Pro can do that to a new degree. That's why I've been genuinely curious what noted IMAX auteurs (and smartphone/streaming/etc haters) think about this device. The aforementioned Villeneuve and of course, Christopher Nolan. My guess is that their gut reaction will be to hate it. Perhaps less because it's from "big tech" but more because it removes the communal element of cinema.
I understand that. But I also think it's a mistake to think we shouldn't and can't have both. Cinema has evolved as an art form many times over the past century. There's no reason why this can't be another step.
I feel more strongly about this now post-Submerged. Just trying to make a "regular" Hollywood movie in this new format is probably a mistake. This is a new format that requires new techniques and perhaps even new methods of story-telling. This is very different from simply shooting in "3D" (a format which also works surprisingly well on the Vision Pro, as noted – I actually just wish there were more movies still shot this way now!). IMAX is perhaps a bit closer given the need for those giant (and loud!) cameras and the filmmaker's knowledge of the expanded scope and field of view. But Apple Immersive is just a whole new format.
To that end, does it make sense to watch a two-hour-plus bit of content in this format? I'm not sure. It might be too much? 17-minutes was intense! But part of that was the content itself, which beyond the claustrophobic element also delved a bit into horror (WHO IS IN THE KITCHEN?!) and terror – the shots where you are taken underwater are something else... Perhaps we should aim for a nice 90-minute feature first and see how that goes? Otherwise, maybe a return to intermissions is in order?
A lot of other questions remain: is this always going to be a solo-viewing experience, or can Apple crack the social viewing nut? The inconvenience problem. Will the Vision Pro ever get to a scale where that's even possible? It seems likely it will require a 'Vision' – a more mainstream, scaled device. But what does that mean for the actual format here? What about future viewing angles, etc...
Anyway, great work on this Apple and the entire creative team behind Submerged. I'll end with another movie quote, this time from Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi. "MORE! MORE!! MORE!!!"