Dena Wood: Out and About

When I decided to take my boys to Walla Walla's virtual reality theater, Maskerade, I had no intention of writing a column about it. It just sounded like a cool experience that we would all enjoy.

But after spending a few minutes talking with the theater's creator, Riley Clubb, I was pretty sure it was something that our readers would enjoy learning about, if not taking the time to visit themselves.

Maskerade touts itself as "the world's first virtual reality theater." Clubb said most people who experience virtual reality, do so alone. (He also said we need to come up with a better name for the experience than "virtual reality.")

Maskerade allows a group of people to share in the same virtual reality experience through synchronized headsets and earphones.

Clubb graduated from Wa-Hi in 2005, then graduated from Whitman, with a degree in rhetoric and film studies in 2009. He now attends MIT in Cambridge, Mass. where he is working on his master's degree in business.

Clubb said the virtual reality theater concept was born in an MIT class for students who were interested in starting a business. It was presented as a possible summer business experience, and Clubb ran with the idea.

He rented upstairs space at 26 E. Main and set up his "theater" of twelve comfy swivel chairs, goggles, and headsets. When we arrived, Clubb sat down and chatted with us about what to expect. After I hijacked the presentation and turned it into an interview, he shared a bit about his experience with the business so far.

Clubb opened the theater on July 1 and said he's decided to move away from the theater setting and focus more on private (group) showings. He said he's realized that people are less likely to talk to one another when they're in groups of people they don't know and will relax and have more fun in a group of friends.

After experiencing the VR theater, I understood exactly what he meant. Being able to talk to one another during the show is one of the best parts. More about that later.

Before we sat down, Clubb took us to a large wall where the "very first moving picture" was being played repeatedly. Clubb explained that the French film, Arrival of a Train at a Station, by the Lumière brothers, caused quite a stir when it was first shown in 1896. The film is just a few seconds long and shows (go figure!) a train arriving at a station.

"Even though it's black and white, and grainy and choppy, the audience was panicked and thought the train was really going to come out of the screen at them," Clubb said. "I like to show it as an example of the very first 'virtual reality' experience."

Clubb explained that the movies we'd be seeing were made with six GoPro cameras all filming different views of the same scene. They were then edited to create one 360 degree video.

Once we were seated and attired with goggles and headsets, our virtual reality experience began.

I really wasn't sure what to expect, and thought it might be something like a 3-D movie. It wasn't. The best way I can describe it is to say that you are in the middle of a movie that is taking place all around you – all sides, above, and below.

As a character walked by me and glanced up, I looked up also, to see a huge statue towering above me. During a gunfight, I found myself smack dab in the middle of the shooters, having to swivel back and forth to keep up with the action on either side of me.

"Have you looked down?" I hear one son say.

"Yikes! I hadn't. And no thanks for pointing that out!" I replied, as I looked to see the ground far, far below me in one of the Around the World scenes.

"Cool!" I hear one of the boys say as we plunge to earth in a parachute dive during a scene in the Burning Man documentary.

And I hear the boys laugh as I'm the only one who screams (and nearly tips my chair over) as a boogie man reaches out to grab me in The Conjuring 2 clip.

Did we have fun? Absolutely! And it's not every day that all three of us agree on what constitutes a good time.

Our 30-minute experience consisted of three shorts and one 10-minute feature. My favorite was the Around the World video. We also saw a Galvanized Souls rock video (with the shootout), a clip from The Conjuring 2, and the feature, which was a Burning Man documentary.

Clubb says the theater will run through mid-August when he will return to MIT. Tickets cost $8-$12 and can be purchased at http://www.themaskerade.com/tickets. You can learn more, or contact Clubb directly, via Facebook at Maskerade Walla Walla.