As a part of Horror Week 2025, we sat down with a bunch of gifted filmmakers to debate the way forward for horror filmmaking and the way the rise of immersive video may make frights and leap scares extra terrifying than ever earlier than.
Powered by the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive digital camera, and set to be seen in Apple Immersive Video on Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional headsets, we mentioned the horror filmmaking prospects unlocked by this 180-degree, 3D 8K recording format and what this new know-how may do for pressure, frights, and—sure—even leap scares.
The Consensus on the Immersive Format
Credit score: Blackmagic Design
NFS: Due to everybody for becoming a member of this dialogue! How does everybody really feel in regards to the new immersive format for filmmaking?
I feel it’s unimaginable. Immersive filmmaking creates a complete new solution to expertise tales, particularly for horror, the place pressure and perspective matter a lot. It seems like stepping instantly right into a filmmaker’s creativeness. — Raymond Mendez (Producer, Don’t Ignore Me)
3D, in recent times, has change into a publish instrument and the realm of VFX. I’m excited to see what the brand new URSA Cine Immersive digital camera and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional can ship. — Judd Overton (DP, Completely Killer)
Immersive filmmaking is actually thrilling. It’s also its personal artwork type that performs by its personal algorithm. You’re giving your viewers much more company, so it’s good to suppose extra about guiding the viewers’ eyes by way of blocking, motion, and different storytelling parts. It’s not simple, however an excellent immersive expertise is really unforgettable. — Andrew Scott Baird (DP, Shelby Oaks)
Immersive Cinema is an thrilling new frontier, and it is excellent for terrifying and thrilling content material. Nothing can match the sensation of being immersed in a horror movie. I’ve liked watching horror motion pictures in darkish film theaters since I used to be a child, however the immersive expertise is a lot extra intense! Think about being within the Nostromo proper subsequent to Ripley in Alien. The encompass sound audio and 360 views contribute to a robust all all-encompassing thrill journey. At the same time as a filmmaker who loves the craft and tips of filmmaking, I discover myself leaping when scary stuff flies at me. — Ricardo Martinez (Author/Director and Co-Founding father of The LatinXorcists)
The brand new URSA Cine Immersive is fascinating. I solely received to play with it briefly at CineGear, but it surely appears unreal and seems like a glimpse into the place visible storytelling is heading. It jogged my memory of an expertise I had final yr when my cellphone broke and the Apple Retailer took six hours to restore it. Truthfully, it was form of good to wander round with no cellphone for some time. After I got here again, somebody prompt I attempt the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional headset. Inside seconds, I used to be utterly pulled in. A easy video of a rhino strolling towards the digital camera truly made me step again as a result of it felt prefer it was a foot away.
That second caught with me. It confirmed how depth can utterly trick your senses. I nonetheless keep that the scariest expertise I’ve ever had was taking part in Resident Evil 7 in VR. Transferring by way of that terrifying home, I truly discovered myself slowing down, being cautious, like I used to be actually there. Immersive worlds place us, the viewers, contained in the motion. Once you’re actually alone, that’s whenever you get scared essentially the most.
That’s why the URSA Cine Immersive excites me a lot. It faucets into that very same thought, creating an area that feels actual, shut, and harmful. For horror, that’s every thing. I’d like to play with that sense of proximity, possibly putting creepy figures on the edges of the body and letting the viewer discover them late. Getting the viewers to play alongside is the dream. — Julian Terry (Author/Director)
How Will Filmmakers Adapt to This New Tech?
NFS: As immersive video continues to develop (notably movies skilled with the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional), how do you see filmmakers presumably selecting to adapt to this new know-how?
Filmmakers will begin considering extra about how the viewers strikes and reacts contained in the story as an alternative of simply watching it. It’s going to blur the road between storytelling and expertise. I feel administrators will use sound, area, and delicate movement to information emotion in additional interactive methods. — Raymond Mendez (Producer, Don’t Ignore Me)
I’ve labored on a number of immersive (180º and 360º stereoscopic) productions through the years. It’s a very distinctive solution to expertise a narrative. Whether or not it’s a documentary or narrative movie, you might be transported to any surroundings or situation. It actually seems like a captured second in time to me. It feels trustworthy. I feel that’s the place you may actually mess with folks. There’s a whole lot of room there for the sudden. — Andrew Scott Baird (DP, Shelby Oaks)
I feel immersive filmmaking can provide a whole lot of branded content material prospects and model offshoots of main franchises. Think about going to see Predator Badlands and getting a code to look at a complete new scene at residence afterward. Think about seeing Weapons and getting an opportunity to expertise areas from the film or to see further backstories or vignettes? twentieth Century or A24, give me a name, I’ve received pitches! — Ricardo Martinez (Author/Director and Co-Founding father of The LatinXorcists)
Immersive Leap Scares
NFS: For horror filmmaking particularly, what do you consider the probabilities of taking pictures and viewing “leap scares” on this new immersive format?
It’s each thrilling and terrifying! In immersive horror, you may’t look away, so the viewers feels utterly trapped within the second. Leap scares may really feel extra private and unpredictable, which makes the concern far more actual. — Raymond Mendez (Producer, Don’t Ignore Me)
Immersive media is attention-grabbing when you consider what horror may very well be with it. It places you proper there, like a online game, which might be terrifying. However with the flexibility to go searching and alter your personal angles, the Leap Scare must evolve a bit. Leap Scares in conventional movies work finest when the sector of view is proscribed. It’s what you DON’T see that builds suspense, and when one thing comes out from a nook you couldn’t see, that’s what will get you. For immersive media to have a leap scare, I feel issues are going to need to be hiding in plain sight, or coming out from behind corners you hadn’t but reached—similar to a online game. — Justin Warren (DIT, The Girl within the Yard)
I like an excellent leap scare. Creating them is such a collaborative course of the place sound and modifying/ timing are key. I really feel like in a 3D world, your senses are heightened, so the flexibility to set off a visceral response by way of lighting and sound, and the viewing engagement will give filmmakers new alternatives to get the guts racing! — Judd Overton (DP, Completely Killer)
Leap scares in immersive seemingly take rather more work to realize successfully, however the payoff is the flexibility to terrify your viewers in a manner that 2D filmmaking isn’t essentially able to. Reducing inside a scene and compelled motion might be actually off-putting whenever you’re in a headset, so that you wish to information the second from a hard and fast POV as a lot as attainable. For instance, you’d think about guiding the viewer’s eyes away from a bit of your scene simply to information their eyes again, and BAM! That apparition or masked killer is standing proper in entrance of you. Spatial audio can be vital and can assist information the eye of the viewer and create a very creepy second. — Andrew Scott Baird (DP, Shelby Oaks)
Oh, leap scares are past thrilling within the immersive area! However that is additionally not the one solution to obtain horror and terror. Immersive viewing is a captive expertise, which means the viewers cannot transfer! As filmmakers, we are able to actually drive the viewers to sit down within the midst of chaos or manner too near a terrifying creature. The expertise can simply create a sense of claustrophobia – this hasn’t been exploited utterly but, both! — Ricardo Martinez (Author/Director and Co-Founding father of The LatinXorcists)
This text was dropped at you by Blackmagic Design. For extra horror filmmaking interviews and insights, try the remainder of our Horror Week 2025 protection right here!
