0:00:00.785,0:00:02.665
What if I could present you a story

0:00:02.689,0:00:05.103
that you would remember[br]with your entire body

0:00:05.127,0:00:07.284
and not just with your mind?

0:00:07.308,0:00:09.983
My whole life as a journalist,[br]I've really been compelled

0:00:10.007,0:00:12.318
to try to make stories[br]that can make a difference

0:00:12.342,0:00:14.912
and maybe inspire people to care.

0:00:14.936,0:00:17.262
I've worked in print.[br]I've worked in documentary.

0:00:17.286,0:00:18.555
I've worked in broadcast.

0:00:18.579,0:00:21.641
But it really wasn't until[br]I got involved with virtual reality

0:00:21.665,0:00:24.506
that I started seeing[br]these really intense,

0:00:24.530,0:00:26.514
authentic reactions from people

0:00:26.538,0:00:28.213
that really blew my mind.

0:00:28.237,0:00:32.910
So the deal is that with VR,[br]virtual reality,

0:00:32.934,0:00:35.934
I can put you on scene

0:00:35.958,0:00:37.759
in the middle of the story.

0:00:38.148,0:00:41.632
By putting on these goggles[br]that track wherever you look,

0:00:41.656,0:00:44.584
you get this whole-body sensation,

0:00:44.608,0:00:46.815
like you're actually, like, there.

0:00:47.209,0:00:50.611
So five years ago was about when[br]I really began to push the envelope

0:00:50.635,0:00:53.885
with using virtual reality[br]and journalism together.

0:00:53.909,0:00:56.457
And I wanted to do a piece about hunger.

0:00:56.481,0:00:59.640
Families in America are going hungry,[br]food banks are overwhelmed,

0:00:59.664,0:01:01.719
and they're often running out of food.

0:01:02.330,0:01:05.949
Now, I knew I couldn't[br]make people feel hungry,

0:01:05.973,0:01:09.790
but maybe I could figure out a way[br]to get them to feel something physical.

0:01:10.726,0:01:13.790
So -- again, this is five years ago --

0:01:13.814,0:01:16.990
so doing journalism[br]and virtual reality together

0:01:17.014,0:01:19.997
was considered[br]a worse-than-half-baked idea,

0:01:20.021,0:01:21.376
and I had no funding.

0:01:21.400,0:01:23.899
Believe me, I had a lot[br]of colleagues laughing at me.

0:01:23.923,0:01:27.713
And I did, though,[br]have a really great intern,

0:01:27.737,0:01:29.975
a woman named Michaela Kobsa-Mark.

0:01:29.999,0:01:31.817
And together we went out to food banks

0:01:31.841,0:01:34.913
and started recording[br]audio and photographs.

0:01:34.937,0:01:36.857
Until one day she came back to my office

0:01:36.881,0:01:39.276
and she was bawling, she was just crying.

0:01:39.300,0:01:41.902
She had been on scene at a long line,

0:01:41.926,0:01:45.871
where the woman running the line[br]was feeling extremely overwhelmed,

0:01:45.895,0:01:48.863
and she was screaming,[br]"There's too many people!

0:01:48.887,0:01:50.783
There's too many people!"

0:01:50.807,0:01:54.362
And this man with diabetes[br]doesn't get food in time,

0:01:54.386,0:01:57.941
his blood sugar drops too low,[br]and he collapses into a coma.

0:01:58.695,0:02:00.227
As soon as I heard that audio,

0:02:00.251,0:02:03.496
I knew that this would be[br]the kind of evocative piece

0:02:03.520,0:02:06.624
that could really describe[br]what was going on at food banks.

0:02:07.290,0:02:10.906
So here's the real line.[br]You can see how long it was, right?

0:02:10.930,0:02:13.557
And again, as I said, we didn't[br]have very much funding,

0:02:13.581,0:02:17.331
so I had to reproduce it[br]with virtual humans that were donated,

0:02:17.355,0:02:21.481
and people begged and borrowed favors[br]to help me create the models

0:02:21.505,0:02:23.664
and make things as accurate as we could.

0:02:23.688,0:02:26.297
And then we tried to convey[br]what happened that day

0:02:26.321,0:02:29.115
with as much as accuracy as is possible.

0:02:29.680,0:02:33.878
(Video) Voice: There's too many people![br]There's too many people!

0:02:42.340,0:02:45.061
Voice: OK, he's having a seizure.

0:02:59.023,0:03:01.872
Voice: We need an ambulance.

0:03:02.181,0:03:04.198
Nonny de la Peña: So the man on the right,

0:03:04.222,0:03:06.094
for him, he's walking around the body.

0:03:06.118,0:03:08.815
For him, he's in the room with that body.

0:03:09.355,0:03:11.172
Like, that guy is at his feet.

0:03:11.601,0:03:13.808
And even though,[br]through his peripheral vision,

0:03:13.832,0:03:15.903
he can see that he's in this lab space,

0:03:15.927,0:03:20.140
he should be able to see[br]that he's not actually on the street,

0:03:20.164,0:03:23.060
but he feels like he's there[br]with those people.

0:03:23.084,0:03:25.094
He's very cautious not to step on this guy

0:03:25.118,0:03:26.784
who isn't really there, right?

0:03:27.506,0:03:30.609
So that piece ended up[br]going to Sundance in 2012,

0:03:30.633,0:03:34.554
a kind of amazing thing,[br]and it was the first virtual reality film

0:03:34.578,0:03:36.538
ever, basically.

0:03:37.062,0:03:39.023
And when we went, I was really terrified.

0:03:39.047,0:03:41.484
I didn't really know[br]how people were going to react

0:03:41.508,0:03:42.897
and what was going to happen.

0:03:42.921,0:03:45.818
And we showed up[br]with this duct-taped pair of goggles.

0:03:45.842,0:03:49.827
(Video) Oh, you're crying.[br]You're crying. Gina, you're crying.

0:03:49.851,0:03:52.571
So you can hear[br]the surprise in my voice, right?

0:03:52.595,0:03:56.190
And this kind of reaction ended up being[br]the kind of reaction we saw

0:03:56.214,0:03:58.984
over and over and over:

0:03:59.008,0:04:02.714
people down on the ground[br]trying to comfort the seizure victim,

0:04:02.738,0:04:04.658
trying to whisper something into his ear

0:04:04.682,0:04:08.640
or in some way help,[br]even though they couldn't.

0:04:08.664,0:04:11.348
And I had a lot of people[br]come out of that piece saying,

0:04:11.372,0:04:14.096
"Oh my God, I was so frustrated.[br]I couldn't help the guy,"

0:04:14.120,0:04:15.841
and take that back into their lives.

0:04:16.999,0:04:18.865
So after this piece was made,

0:04:20.198,0:04:24.007
the dean of the cinema school at USC,[br]the University of Southern California,

0:04:24.031,0:04:28.238
brought in the head of the World[br]Economic Forum to try "Hunger,"

0:04:28.262,0:04:29.603
and he took off the goggles,

0:04:29.627,0:04:32.667
and he commissioned[br]a piece about Syria on the spot.

0:04:32.691,0:04:35.604
And I really wanted to do something[br]about Syrian refugee kids,

0:04:35.628,0:04:39.920
because children have been the worst[br]affected by the Syrian civil war.

0:04:40.809,0:04:44.767
I sent a team to the border of Iraq[br]to record material at refugee camps,

0:04:44.791,0:04:47.942
basically an area I wouldn't[br]send a team now,

0:04:47.966,0:04:50.434
as that's where ISIS is really operating.

0:04:50.458,0:04:53.164
And then we also recreated a street scene

0:04:53.188,0:04:56.711
in which a young girl is singing[br]and a bomb goes off.

0:04:57.340,0:04:59.419
Now, when you're[br]in the middle of that scene

0:04:59.443,0:05:01.997
and you hear those sounds,

0:05:02.021,0:05:04.314
and you see the injured around you,

0:05:04.338,0:05:07.338
it's an incredibly scary and real feeling.

0:05:07.362,0:05:11.902
I've had individuals who have been[br]involved in real bombings tell me

0:05:11.926,0:05:15.401
that it evokes the same kind of fear.

0:05:16.211,0:05:20.730
[The civil war in Syria may seem far away]

0:05:22.078,0:05:28.344
[until you experience it yourself.]

0:05:29.062,0:05:36.013
(Girl singing)

0:05:36.037,0:05:38.815
(Explosion)

0:05:38.839,0:05:43.076
[Project Syria]

0:05:43.988,0:05:45.985
[A virtual reality experience]

0:05:46.653,0:05:48.721
NP: We were then invited to take the piece

0:05:48.745,0:05:50.799
to the Victoria and Albert[br]Museum in London.

0:05:50.823,0:05:52.180
And it wasn't advertised.

0:05:52.204,0:05:54.528
And we were put in this tapestry room.

0:05:54.552,0:05:55.894
There was no press about it,

0:05:55.918,0:05:59.655
so anybody who happened to walk[br]into the museum to visit it that day

0:05:59.679,0:06:01.442
would see us with these crazy lights.

0:06:01.466,0:06:05.141
You know, maybe they would want to see[br]the old storytelling of the tapestries.

0:06:05.165,0:06:07.632
They were confronted[br]by our virtual reality cameras.

0:06:08.513,0:06:11.640
But a lot of people tried it,[br]and over a five-day run

0:06:11.664,0:06:16.204
we ended up with 54 pages[br]of guest book comments,

0:06:16.228,0:06:18.564
and we were told by the curators there

0:06:18.588,0:06:21.177
that they'd never seen such an outpouring.

0:06:21.201,0:06:25.828
Things like, "It's so real,"[br]"Absolutely believable,"

0:06:25.852,0:06:28.312
or, of course, the one[br]that I was excited about,

0:06:28.336,0:06:31.185
"A real feeling as if you were[br]in the middle of something

0:06:31.209,0:06:33.471
that you normally see on the TV news."

0:06:34.463,0:06:37.939
So, it works, right? This stuff works.

0:06:38.297,0:06:42.092
And it doesn't really matter[br]where you're from or what age you are --

0:06:42.116,0:06:44.319
it's really evocative.

0:06:44.343,0:06:48.295
Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying[br]that when you're in a piece

0:06:48.319,0:06:51.199
you forget that you're here.

0:06:51.223,0:06:54.398
But it turns out we can feel[br]like we're in two places at once.

0:06:54.422,0:06:57.572
We can have what I call[br]this duality of presence,

0:06:57.596,0:07:02.453
and I think that's what allows me[br]to tap into these feelings of empathy.

0:07:02.477,0:07:03.628
Right?

0:07:04.041,0:07:07.232
So that means, of course,

0:07:07.256,0:07:12.151
that I have to be very cautious[br]about creating these pieces.

0:07:12.175,0:07:16.437
I have to really follow[br]best journalistic practices

0:07:16.461,0:07:18.596
and make sure that these powerful stories

0:07:18.620,0:07:20.206
are built with integrity.

0:07:20.230,0:07:22.603
If we don't capture[br]the material ourselves,

0:07:22.627,0:07:27.595
we have to be extremely exacting

0:07:27.619,0:07:30.920
about figuring out the provenance[br]and where did this stuff come from

0:07:30.944,0:07:32.252
and is it authentic?

0:07:32.276,0:07:33.633
Let me give you an example.

0:07:33.657,0:07:36.594
With this Trayvon Martin case,[br]this is a guy, a kid,

0:07:36.618,0:07:40.721
who was 17 years old and he bought[br]soda and a candy at a store,

0:07:40.745,0:07:44.221
and on his way home he was tracked[br]by a neighborhood watchman

0:07:44.245,0:07:47.110
named George Zimmerman[br]who ended up shooting and killing him.

0:07:47.657,0:07:48.809
To make that piece,

0:07:48.833,0:07:52.435
we got the architectural drawings[br]of the entire complex,

0:07:52.459,0:07:57.228
and we rebuilt the entire scene[br]inside and out, based on those drawings.

0:07:57.252,0:07:58.547
All of the action

0:07:58.571,0:08:03.490
is informed by the real 911[br]recorded calls to the police.

0:08:04.411,0:08:07.188
And interestingly, we broke[br]some news with this story.

0:08:07.212,0:08:11.187
The forensic house that did the audio[br]reconstruction, Primeau Productions,

0:08:11.211,0:08:13.157
they say that they would testify

0:08:13.181,0:08:15.856
that George Zimmerman,[br]when he got out of the car,

0:08:15.880,0:08:18.712
he cocked his gun before he went[br]to give chase to Martin.

0:08:20.013,0:08:23.418
So you can see that[br]the basic tenets of journalism,

0:08:23.442,0:08:25.315
they don't really change here, right?

0:08:25.339,0:08:28.743
We're still following the same principles[br]that we would always.

0:08:28.767,0:08:32.070
What is different is the sense[br]of being on scene,

0:08:32.094,0:08:34.435
whether you're watching[br]a guy collapse from hunger

0:08:34.459,0:08:36.944
or feeling like you're[br]in the middle of a bomb scene.

0:08:36.968,0:08:41.916
And this is kind of what has driven me[br]forward with these pieces,

0:08:41.940,0:08:43.663
and thinking about how to make them.

0:08:43.687,0:08:47.882
We're trying to make this, obviously,[br]beyond the headset, more available.

0:08:47.906,0:08:50.833
We're creating mobile pieces[br]like the Trayvon Martin piece.

0:08:50.857,0:08:54.406
And these things have had impact.

0:08:54.430,0:08:57.002
I've had Americans tell me[br]that they've donated,

0:08:57.026,0:09:01.420
direct deductions from their bank account,[br]money to go to Syrian children refugees.

0:09:01.444,0:09:03.777
And "Hunger in LA," well,[br]it's helped start

0:09:03.801,0:09:06.230
a new form of doing journalism

0:09:06.254,0:09:09.350
that I think is going to join[br]all the other normal platforms

0:09:09.374,0:09:10.525
in the future.

0:09:10.549,0:09:11.713
Thank you.

0:09:11.737,0:09:14.149
(Applause)