The Power of Being There
00:05
We walked for days crossing the desert to Jordan. The week we left, my kite got stuck in a tree in our yard. I wonder if it is still there. I want it back.
00:25
That’s Sidra, a 12 year old girl, who lives in the Zaatari refugee camp, home to over 80,000 Syrian refugees. For the next eight and a half minutes, Sidra takes me on a tour of her day. We go from her family's tent, to her classroom, the bakery and beyond. I'm left feeling pretty emotionally charged. But sadness isn't really the right word for it. I feel connected to her somehow, like I can understand her. And that's really odd because our realities couldn't be further from each other. We live a world apart, and yet, for a few minutes, I felt like I embodied her dreams, her fears and her insecurities.
01:15
And that's because Clouds Over Sidra is not an ordinary film. It's a 360 degree Virtual Reality documentary, a first of its kind, created in 2015 by Chris Milk and Gabo Arora, and produced and directed by both Gobo and today's guest, Barry Pousman. Barry is an award winning creative producer who works at the intersection of media, art, education, and social change. He's currently the COO and lead producer at Lighshed.io, an immersive production company. And he's also a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies lab. He was formerly a Chief Digital Strategist for the United Nations, and his work has created real world impact, screening at venues such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, the White House and the Sundance Film Festival.
02:30
I'm Pavani. And I'm Joel. And this is Outside In. Each episode, we'll take a look at design in unexpected places. Now, these creators may not call themselves Experience Designers. They actually go by many different labels. But they all have one thing in common. Whether by instinct, or intention, they create moments that have the power to change us. We start this episode with Barry recalling his first foray into VR filmmaking. Enjoy!
03:02
I was on a small team within the UN system called the SDG Action Campaign. Through that team, I had an opportunity to explore a new format of storytelling. One of our colleagues had met with a famous film director, music video director and producer, creator of all types of media, Chris Milk, and through meeting him, we were able to have access to a 360 camera. And that 360 camera was in a lot of ways a first of its kind, there was just the first days of Samsung Gear VR coming out. And what that was, was the headset for the Samsung phone. They thought it was going to be a gaming kind of like how to turn your phone into more of a gaming experience. And it turned out that Chris Milk and his team had created this camera that allowed people to make movies that would go inside that same gaming headset. They partnered with the SDG action campaign, with Gabo and myself, to create a first of its kind movie in 360. Live action movie with, you know, people and in a way that hadn't really been done. We decided to cover the Syrian civil war, the Syrian refugee crisis, and Zaatari refugee camp is pretty famous at this point. It's home to over 80,000 Syrian refugees. So we get there, you know, we go in through this UN on the ground sort of team, and they helped us identify who would be the right real person to help shine light on this refugee issue that the world was facing. We were sort of introduced to a few different families, few different kids and we discovered this young girl named Sidra. And we can just tell there's magic, you know, there's charisma. And so we were able to set up this 360 camera to think about, you know, how is the user going to feel when they go through this experience, you know, kind of trying to reverse engineer for something that barely anybody has ever done. Luckily, when we first made this partnership, I had the opportunity to go and get a little bit of training on how to run the camera. And also, I got my first ever experience putting on a headset and seeing what 360 video was. And through that experience, I realized that this camera could be a people transportation device, you know, we can transport people's minds to other places. And so, it felt very fragile to keeping that trick alive. When we were out. In Zaatari, in the camp, people would say, oh, let's you know, put it on top of a water tower. Let's get this vantage point to show how big, show those 80,000 you know, people I mean, that is a real thing, that is a real problem. It's a really big thing. We want to talk about, I want to you know, visualize it. I can understand the appetite. But I had to come in and say, you know, I think that we want to hold on to this idea that we're actually transporting people that we're allowing people to feel like they really went there in real life and not saw a movie about something. And so, tried to shut down as many of those sort of ideas to retain that human perspective. And we really shot it at the height of this young 11 year old girl named Sidra. We wanted people to feel like they were a kid in a refugee camp and how did that feel?
06:34
Yeah. So for our listeners who haven't actually seen the film, Joel and I both watched it. But for those who haven't, can you describe what happens? They put the headset on, hit play, like, what is it that they're seeing? What are they experiencing?
06:47
So an audience would be experiencing a day in the life of a young girl named Sidra. She's 11 years old. You go to school with with Sidra. You see the students in her class; you see the teachers; you watch her play soccer on the soccer pitch in this refugee camp; and you really get a sense of what life in this refugee camp is like, especially for children. There's meals with the family, there's, you know, beautiful sunsets and rainbows. I mean, there's moments of beauty tied into all this struggle and strife. And I think, for the audience, we're always trying to find a balance and a way to communicate that although things are sad, you know, there is beauty and there's hope.
07:32
You know, that was actually the most surprising thing for me. When I watched it, I realized how there was not any violence that you saw, it wasn't gory. Like I knew it was gonna be depicting stories, basically, of war, right? Like, these are folks who've been affected by war. But the whole tone, including the music, even, was uplifting and hopeful. And the scenes were beautiful, like you said.
07:56
Yeah, actually, you called out the music. I think that's one of the reasons the tone feels so optimistic. We really worked to create an original score, that tried to communicate that feeling. And we wanted to make sure it didn't, you know, just end in like sadness and bleakness and hopelessness. That would be worst case scenario that people come away thinking, This problem is unsolvable. And so I think that was definitely part of the design intention, was that this wasn't going to be a story of like, you know, I mean, people do cry. It's not that it's not sad. It's just that it's not stuck in hopelessness. Yeah. It's sort of like trying to find the most visually compelling moments trying to find things that communicate little human moments and the texture of life things. That's not always the plot, but is something we try to always include.
08:55
Yeah. And even though it's, you know, a world apart for many of us here, there's a lot of familiarity and things that you can relate to, like the families sitting down and having dinner. The children, of course, for those of us who have children. So I think that's what got to me the most is just how relatable the scenes were.
09:15
Yeah, I think, you know, as many filmmakers have found that there's just some human truths and just similarities across all cultures that we can lean into and find common ground with and, you know, although this is sort of a story about refugees, you can imagine a story about maybe the aggressor, that paints a picture that adds complexity that adds nuance to a conversation that needs to go on and is maybe stuck.
09:45
Yeah, Barry, I'm curious... this authentic human vantage point that you described, as I think about the different scenes and looking at it with audience eyes or with like an analytical eye, like how they do this... I noticed something about the car scene. There was a camera in the passenger seat. How did you work with the family to make this camera almost like an invisible witness? Because everything felt very natural. Did they forget it was there? Or how... what was that process like?
10:22
Man, that family was just so great to work with. I will say it was a challenge to even get that camera to sit in the front seat. We were in Gaza. That's the Gaza one, right? Yeah, yeah. And that was I mean, just imagine like, there's no B&H, you can't just go to the camera store and like, get it on Amazon. I was like, weirdly, trying to get this thing in the car for half an hour, you know, just the stand and stuff to get the right shot and at the right height. And we had to tie it all down, because of course, the streets are like Swiss cheese... there's holes everywhere... it's driving on dirt roads. And, you know, you have to sharply abruptly turn left and right. And so I think through the effort that we had to put into that, it kind of allowed the father who's driving the car to, let's say, it was a little more demystified. After those minutes, it's kind of like he had been exposed to it for long enough that people usually forget. And that's kind of one of the secrets of VR's power, I think in, at least, in a production sense, is that, unlike a traditional documentary, where the director stands behind the camera, or someone is standing behind the camera, and you know, the subject knows they're being recorded by another human. With 360 documentaries, you tend to set up the scene and kind of set up the context with that person. But then when you set the camera to record, you leave the room, and often will record for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and after 347 minutes, people kind of forget that the camera's on in the room with them, you know, and then they're just talking to themselves or just, you know, making bread or doing whatever they're doing. And they've forgotten that there's like a giant alien globe, blinking red all around them, you know? So it's a weird thing that... people really do, they just kind of become immune to it, or they'd like, you know, get used to it in a way that allows for really something special to arise
12:31
Even when there are moments where they do acknowledge the camera... so they were in the... there was like a computer lab in the refugee camp. And she was talking about well, all the boys are in here playing, they won't let the girls play. And these two guys, they turn around. And there's this beautiful moment where they look at the camera. I mean that was one where I was like, man, I really feel there. So it's like this interesting balance of capturing authentic life as it's happening and these moments of acknowledging you, as someone bearing witness to what's unfolding around you.
13:02
Yeah, yeah, that was actually... it's funny you bring that up. That's probably my favorite moment in the whole movie... is those two boys turning around and looking right at you and just talking to you. And honestly, you could miss it. You could be looking the other way. You could not know that it's happening. But if you don't miss it, it is just a gem. It's one of those things. You know, this was all an experiment. We had no idea... there was no model of what the right VR movie looked like, at the time.
13:29
Shot in 2015, right.
13:32
I almost want to say shot in 2014. premiered in 2015. Yeah, anyway, somewhere in there. Yeah, I mean, we just didn't know what was going to work, what was going to read well, what was going to be effective. And having... that's exactly one of those scenarios where we just left that camera on long enough. And those kids forgot. And then they remembered, and then they wanted to talk to it. And, you know, it's just, it just snowballs into real personalities, you start to see how real people act over time.
14:00
Yeah, Joel brought up the exact same thing I was just gonna bring up, which is like, you mentioned people forgetting that it's there. But like, how did you get people to look at the camera because I thought those were the most powerful moments where I felt like they were looking right at me. And for me, that happened in that film. It was in the bakery, the first time that I noticed people looking at me, you know, one guy was looking at me and I turned around, there was a child who also looked at me, and so it felt very much like, okay, I'm being watched, and I'm in this bakery with them. And the only thing that was missing was the smell of the bread, and I totally would have been there.
14:34
I've heard people tell us that they smell the bread, you know, in their minds. We've tricked people enough. It sort of shows like the levers maybe of how to trick someone's mind, how to convince someone if something is like...Oh, we tell them it smells, you're inside their head. You're standing there, people are looking at you like you are them. You know, all those things combined starts to really that presence, that sense of presence is just overpowering.
15:03
Well, I realized that because I couldn't smell the bread, like it was almost jarring, right? Because my brain expected to smell it. And so it called it out. It was like, hey, you're really not there because you're not smelling it. Otherwise, I totally felt like I was there. I was just curious about what are some of the other things you've learned through that process. So that was your first film, but I'm sure every time you're learning new techniques, and this is kind of this frontier.
15:28
Wow, really, what I'm learning is that, you know, at some point, we have this canvas that we paint on, and then we realize, Oh, we can have this three dimensional volumetric canvas that we make art inside of. And so all of a sudden, it's like this, you know, instead of a flat rectangle, our movie is all around us, instead of just all around us, now it's interactive. The canvas just keeps cubing. You know, it's so much bigger than it was last year. And every year and so that, I think, is just something at the highest level to be thinking like, okay, new rules, we have to come up with new ideas, new ways to communicate, we've learned the lesson of not just recycling TV shows, you know, when TV was recycling radio plays, so we kind of went through that phase for a little bit, a lot of TV companies were and media companies and publishers, were making VR for a little bit 360 videos, tons of YouTube 360. But it feels like they've now taken a step back and are, you know, a lot more sort of like thinking is going into the second thought ideas, third thought ideas like, okay, where do we go from here? That's nice to see. And I think, over time, it's going to continue to just like keep expanding our canvas, our ability to make projects, and their output is going to continue to grow. And then in a lot of ways, you know, we learned this all from advertising, like how do we create behavior change? How do we keep inspiring and enticing new audiences to do things to buy things to change their ideas? So we're just kind of leveraging old science in new ways.
17:07
Other things I'm learning? I think one other thing that people often forget in VR is (I just say VR with lowercase a V) it would be the idea that the context matters so much. And I think that's often overlooked, I think, you know, people, of course, talk about the visual ideas, how to shoot how to capture spatial audio, a million great technological solutions to that kind of problem. But I think the actual problem of behavior change, the actual problem of human audiences is bigger than just the video file, or the APK. And that's something that I've just seen it work so well, and seeing it also fall apart based on the context through which people get into the headset, out of the headset, or whatever device they're experiencing.
18:03
Can you unpack that a little bit?
18:04
Yeah. So for example, like it's been said before, but that headset is very ugly, and dorky, and lame. And there's plenty of memes making people look lame wearing a VR headset, right? But it's not just that you look dorky, or lame, I think what's going on is, it's really a feeling of vulnerability. When you put on that headset, you have a new layer of vulnerability you did not have before. Someone could poke you. Someone could take your picture to make you look dorky. Someone could beat you up, someone could do anything like that. Who knows what could happen? When you put on that headset, you don't just have blinders on, you literally, your mind is somewhere else, and your body is vulnerable. And that mental state is a real hurdle for a lot of people. And whether they know it or not. There's a reason people don't love putting on VR headsets. I think people don't love feeling vulnerable. Through that we can learn, how do we now like overcome this challenge? This is a real challenge. But I think that one way we can do that is through...really projects kind of like your own projects, where we're trying to set the pre-story before the story begins. Trying to set, like you know, a little bit of a breadcrumb trail to get people excited, intrigued, and ready to listen to it. Ready to hear, ready to absorb it and ready to participate.
19:41
Prime them.
19:41
Yeah, prime them. Exactly.
19:43
You know, the vulnerability piece. I never thought of that before. That's really interesting. It's like they're surrendering some part of themselves right to whatever might happen and I'm guessing would create conditions for other emotions like empathy, to occur, right?
20:00
Or puts up a wall or like, you know, doesn't allow empathy to occur because you're too nervous about your own self.
20:07
Yeah. Speaking of empathy, I know that a lot of folks now call VR an empathy machine. And we've been talking a little bit about this already. But could you unpack that a little bit in terms of like, how VR helps?
20:22
Great. Yeah. So I went to this lab at Stanford University. It changed how I think about empathy in general, and empathy with VR. And this Stanford lab is called the Virtual Human Interaction Lab.
20:39
They are trying to see if, through empathy, if they can create real-world behavior change. And for this experiment, they wanted to find out could they create behavior change around paper. Tell us, let's see if we can stop people from using an average of six to eight paper towels per spill. Right? That was the idea. How can we change that one behavior. Now here was the experiment, they had developed a simulator in VR. In it, you put on the headphones, you put on the headset, and you're embodying an avatar that is holding a chainsaw, and you're chopping down a tree in front of you. And it's a big tree. And it's like, really loud, like chainsaw sounds, like grinding teeth on the wood. And so you're chopping this tree down. And it's, and it's kind of uncomfortable, you don't really want to be doing it, but your avatar is doing it and you can't help yourself. And then eventually, the tree falls when, you know, after three minutes, or however long the tree falls, and you're able to see, it kind of opens up your vision, you can see...wow, there's a lot of trees that you've (presumably you or someone) has now cut down with chainsaws. Some people go through the experiment, and they read an article about deforestation, right. And other people go through the experiment. And they watch a web video, like a standard rectangle video. And they are exposed to like a story about, you know, how trees are part of the world, breathing and all these things. And so this is three different modes to learn, right one being VR, one's an article, written article, and one is a traditional video. And when the person who's going through the experience takes off their headset, or stops reading or stops watching the video, then they go and sit with a facilitator. And the facilitator has a cup of water on the table, there's always like two cups of water and a pitcher, and a roll of paper towels on the table. All of a sudden, every time when the facilitator is asking the questions for the survey, every time they knock over the glass of water on accident. And when they do that, anybody who read the article or watched the traditional video, they pull off, I'm not kidding, six to eight paper towels on average, which means some people are pulling off like 15 paper towels. Okay, so imagine six to eight paper towels is the average for the average traditional media consumption about deforestation. Now, the people that went through the VR simulator, they pull off one to two paper towels to clean up the same spill, the same amount of water. That's like where empathy really moves the needle. It's not a long term study, you know, like, it is true that they just got out of the experience. And now they are being tested kind of. But something about it just says we're on the right track. And they have other experiences, experiments, and similar sort of like interesting ways that they do the practical test of behavior. So I recommend everybody listening, go to the Virtual Human Interaction Lab website. It's chock full of other experiments and findings, and there's lots there. So highly recommended.
23:47
That's fascinating. You know, you were talking a minute ago about the advertising world and have taken a few pages out of their playbook. But in a way it feels like the general bent or arc of VR is not towards manipulation, it does feel like the big wave that is cresting right now is more about connecting people to each other. What's your survey of the landscape?
24:11
Yeah, I think those aren't mutually exclusive. I heard someone once talking about kind of like how we make sense of the world. And we make sense of the world through repetition and patterns, we understand that the sun rises every morning, and the sun goes down at night. And it always rises on one side, it goes down on the other side. And in VR, the sun doesn't have to rise. It doesn't have to rise on the right side. And it can rise three times in a day. And all of a sudden, you know, it's like if that's a convincing enough VR experience that could break your sense of reality. There's like opportunities in VR where it can really mess with you, mess with your real world. Because, we depend on those patterns to generate, like a sort of a status to stand on, a floor to stand on, a reality. And the more convincing the VR becomes, the more fragile those patterns may become, as well. So that's kind of like a...where manipulation could happen, I think is like kind of within that sort of subconscious space. Whereas the forefront, the foreground, the talk is about connecting people, but it's kind of like Facebook, you know, it's connecting people, but at the cost of everything else that we know. So like, you know, just like Amazon, the everything store at the cost of what. So it's kind of like, it is going to be the great connector, I do believe that I think that as VR or whatever, we're going to be calling it in the future, you know, like, as it does move that way, and we're all wearing cool glasses, and they look cool, and we're not feeling vulnerable, and we're all talking with each other, virtually, I think we're gonna there's a trade off. Our trade off is we will get manipulated, because it's a manipulatable landscape. It's in a lot of ways, not unsimilar to books, you know, very manipulatable tools, from religious texts to Mein Kampf to any other self help book. I mean, you know, they're always trying to get you to do something.
26:16
Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of back to that old adage of Tech is neither good nor bad, but can be used for both.
26:23
Yeah, yeah. That's kind of where I, that's where I sit, and I think is being used for both.
26:29
I wonder, just kind of going back to the intentions of Clouds Over Sidra specifically, I mean, you guys got funding to film this thing, to achieve an objective, and I'm guessing that there may have been metrics possibly attached to what you're trying to do. I mean, can you talk a bit about the intention, and then the way that it was seen at the end of the day, after everything was done? You know, what was the felt impact of the piece?
27:01
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's astonishing, when you add it all up together. We went into it really believing it was going to be an experiment, and that if we failed, it was okay, that we knew that this was new. And we wanted to work with Chris Milk and his team, we wanted to explore new ways of storytelling, you know, we were excited about the opportunity. But at the same time, I think there was a real acknowledgement that this could fall apart. And, you know, we may have done something and it didn't work. And you know, we learn and now we're going to do something different next time. So with that in mind, I would say it far exceeded expectations. As soon as it was done, it actually premiered at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And it went from there, to this event that the Secretary General of the UN puts on every year, currently, it's a donors conference, private donors that are going to donate to the Syrian refugee crisis, because just government funding, even governments around the world, it's just not enough funding to manage how many refugees that are coming out of Syria. And so through this donor event, we were able to show the Secretary General's office the experience, Clouds Over Sidra, and, you know, literally their first time, of course, seeing the headset as well. And they were really blown away by the film. Ban Ki-moon made, everybody watch the film at this donor conference. And of course, at these conferences, they kind of know how much to expect to raise. And this is the third year of the conference, they were expecting, I think $2.3 billion to be raised. And instead of $2.3 billion, you know, they added this film, and Ban Ki-moon changed his whole speech to be about Sidra. And girls like Sidra, kids like Sidra. Instead of 2.3 billion, they raised $3.8 billion within 24 hours. You know, I don't know if it could take credit for that. But just really, I think it's important to be part of that conversation where that much help, that much support is moving into the hands of people that need it. And of course, it's also, you know, just by nature of it being the first, and the power of that film, I think it became a film that really spurred a movement. When, as I was mentioning Samsung, when they first came out with this headset and the whole VR idea, like everyone kind of thought it was just a gaming thing. And no one really realized it could be a place for stories that matter. So I think that's kind of something that that film unlocked. And that spurred the movement of VR for good, VR for impact at HTC Vive, pretty much everyone wanted to get into how do we tell stories that matter? Because they matter. And we're here with this new storytelling platform. And we should be part of that.
30:04
How much of this success would you say, had to do with this kind of ethos of "It's okay, it's an experiment, there's, there's not really any expectations, let's just try something and see what happens."
30:18
I think that that sort of prompt or motivation, it doesn't, it's not foolproof, and it requires a certain type of team or personality to absorb that kind of prompt and then do their best work, you know, so it's kind of like a more hands-off approach to managing, right? It's like, go and run with this idea. Let's see how far you get. Let's see, if you make greatness, you know, and then it's up to that contributor, then it's up to me and the other director, and, you know, it's like, can we make great things with this autonomy that we now have? And really, it's like, what else is life for? I mean, we're only on the planet for 100 years, tops. So, you know, if every year I got to make something awesome, you know, and I'm already like, way behind cuz I didn't start till I was 23. So, you know, my last 23 are gonna be like, on a beach in Hawaii, probably somewhere. So we gotta like, I got to compress 100 different great things into only 50 years. Well, I got to get started. And if you got autonomy, then why not? Why not make something great. Luckily, we met the challenge and made something really beautiful. I think.
31:25
I agree. I think you're off to a good start, by the way.
31:28
Thanks.
31:28
Oh, with your deadline. Yeah, yeah, of how many awesome things you have to make before....
31:36
So we talked a lot about Clouds Over Sidra, and wanted to talk a little bit more about My Mother's Wing. Now that this is not your first film anymore, right? in VR? How did you approach it differently? Or, you know, what was different about this set and setting?
31:54
Yeah, so I think just the idea of tackling a documentary about the lives of people in Gaza, and just the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in general, it's kind of a tough project. It's a project that's in a lot of ways, let's say, hard to win...win over audiences, you know? It's a subject that a lot of audiences sort of have their camp, you know, they've already picked a side, and no article or movie they watch is going to change their mind kind of thing, you know. And in spite of that, I think the film is able to find a voice that doesn't feel biased, that doesn't feel sensational, that doesn't have a bad guy. Honestly, there's no antagonist in this film. So that at the highest level, that's kind of unique about it. And that's a real challenge. And, the challenge that people don't have, that already have a side that they're not going to be transformed, they're not going to feel different after them before. I feel like that's not always true. That's not true. As much in VR, because it is so novel, you know, we still are riding the wave of novelty of this is my first time doing it, you know, it's not our first time making the film, but it is often audiences' first time watching these films. And even if it's their second, it can still be very, very emotional, very dramatic, and impactful and long-lasting. With that ability to create those kinds of memories. You know, we're able to create memories for people that although they may never see the humanity that lives on the side of Gaza, that side of the wall, at least they'll remember it as if they've been there, they'll remember it as if they've gotten to have a meal or spend time with a family that was on the other side of a wall that they don't really have a lot of visibility into. And so that I think is a win even if people don't necessarily change how they vote. And, it's a slow exposure therapy sort of agenda, multi generational agenda. When we think about, you know, ROI on these things. Now, one piece of the story actually is, My Mother's Wing, although it isn't credited with raising all that money that that Clouds Over Sidra did, but My Mother's Wing went to the UN Security Council, and on a day when they were discussing the lives and livelihoods of the Palestinian people, they got to watch My Mother's Wing and experiencing that kind of film, that kind of rich media experience, when you know, when they're making those decisions about how we're going to spend money, how we're going to spend our energy, and where. What's our voice going to say as the UN or as the Security Council, the UN, you know, I think it can only help. It can only help to inform those kinds of stories. So that's kind of the story on that. It took a long time to get permission to get into Gaza to get the paperwork to go to Gaza. It's not something even Israelis go to. You can't go there, you know, most people can't go there. Yeah. So that, in and of itself is a challenge, an administrative challenge, a logistical challenge. Then again, you know, we worked with a local on-the-ground agency, they know a lot of families, and they kind of helped us find some of these families that would be willing to talk to Western media and just be willing to share their story with the world in a way that is, it's a tough decision to make, of course, they're all going through some form of trauma, you know, living in a warzone. So to allow in this film crew, and even though we're small and smiley, we still, we definitely change their lives for a few days, or for a few weeks, even.
36:03
It was, honestly, it was one of the most intense experiences of my whole life going to Gaza and making that movie. I grew up Jewish. And in Georgia, which is a fun place to grow up Jewish, because not a lot of us. But I always kind of looked at the world through this, like, hippie Jewish lens. This idea that, you know, Jews were good for the world, they help people, they helped Israel, they were like, gonna be, you know, it's all a democracy. It sounded great growing up, but, and I think that vision is an interesting vision. Sadly, you know, in order to get that land where they all get to vote, they won that through war, in recent years. And ever since there's been this sort of push and pull with the border around Israel, and the populations that live there, which are in the millions. And unfortunately, I think, you know, we've like, my, this making this movie going to Gaza and getting to see what life is like on the other side of that wall. And it's just, I mean, you really, it changes, like, who David and who Goliath is, and the story sort of, and it really broke my worldview and broke me as a human for a while, because when you come back from these documentaries, from any of these places, it's really hard to relate to other people to share your experience. You know, no one wants to hear a sad story. I think I did go through a lot of like real internal trauma in that experience more than others, because the stories of Israel and Palestine were so part of my identity. And then I had to face my, you know, those stories head on, and it was different than I had thought of before.
37:51
So you went through a transformation yourself?
37:53
Big time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it, I would say it was a really eye opening experience, because, of course, some at some points, your biases are confirmed, you're, you know, they're holding guns... it really is, they have statues of war heroes, famous Palestinian war heroes that have obviously killed a lot of other people. And so, you know, it's kind of like a complex web. And you don't even find out these things until you go to these places, and get into these stories and start to realize how complex they all are, and how complex solutions can be. You know often, my childhood itself wants to just solve problems, and it's taken me a long time to learn to do more listening, and more, kind of, in some ways, similar to exploring media with Clouds Over Sidra, more explorations, rather than solutions. And not that I think, you know, at the expense of finding solutions, just that it's sometimes the path to success isn't always paved so clearly.
39:09
You know, Barry, it strikes me that when you were talking at the beginning, when you were talking about the intentions of this film, and the subject matter, this is a topic that you said, no one's gonna change their mind about, like, people were pretty set in their ways. You were set in your way, you had a very specific worldview, right? But it's almost like not as a spectator, not as a consumer of the media. But as a creator of the project. There was almost this bigger transformation that was possible. I mean, it's always interesting, this idea that when we're making projects that have the intention of changing others, it has this interesting and awesome byproduct of changing ourselves.
39:48
Yeah, I really love that. And you know, the things we design they inform how we are, you know, of course, and so from buildings and everything else and fashion and filmmaking and documentary making, and specifically in these films and in my case, definitely. So I was in the Peace Corps after my time in University. So I've spent decades literally just in this kind of social impact space that's for good space. And there's two sort of pathways that people often take in that sector, let's say, one is a more cynical pathway, one can be a kind of like, this is never going to get better, these are intractable problems, I've realized how complex it is, and I give up. And there's this other path in the for good world, which is about personal growth, and about being able to see the connection between fixing your own backyard and helping others fix their backyards, let's say, so whether that's personal practice, whether that's how you act with your family, whether that's how you move in your town, you know, at whatever size scope, and then sort of relating that and seeing how that connects back to whether you're doing grassroots work or scaled impact work, or whatever work in the social good space. I love the idea that that's kind of a dialogue that goes on through life. And, you know, for myself, I'm a vegetarian, I take daily decision make daily decisions around personal my own backyard, let's say, sort of upkeep and, and through that, although, you know, I could lose probably 20 pounds, but other than that, I'm trying to be pretty good. And it's always like kind of reacting and in play with the work that I'm passionate about doing.
41:31
Beautiful, well said. So Barry, over the years of doing your work, I understand you put together what you call levers for empathy, techniques, strategies that you've used in your design, or you've noticed that are successful in eliciting that emotion. Could you talk about that a bit?
41:53
Yeah, definitely. As we look to create this sort of content, the question of just how do we create empathetic content that fosters empathy in, in audiences, and it kind of check through a few different strata, one being physical memory. And just the idea that, you know, in VR, we have this new opportunity. Unlike other mediums, to not just sit on a couch, not just sit in a chair, not just being a reading nook, but to actually embody these stories in a way that promotes memory to realize that you've been there, you've done that thing, you've, you've experienced it in a way that they're really, it encapsulates your whole body, maybe reached up to pull yourself up onto the top of Everest, maybe you reached out to make to shake someone's hand in the experience, leaning into that physical memory, both embodying the experiences, but also just understanding spatial awareness and how that can add to retention, memory retention, I think that's really a cool place to play and for fostering empathy with VR, other spaces, this personal connection, something VR can really do in a unique way, in a new way, is create personal connections create true, seemingly true eye contact, create, you know, avatars that know your name. There's opportunities, I think, to leverage that kind of human experience. And to help that to let that help us sort of meet each other in the middle to just have a shared perspective of what another way to think about it. I think I mentioned it was just would just be the height of the camera, you know, that, that making sure that human connection can actually thrive in VR, in the experience the design, by camera placement, height, and making sure it just, you know, really seals the deal on the trick of it feeling like, I'm a person, they're a person and we are connecting in this new way. That often, you know, when we read novels, or watch compelling traditional films, flatties, you know, you might have a sense of Oh, I feel like I have a bit of a personal connection to this character. You know, this character. I've spent all these years reading a whole series of books, you know, Sherlock Holmes, or whomever it is. But at the end of the day, if you were to do that same story through VR, I think there's really a big opportunity to just lean into that personal connection so that people come away feeling like they know that person like they've, they have a memory that is shared with someone else. I think that it's a really powerful tool in our tool belt. Another one would be accessibility. And just thinking of, you know, how do we communicate the lives of others when they're far away when they see me very different than our lives, you know, maybe someone in Indonesia, that's, you know, that's a goat herder or maybe it's someone in in Gaza City, and they're just trying to survive their life there. You know, it's kind of this, this ability to speak across cultures without, without speaking the same language, this ability to communicate at the most basic level through through body language through shared objects, if you know we can, we can identify what a book bag looks like, you know, backpack of a kid. And when you see that backpack, whether it's, you know, dirty, or ratty, or whether it's really clean and well kept, you know, that says a lot, it says a lot to a lot of people and says a lot in a lot of languages. So looking for ways to just communicate the story outside of maybe English speakers first, you know, an opening, broadening up that the accessibility I think is really allows for more people to just to foster that empathy. Right? Yeah. And lastly, would be to reinforce humanity, you know, often we get caught up in the NGO trap of numbers, statistics, to millions, co2 tons, 474,000 people, 2 million people, 6 million people, 2 billion people, those kinds of almost, let's call them platitudes, sort of hard to grasp hard to grok numbers and sort of ways of storytelling that, that lean on data, which is not necessarily intrinsically bad. But it I think that the idea of making sure to reinforce humanity throughout these kinds of stories, really, again, it just brings us back to that personal connection, it brings us back to those nuances of humans, you know, what is it that we love about different characters in movies and novels? We love their little tics, their little idiosyncrasies, and so you know, where's that human moment that helps you understand what that other person's going through? And is it that, you know, they have to kind of, they pull their hair in front of their face, or they, they they avoid eye contact, it's this perfect sort of storm of something you can relate to something that makes them those characters feel more human. And it's something I try and focus on when we're capturing content. And it's definitely something we focus on, as we're, you know, in post production and putting it all together in the end, just to make sure that we don't lose that, that each of these characters are real people. They're individual. And they're the sort of like, unique in a way that makes them compelling. Those are my levers of empathy.
47:49
It's good stuff. I love it.
48:03
So I thought that was a really insightful conversation we had with Barry. Yeah,
48:06
Yeah that was a good one. Both you and I were kind of VR naysayers for a long time. Yeah, we're doing work that's in the real physical world. And it's all about having a heads up experience with other people. And I think that something about the aspect of VR being closed off, was a bit of a turnoff for us. And so I think it was interesting that it took us this long to experience a movie that came out in 2015. Yeah. And, you know, when we finally did, it wasn't what I expected. In a good way. I've been thinking a lot about the formula of the story, you know, it seems like our culture is and has been for quite some time locked into this really tired formula, where all our stories have to have a good guy and a bad guy. And what I absolutely love about both these films, is that there's no side to the story. There's just people. And I think it's a really powerful example of what happens when we shake loose of these old tropes, that they're so deeply entrenched, we hardly notice them. It's like the air you breathe. It's just if you really look at most of the movies, and books out there, there's a good guy and there's a bad guy. And I think the world needs more stories that are broken free of this old formula.
49:32
Yeah. What did you think of his levers for empathy?
49:37
I love the levers for empathy. I mean, it's, great when you can boil down insights that you've learned doing the work into concrete tools that can be applied in other situations. I don't remember what they were offhand, but
49:56
I was gonna ask you which one's your favorite what He talked about physical memory, everything promoting physical memory. That one stuck out to me. Because when I remember the film, or have memories of the film, it's not a memory of watching the film. But it actually registered, I think in my brain has a memory of being there and experiencing some of those scenes. And I think that's what he's saying when he says, you know, promote physical memory, like you're actually creating memories of being somewhere, rather than just watching a film. And so I think that's powerful. I told you this actually already, when I first watched the films, or when I first got the headset, but I kind of experienced the opposite, where VR is not just creating a memory, but it's triggering a past real memory in like a pretty powerful way.
50:57
Yes.
50:58
Yeah. Like you said earlier, I never really been a huge fan of VR. And I was like, hey, let me watch these films. I bought it. After I watched those films. I was like, let me see what else has been made. It's been years since this thing's been out. And I want to like, actually see what are people making. And so I went on YouTube and started watching some 360 films. And like he said, there was actually a lot of poorly made 360 content out there. But I happened to watch a film about India. And as you know, my family's from India, and I grew up going to India, like every other summer. So I just felt like I wanted to watch a film that was made there. And they followed, I would say many of the principles that Barry mentioned, within a few, maybe 30 seconds of the film, I was in tears, maybe I think it was like this market scene I looked, I turned around, I was looking around, I felt like I was there. And it felt like literally dozens of summers, my memory of all of that time and all of the emotions, like the fond memories, compressed and compacted into those few seconds and like hitting me, right? A gush of emotion. And so I started crying. And I was like, What am I feeling? You know, it was like happiness, because I felt like I remember those tender memories, but sadness, because I haven't been there in a while. And I don't know when I'm going to go back. Maybe I guess you could say it's like nostalgia. But intense. I don't think I've ever cried, feeling nostalgic. And so that's when I was like, Oh my gosh, this. This thing is powerful. Right? I've watched obviously many films that were set in India, or about India, and like, I've never felt that
52:31
and you and you let your son try to
52:34
Yeah, I did. It was really heartwarming watching him. So he's four, and has never been to India. But as we've told him stories, and he understands the concept of a place called India, and I put it on him the same film. And he really thought he was there. I mean, he was waving to the people. at points, he would get scared, he would like hold my hand. Very calls keeping the trek alive. Right. So I think that when it's done really well, it really does make you feel like you're there. And that one film, which and now I can't find it like I went back to find it on YouTube, and I can't find it. But they did a really good job.
53:17
Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. The other thing that stood out to me, you know, most of us go throughout our days having this experience of myself being inside my body piercing outside at the world through these little holes in your eyes. And so so you have this illusion of yourself as this thing that is separate from everything else. But what's interesting about VR is that it can be designed as this totally disembodied experience, you know, in some VR experiences, they actually visualize your hands and your arms, so you have an avatar. But in both of Barry's films, I have no arms, I have no hands, I don't even have a head. I don't even see the blurred edges of my nose as you would if you're looking down or kind of closing one eyes. So you don't have this sense of being inside a body looking out. You are simply this floating awareness, just observing what's happening, you're not aware of being you. Yeah. And I think that has a really profound effect on your experience of the story.
54:21
You know, that's actually related to something I noticed as well. So as you know, I've been studying empathy for a while and some of our work and I speak about empathy kind of generically, but there's actually a lot of nuances to like if you talk to a psychologist or a scientist, they'll point out differences in different types of empathy. One of them is the difference between empathic distress and empathic concern. And I had read about it, but I didn't realize what it meant really until we watched these films because later, I actually went back and watch them again after the current with Barry, and I noticed what you noticed, you're dis embodied. But in the science in the research, when you feel empathic distress, it's usually because you are imagining yourself to be that person. So you were like literally stepping inside the shoes of the other person. an empathic concern, which is what you're really trying to aim for with this type of work is where it's a little bit more like compassion, and you do distinctly see yourself as like other from the person that you're observing. And you'll notice that in both films, you are not actually standing in Sidra's shoes, or in the mother's shoes, right? In My Mother's Wing, but you're sitting in front of see draw on the carpet, and she's looking at you and talking to you. So that causes you to feel concern for her, rather than feel her pain in a way that's going to cause distress. And the reason that you don't want to cause distress is obvious. Because when you're in distress, you're going to tune out, you're going to shut down, your brain goes into like defense mode, and you're not actually going to want to act. So I thought that was really interesting. I think like that little nuance could actually make you act versus shut down. And I think it's also related to like, some of the other Doomsday narratives that we experience when it comes to whether it's the climate crisis, or the refugee crisis, or anything else where we shut down when we feel like it's hopeless, like we can't do anything about it. And that's also been shown that hopelessness is cognitively associated with inaction.
56:41
Yes, yeah. So, there was one point where we were talking about the process, this adage of, you know, what we create, in turn creates us. And that experience that Barry shared about how his time in Gaza totally broke his worldview. I love that about the nature of this type of work, because this is frontier work. In there are no set rules. And it was almost kind of like framed as an experiment, like, we're not really sure what's going to come with this. There's a certain liberating freedom to be open to the creative process and to let what wants to happen emerge. And that's a very different kind of creative process. You're not really sure where you want to go. But you have to be very observant. And you have to listen, and you have to look. And you just have to kind of guide this thing that wants to be born. And I feel like this project had that quality. And I just wonder how much of that that aspect of it being this type of project contributed to the change that he experienced himself?
57:52
I mean, I think what you said about being, they don't quite know what's going to happen. And it's an experiment, I think you're open, right, your mind is open to what might happen. And if you don't have a preconceived notion of this is exactly what I'm about to create. Then your mind opens up to other possibilities. And when your mind and your heart is open, then you you can change, right?
58:18
Yeah. And I think as designers, there's a really interesting lesson we can glean from this because, you know, it's easy to think that you know, but you don't know. It's like a way of approaching creativity, where the thing you're trying to create can become so much more, if you only let go of it a little bit. Yeah, well said. All right. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. To learn more about Barry and his cinema for social change, visit Barrypousman.com or to dive deeper into this episode and see the show notes you can visit us at outsideinpodcast.org. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us by subscribing, or leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. See you soon.
