5 secrets to making a virtual reality film, By Josh Bloch

VR sometimes called an ’empathy machine’ because of the visceral experience it creates for the viewer

A section of Highway 16 in northern B.C. that is knowns as the Highway of Tears, as seen from a drone. CBC Radio’s The Current has produced a virtual reality documentary about the stretch of highway where so many Indigenous women have gone missing in the last 50 years. (CBC)

The unsolved murder of teenager Ramona Wilson is the subject of CBC’s first virtual reality documentary Highway of Tears.

Wilson’s body was found in 1995, nearly a year after she went missing along the notorious stretch of B.C.’s Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, where at least 18 women have been killed or have gone missing since 1969, most of them Indigenous. First Nations communities say the number is closer to 50.

Matilda Wilson holds up a picture of her daughter Ramona at her home in Smithers, B.C. Ramona disappeared in 1994, when she was 16, and her body was found a year later. Her death remains unsolved. (CBC)

The documentary uses virtual reality (VR) to allow viewers to explore a three-dimensional space by simply moving their heads. As a relatively new technology, the rules and conventions for creating VR are still being established. Here are five cool things you probably didn’t know about making a VR film.