[The new Gorilla Trek Virtual Reality Experience from Immotion is designed to use presence to engage, entertain, inform, build empathy and encourage conservation. The story below from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provides details and describes audience member responses. Coverage from OnMilwaukee (with the headline of this post) adds this indirect reference to presence from Immotion Group Commercial Director Rod Findley: “People come out of Gorilla Trek and they really feel they have been transported to a different world.” The attraction is now also available at the Pittsburgh Zoo (follow the link for a description and a vivid 30 second trailer featuring content clips and audience reactions). Findley provides more context in a 35 second video from Immotion and a 9 minute interview from DirectorsTalk on Vimeo. See “The 360°, 25K gorilla experience backed by Hollywood stars” from AV Interactive for coverage of a related attraction; the story begins with this:
“Habitat XR has launched an immersive theatre that can screen 360° films in 25K resolution at the Ellen DeGeneres campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda. The Irmelin DiCaprio Theater has been launched with financial support from DeGeneres’ The Ellen Fund and from actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The immersive theatre, together with AR and VR experiences on site, bring audiences within inches of digital representations of Africa’s endangered mountain gorillas, without any impact on their natural environment.”
And for more on out-of-home immersive attractions see The Stringer Report. –Matthew]
[Image: Source: OnMilwaukee]
The Milwaukee County Zoo is the first in the U.S. to offer a virtual-reality experience about gorillas only seen in the wild
By Amy Schwabe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
July 28, 2022
The odds are if you’ve never traveled to Rwanda, you’ve never seen a mountain gorilla in real life.
Mountain gorillas — which are critically endangered, with only about 900 estimated to be left in the wild — aren’t well-suited to being in human care so they’re not in zoos, according to Jenny Diliberti-Shea, the public relations manager at the Milwaukee County Zoo.
Although most people will never be able to see the mountain gorillas in real life, visitors to Milwaukee’s zoo are now able to do the next best thing — see them in virtual life.
Milwaukee is the first zoo in the country to have the Gorilla Trek Virtual Reality Experience, a 360-degree live action VR film with motion platform seating.
“We are thrilled to partner with Immotion to offer this groundbreaking virtual-reality experience to our visitors,” zoo director Amos Morris said in a news release. “This one-of-a-kind experience is yet another means for us to engage guests to get interested and involved in the conservation of species and develop empathy for animals.”
Viewers of the film enter a 40-person theater where they put on virtual reality headsets. When the film starts, people can turn their heads to see everything going on around them. The setting is the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda where primatologist Tara Stoinski of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund narrates the journey.
Although the video shows the real lives of a mountain gorilla family, there is a story involved, complete with conflict as silverback gorilla Zirikana tries to assert himself against the family’s dominant silverback Charles.
Without giving spoilers, the story is interesting enough to hold the attention of people of all ages, and the high quality of the video makes you feel like you can reach out and touch the gorillas. In fact, it feels impossible to not hold out your hand to try.
That was the reaction of staff and zookeepers when they got a preview of the experience, according to Andrew Stockel, business operations manager at the zoo and the person responsible for bringing the experience to Milwaukee.
“When I first saw one of the baby gorillas, my reaction was to hold out my arms because it got so close, you feel like you can pick the gorilla up,” said Stockel. “And when I watched the zookeepers’ reactions in their headsets, they were all doing the proper, professional stances people are supposed to take when approaching animals in the wild.”
Before the film, there’s a pre-show with interactive elements including videos about gorilla behavior and a quiz that matches your personality with one of the featured gorillas or with one of the zoo’s western lowland gorillas.
Diliberti-Shea said zoo staff hope people will come away from the experience with a new understanding of gorillas’ endangered status and go to the zoo’s western lowland gorilla exhibit to note the similarities between the two species.
All gorillas in the wild are considered critically endangered. The most prevalent threats against their existence are poaching, hunting, loss of habitat and forest degradation.
“Making those connections between the gorillas you see in the experience and the gorillas you see in person, those are so important for our conservation mission,” said Diliberti-Shea. “You never know when the next Jane Goodall or the next Dian Fossey is going to come through the zoo and get inspired to help these animals.”
If you go
The Gorilla Trek Virtual Reality Experience is expected to be at the zoo for several years, in the Otto Borchert Family Special Exhibits Building, behind Macaque Island.
Admission to the experience is $7 per person ($6 for Zoo Pass members), on top of regular zoo admission. The experience is best suited for people ages 5 and older.