Enter the body and mind of a woman considering abortion, and meet real people who made this choice themselves.

In this immersive experience, engage in authentic interactive conversations with real women, who have had an abortion and are sharing their stories for the first time.

Interactive: length 15-45 minutes
6 degrees of freedom, PC & Mobile VR

SYNOPSIS

You put the VR headset and enter a boundless black void. You look down and realize that you are in someone else’s body -- a woman’s body. You raise what you think are your hands, but they are unfamiliar. You hear your thoughts and you are not sure who you are.

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You reach out for a pregnancy test. It is positive.
 
You hear a voice in your head as if it was your own: “How could this happen? What should I do?” 

You have entered the mind of a woman who has just learned that she is unexpectedly pregnant, and she is not certain what to do. She is looking for someone to share her experience and concerns.

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Real women appear in the space around you and share personal stories of making their decision to terminate a pregnancy. Through an interactive conversation, you learn the circumstances and emotions they felt, what they went through, and why they made their choice. Every story is unique and authentic. 

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The void that gradually fills with illustrations painting abstract vignettes following along each woman's personal story. You not only listen, but engage and ask them questions, and together in these immersive paintings, live through their experience.
 

Meeting Real Women

My subjects are not professional advocates and activists, but regular people from all walks of life.

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You will meet Elisabeth, an 18-year-old homeless girl from Toronto. Leigh, a woman in her early 40s who never planned to have a child. And Kristen from Texas, who very much waited for her daughter to be born, only to learn about the long list of fatal abnormalities in her pregnancy that endangered her life.
 
Each story looks at the right to choose from the unique perspectives of individual women. Their reasons and circumstances may be different, but common experiences underline the challenges and struggles women continue to face when making the choice whether to terminate the pregnancy.
 

By placing these interview subjects in a black void that gradually fills with animations mirroring the questions and fears inside the women’s minds, I use negative space to take advantage of VR’s immersive qualities and capacity to create a deep and lasting emotional connection.

The Choice gives the audience not only the opportunity to hear these personal stories, but thanks to a very unique technology used to record these conversations, participants will walk away feeling as though they’ve met and talked to a genuine person.

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As a director, I am concerned with what's happening around us and I want to look for some answers: Will these conversations change how people think? Will it make them stop, ponder?

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VR is perceived as an “ultimate empathy machine”, but to actually accomplish people to empathize with what and who they see - it requires careful design of how they will experience the story, what will be their role, and how space will be used in enhancing immersion and emotions.
 

- Joanne Aśka Popińska : Director's Statement

Making an

IMPACT

AN INTERACTIVE CONVERSATION

A critical question immersive stories must answer: what is the user's purpose? 
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So many social impact projects made using VR technology neglect a fundamental strength of this new medium: to visit a new world and become a new person.

The emotional content of our interviews might not be something a given user might be comfortable with, but the virtual consciousness the user is pretending to be is. This gives them a purpose and point of view that opens up to ideas and choices they might not make.

We give the users another tool. At points in each story, the user can ​direct the conversation just like they are asking a question, through the artifice of the virtual consciousness avatar. This key mechanic fundamentally changes how users engage with the material, they are no longer being spoken to, but are instead speaking with the virtual representation of our real interview subjects. Each choice they make is a mini-commitment to hear an answer, each choice an act of participation.

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This is what creates true empathy; not callous observation, but through agency and engagement.
 

USING SPACE AS CANVAS FOR IMAGINATION

To achieve the full immersion and emotional connection with the subjects, we use the whole 360 space without cluttering it and without drifting the viewer’s contemplation from what is important. All visual elements, other than interviewees, will have a feeling of being undefined and abstract.

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The surrounding space is black, and the avatar you entered - is hardly defined, it is only a shape to give your mind a frame, canvas for you to draw your own images on it.
 

The women storytellers, before you see their faces and meet them in a conversation - are only glowing silhouettes, representing everyone and no one, representing our whole society - where anyone could have an abortion, and there is no defining feature for them.

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When the woman begins her narration, she becomes very real. And then your virtual mind starts drawing immersive and then sweeping Quill illustrations to put you, the viewer in the center of the events, and then gently leads you back into the space and presence of the storyteller.
 

Visual references: Dispatch, Notes on Blindness, Dear Angelica

STEREOSCOPIC VOLUMETRIC

TECHNOLOGY

We have developed our own process for recording volumetric video for our interviews. It is a custom process of combining stereoscopic 3D cameras with a “depth” camera that records the distance of each pixel. This creates a “volumetric video” which contains not just color, but also shape, allowing you to observe the moving images from angles beyond the original camera lens.

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This effect is key to feeling like you are virtually co-present with a real human being, and not just watching a static video playing back on a virtual screen.

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What’s important is that our capture system is small enough to allow us to travel light, and even record interviews inside of our subjects’ homes, where they can feel comfortable and safe.
 

Sample from VR experience

OUR TEAM

DISTRIBUTION PLAN

The Choice is being developed both for the Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest and other PC & Mobile VR headsets. While the Oculus GO isn’t a 6 DoF headset, we plan support for it as well, it still can benefit from volumetric video through the subtle parallax in the neck modeling.

In the current political climate, our project has very strong international festival and press potential and would be a focal point for events, rallies, conferences related to reproductive rights. 

We will licence the documentary as an educational tool for universities and pro-choice organizations to share with the communities they serve - to start the discussion and show an from an empathetic perspective.

Under our current level of funding we are working towards producing individual interviews piece-meal from the full experience to showcase them at smaller events and galleries and grow buzz about the project.
 

NOTABLE MEDIA COVERAGE

• The Guardian, Laura Hudson - The female game designers fighting back on abortion rights

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• Indiescreen, Lisa Svadjian - Virtual Vanguard

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• Flare, Lindsay Pinter - This Virtual Reality Flick Shows What It’s Like to Have an Unwanted Pregnancy

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• VR Focus, Dave Aubrey - Powerful Virtual Reality Documentary ‘The Choice’ Attempts To Remove Stigma Surrounding Abortion

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• VR Scout, Presley West - This VR Film Lets You Experience an Unwanted Pregnancy

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• Wysokie Obcasy (Polish main magazine for women), Wiktoria Bieliaszyn -  "The Choice" - Załóż okulary VR i zobacz jak to jest być w niechcianej ciąży

Link to our Press Kit

RECENT PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

• The Talking Back Feminist Media Conference - organized by Shameless Magazine

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• VIFF Immersed 2019 - Co-production Market with Kaleidoscope
   

• GDC 2019 - The Choice VR’: Volumetric Documentary Filmmaking
   

• VRTO 2019 - The Choice VR’: Volumetric Documentary Filmmaking
   

• Immersed 2018 - The Choice VR: Using VR & Volumetric Video to explore emotionally charged subject
   

• iVentures - Stereoscopic Volumetric Capture Technology presentation

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CONTACT US

The Choice is being independently funded and developed through the work of our team, the material support of our partners and the donations from our incredible crowdfunding backers.

If you are an individual or organization who's values align with our project and would like to help, or someone who would like to contribute as a interview subject, please contact us here through this form or via our social media.

VR Demo available on request