Virtual Reality Investigation Reveals the Horrors of Mexico Factory Farms Katie Bellamy Mitchell and Fraser Tye - Green Is the New Red
go to original May 21, 2016

Factory Farms (Condition One VR)

“What I am about to show you is very difficult to experience; once you have been inside, there’s no turning back,” narrates Jose Valle just before he walks you into a pig farming facility in Mexico. “This is your last chance to leave.”

The ominous warning marks the beginning of a new documentary investigation by Animal Equality, an animal protection organization, and Condition One, a virtual reality production company. The film, Factory Farm, premiered at Sundance Film Festival.

Footage of this nature is not new. For years, animal activists have exposed the realities of industrialized animal slaughter. Today, groups like the Humane Society and Mercy for Animals have published undercover investigations on YouTube, prompting criminal charges, new legislation, and consumer outrage.

Now, Animal Equality’s films are going even further.

They are unique in that they are shot on virtual reality cameras, allowing 360-degrees of sight for the audience. In Animal Equality’s previous VR film, iAnimal, the viewer, guided by narration, experiences life through the eyes of a pig. In Factory Farm, we stand alongside Valle as he photographs a pig’s confinement, castration, electrocution, and slaughter.

Through the technology of VR we get a fuller range of sight into the life of an animal raised for slaughter. For example, it allows us to see the saliva coming from a pig’s mouth as it gnaws the metal bars of its crate and to rotate around to see the bloodied tail of a castrated piglet nearby. It allows us to see the reflections of workers in the pools of blood on the floor, and to move upwards to see their faces as they go about their work.

With VR, we too, can hear the whirring and grinding of machinery in the slaughterhouse, the squeals of uncooperative swine and the yells of those who push and kick them to their fate.

The films are designed to be viewed with a special VR headset, allowing the viewer to look around by turning their head. Currently, Animal Equality is touring UK and US universities with iAnimal and VR headsets, offering special street screenings. For those in other cities, the experience can also be emulated online, using the cursors to see left and right, up and down.

Read the rest at AlterNet

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