Jon Schnitzer has been waiting 16 years for virtual reality technology to evolve to this point. The creator, director and producer of Flatline VR has been fascinated by real-life accounts of near-death experiences since first meeting a friend in 2001 who lived to tell the story of leaving his body, only to return to Earth. That was the beginning of years of research, exploring the accounts of hundreds of people who had eerily similar stories.

I thought itd be amazing to document this, but if you film this youd just watch someone elses experience, Schnitzer said. I thought itd be cool to film something in 3D, but I decided to wait until we could do 3D VR so we could put people into the experience and have that visceral and emotional connection.

Working with 3D Live Entertainment and Epic Games Unreal Engine 4 technology, Schnitzer is now able to give people an accurate recreation of one womans near-death experience through the power of virtual reality. The five-minute experience will make its debut at ScareLA on Aug. 5-6 at the Los Angeles Convention Center before being released for consumers at a later date, with more information on http://www.flatlinevr.com.

Although the first imagery that comes to mind with near death experience is that of a camera floating above the body and looking back down, thats not the focus of this first Flatline VR episode.

There are so many different variations of the stories, but entering a vortex is a common theme for people from all different cultures and locations around the world, Schnitzer explained. Thats actually where the phrase seeing the light at the end of the tunnel came from.

The journey the Flatline VR experience follows is that of Gloria, a young woman in the 1950s who suffered a miscarriage in a wing of a large hospital and was left alone while she bled out.

They put her in a room and forgot about her in a wing that wasnt busy, and she was screaming for help for days and nobody heard her, Schnitzer recounted. She lost consciousness and died and went through this Flatline experience. When she woke up there were doctors at the foot of her bed. Her husband was in the military and he told her not to tell this account to anybody, so it wasnt until decades later that she wrote about it in a letter to somebody.

The words written in that letter are the exact words that actress Mella Leigh recorded for this VR experience. In another eerie coincidence, Leigh herself had a direct connection to this project.

Mella had just had a near-death experience in a car wreck right before we approached her with this, and her story had a lot of similarities to Glorias story, Schnitzer said. I definitely get the chills when I hear Mellas voice as Gloria.

While Schnitzer doesnt want to spoil the experience by offering a complete play-by-play, he does admit that Gloria spoke of being pulled down into a spinning vortex.

Thats what hooked me, Schnitzer said. We wanted to do a vortex different than the way youre used to seeing one. The vortex accelerates and closes in and it has textures and colors to it that come from all the different years of talking to people who have had different near death experiences, as well as speaking to the scientists that explain why people are seeing these images. and what types of things youre actually seeing.

Beyond the expansion and the extraction of the color spectrum, the feeling of falling and spinning and turning, and the 360 audio experience thats been designed to disorient you, theres a lot more to the experience, including an element that makes it worthy of a horror festival. But thats for people to try first-hand.

She saw something come after her in the vortex, and how you interact with that is interesting and thrilling and controversial, Schnitzer added.

The set-up at ScareLA will have participants enter the back of an ambulance and lie on a gurney, where an HTC Vive is placed on their head. Although the later home version wont come with an ambulance, it will offer a built-in replay feature.

In addition to Glorias version of the account, we have three different commentary tracks where experts are explaining why different parts of her story are happening, Schnitzer said. Each one is a very different point-of-view that goes into the science and whats typical for these types of experiences.

The entire experience was created in four months by a team of 12 people, including the audio team. It marked a collaboration between Schnitzers The Brain Factory 3D Live, the company behind Electronic Arts, Biowares and Cedar Fairs Mass Effect 4D ride at Great America.

And if all goes according to plan, this near-death experience is just the beginning for Flatline VR.

This was just the pilot episode, Schnitzer explained. When I met my friend 16 years ago who had a near-death experience he shared a story that was so epic that I knew I couldnt pull it off for the pilot episode. We created this gateway episode, which is really emotional and powerful. And hopefully this episode will open the door for us to make the other episodes that Ive been dreaming about for over a decade.

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Flatline VR Brings Near-Death Experience To Life - UploadVR