In 2018, during the height of Donald Trump’s tensions with North Korea, someone mistakenly woke up the people of Hawaii by setting off an alarm that said a nuclear ballistic missile was on its way.

It was a terrifying event for those who woke up to the doomsday message, and now people can relive it in VR in an immersive VR documentary called In the morning you wake up (until the end of the world).

That documentary captures much of the fear people felt when they realized they might have little time to tell their loved ones, said Susanna Pollack, executive producer of the virtual reality film and executive director of Games for Change, which was one of the supporters of the virtual reality film that aims to educate a new generation of people about the threat of nuclear war. It was a day when nothing happened, but everything changed. It is relevant at a time when Russia’s Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons if the Ukraine war escalates.

“Games for Change has occasionally taken on the role of executive producer on some projects. We are not a game studio. But from time to time, if we think we can add value, we’ll help you out, usually as a non-profit partner,” Pollack said. “This is a virtual reality experience that has a social impact.”

The filmmakers of Archer’s Mark and Atlas V highlight what it was like for the people of Hawaii, who had to endure 38 minutes of uncertainty after receiving the false missile alert report on January 13, 2018. Other supporters of the film include Oculus VR for Good, Arte France and BFI. It runs on the Oculus Quest 2 (Meta Quest 2) headset.

That Saturday morning, the Hawaiian citizens went about their daily routines. And then the entire population of the state received an SMS from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, which read: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT ENTERING HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

It was reminiscent of the alarms that Pearl Harbor was under attack at the dawn of the United States’ entry into World War II. Cellular communication networks collapsed and panic gripped 1.4 million people who understood the real, growing and urgent nature of today’s nuclear threat.

As Kauai resident Cynthia Lazaroff would later say: “The alert was false, but the nuclear threat is real…[it] It’s not a stage, it’s not a video game… we experience it personally, we feel the terror.”

In the minutes that followed, the people of Hawaii were forced to confront the kind of existential questions that had been unthinkable moments before: where could they take refuge? What would be left of their communities if they survived a nuclear explosion? How could they explain to their children why we live in a world where such unimaginable destruction was possible? And how could his own government continue to pursue nuclear policies that threaten the entire world population every day?

On The Morning You Wake (to the End Of the World) is an audio-based virtual reality experience that reveals and dramatizes the fundamental injustice of a world held hostage to nuclear weapons. The experience closes with a series of pathways for people to get involved and work together towards the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Eliminating nuclear weapons

The goal of the filmmakers is to educate people about nuclear weapons and motivate people to do something about the need to eliminate the weapons. This impact project and campaign is designed to spark the imagination and outrage of the global public to speak out against the production and possession of nuclear weapons and call for their elimination at the local, state, and federal levels.

The filmmakers used an array of 140 cameras and 120 infrared sensors to capture nearly perfect three-dimensional moving images for each character in the film.

To the filmmakers’ knowledge, no other long-form wireless headphone-based experience contains such a large amount of volumetric capture, and the team said it is deeply indebted to the huge team of technicians, across multiple studios and broadcast programs. research and development, which made it possible to bring such a cinematic experience to a mass audience through the Quest 2 platform.

Pollack said that many of the social justice groups wanted to raise the alarm profile around nuclear weapons, but it was not as high on the list of concerns as climate change or social justice. The film consists of three chapters, each about 15 minutes long.

“We knew they had that kind of creative vision to help bring this piece to life,” Pollack said. “Can you imagine that for almost 40 minutes, the people of the island had to deal with the reality that their world was going to come to an end?”

Still, Pollack said there is a feeling of hope, about change that could happen in the future, that runs through the entire film.

“We really wanted to make sure people didn’t walk away from this experience scared,” Pollack said. “And I think the team really did a great job of doing that. You feel that you can be part of the solution. And that’s, and that’s really important.”