Total Immersion

Total immersion, or ‘sense of presence’, is achieved when the brain has been fooled into believing an experience that is entirely fictitious is, in fact, real.

To achieve this, we use a variety of technologies and techniques including immersive sound, triggered smells, virtual reality, interactive projection and other visual tricks. If the experience requires it, we can also design and create the physical environment in which the immersion takes place.

The art is in carefully combining the technologies that will work for the given location. One mistake, and the spell is broken. In heritage environments in particular, all the imagination needs is the slightest of nudges.

We’ve recreated a smokey and gossip-filled Georgian coffee house, taken audiences deep into a magical woods to encounter a monster with musical teeth and transported people into the hold of Shackleton’s Endurance as it’s slowly crushed by the surrounding Antarctic ice.

You can read more about the totally immersive experiences we’ve created below. If you’d like to find out more, call us on 01242 256970 or email ben@pastporte.co.uk.

360 Fire Rescue VR for the BBC and London Fire Brigade Museum

Until you’ve put on that headset, VR experiences are hard to grasp. Some kind of physical installation, housing the VR, can be a focal point and a tangible tease, creating some of that rollercoaster queue anticipation that enhances the whole experience. And something familiar (less alien than a VR headset still is to most people) becomes a kind of a guide rope to take the newbie VR viewer from the real world into the virtual one.

Find out more…

Turning Forest VR for BBC R&D

Turning Forest VR Installation for BBC R&D.

How do you stand out amongst 50 virtual reality experiences jostling for attention in a crowded , noisy, shiny modern gallery. This was our challenge when we showcased a BBC R and D/VRTOV Virtual Reality experience at Storyscapes, the Tribeca Film Festival’s VR fest.  Our task was to – almost instanteously – transport visitors to a world of fantasy forests that would trigger memories of childhood adventure.

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The Shackleton Immersive Cinema

Shackleton Immersive Cinema at the Fram Museum, Oslo.

Oslo’s Fram Museum charts the story of Polar exploration, and no recounting of the tales of Antarctic endeavour would be complete without the story of one of Britain’s finest, Sir Ernest Shackleton. The Fram team had experienced Hurley’s Camera but they needed something that could immerse more than one visitor at a time. So we designed the Shackleton Immersive Cinema.

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