Blue Marine XR

Introducing “The Sea We Breathe” a virtual reality experience explaining the carbon capture capabilities of the ocean in beautifully immersive 360°, narrated by none other than Helena Bonham Carter. The experience was designed to debut at COP28 and will be used as an educational tool moving forward, allowing people to dive beneath the waves and learn about our planet’s incredible underwater world.

Working closely with the client we created a succinct script for the experience. The core idea revolved around the user visiting three visually distinct underwater locations. The next step was crafting the visual narrative starting with quick sketch work to create a storyboard for each environment. This step was crucial for kick-starting the R&D process and providing the client with a clear vision of our proposed direction. Designing compositions and visual choreography is always challenging in virtual reality and so it was essential we were able to begin prototyping as soon as possible.

In order to reach the largest audience possible we built the experience to be accessible not only on VR headsets but on desktop, tablet and mobile devices also. The experience was however optimised for the Meta Quest. In the final product users are invited to immerse themselves in 3 detailed ocean habitats, observe the native sealife up close while learning about important fact about our oceans carbon capture capabilities.

Working with The Blue Marine Foundation we created an AR campaign for World Ocean Day which allowed users to walk with whales and encouraged them to share their experience on social media using the hashtag #walkwithwhales to raise awareness for ocean health.