Orange Sunshine is the title of a brilliant documentary from William A. Kirkley about a small group of surfers and hippies from Southern California that form their own church called the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and go on to become the largest suppliers of psychedelic drugs during the 60’s and 70’s.

Master of Shapes was approached to create an interactive VR experience where users would get to virtually sit and go on a “trip” with the film’s characters inside.

We saw this as an opportunity to try several novel audio techniques and use some brand new gear in order to accomplish the largest possible range between grounded reality and a heightened “tripping” experience.

Using an omni-binaural head, we tracked all the sounds in the room with perfect spatial placement relative to the user position. A news broadcast from that time plays passively off to the side, grounding the narrative in 1961, southern California.

As the experience lifts off, a number of haptic feedback operations fire. We used a SubPac driven by the audio from the experience to pulse the player in time with the music. A heating element in front of the user in real life triggers on in time with a fire forming in the game. Fans kick on as the user finds themselves in Joshua Tree Desert.