A small St. Petersburg company, Scatter Brothers Virtual Reality, has partnered with Kodak to be a featured exhibitor at the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, according to co-founder Ben Daniele.

  • St. Pete virtual reality company featured at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
  • SBVR to showcase VR video they created
  • Company hopes to get funding for more film, TV projects

“We were so lucky to actually be asked by Kodak to partner up with them to present our newest technology ‘The Halo’,” Daniele said. “Which is dealing particularly with VR and total immersion for our viewers.”

The Halo is an innovative head camera system with a Kodak camera mounted on the front and back that can shoot virtual reality videos while walking or moving around. SBVR product engineer Wes Weber helped design the prototype. 

“We want to take VR off the rails,” he said. “We don’t believe that VR should be stationary in one spot.”

Daniele said current VR shooting systems are impractical for filmmakers because they restrict mobility.

“If you’ve ever seen Back To The Future, the Doc Brown helmet comes to mind… they restrict the full actor immersion and the character immersion,” he said. “With our headset, it’s much more applicable. We’ve designed it so there’s no nausea when the viewers watching it, which is a big problem with the big rigs.”  

At CES 2018, SBVR will showcase a virtual reality video they created called ‘The Escape’ that was shot with actors in St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach. 

“Not only do we want to shoot big and get the episodic series, the mini-series, the movie and VR but there’s much more commercial and realistic applications,” Daniele said. “Tourism, touring sites, concerts, full immersion experiences like none other.”

Producer Doug Tschirhart said he’s excited to introduce the world to The Halo and their content ideas.

“Hopefully, get some funding and bring it back here to St. Pete,” he said. “Start producing content right here in Florida.”

The CES 2018 convention begins on Tuesday and runs through Thursday.