I don’t like submarines. The idea of being trapped, several hundred feet underwater, in a narrow, creaking death trap? No thanks. I already knew that going into a screening of Submerged, the first scripted short film shot in Apple Immersive Video for the Vision Pro. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m triply sure.
Written and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger, Submerged takes place inside a WWII submarine that’s under attack. It follows the crew as they try to escape a sinking submarine. I, however, was seated comfortably in 2024 on a couch at Apple’s demo space in Manhattan. There weren’t any other theatergoers because I was going to strap the theater to my face. It was a little weird. At least, until the film got going. Then, I, too, was inside a WWII submarine.
Watching an immersive film inside the Vision Pro is an odd thing. On the one hand, it’s hard to forget you’re in a headset. But, unlike a regular film, I have a ghostly sort of agency inside the narrative. The action can be happening with the main characters, but I’m not obligated to watch them. You can instead focus on the extras in the background. I can — and did — occasionally choose to turn my head to stare at the rivets in the submarine’s metal walls or beads of condensation in a torpedo tube (also, rudely, a roach skittering across the floor). Sometimes, I’d turn around to see if this Submerged world had 360 degrees like the real one. Spoiler: it doesn’t. This fictional world spans 180 degrees, and once you reach the border, it fades to black.
The experience feels like a cross between playing a video game and viewing Sleep No More, an immersive version of Macbeth where the audience traipses through a creepy hotel as the play unfolds around them. Scenes move slower, as if you’re being invited to gawp at your surroundings. At the same time, you’re not fully free to explore. There’s still a story that Berger is trying to tell — you’re just along for the ride.
All of that is a natural part of adapting traditional filmmaking to a more immersive 180-degree field of view. “That frame is very large and you need to fill that frame with things that happen, things that could be of interest to the audience,” Berger says. “Every extra counts in this, every piece of equipment, every piece of bursting pipe or element in the frame counts. You can’t really cheat.”
That wide field of view comes with its own obstacles. Mics and lighting have to be built into the scenery. Berger says he had to storyboard everything, create a short animated film based on that, and then watch it in the Vision Pro to get a sense for how the camera would move. Berger also wore the headset when filming started to figure out how shots would look.
The result is impressive. As water rushed into this fictional submarine, I could taste the faint memory of salt water on my tongue. When characters walked down narrow submarine corridors, I felt claustrophobic. During a scene where sailors shoved a torpedo into its launch tube, I instinctively stretched my hands out. For a split second, I thought they were loading it straight into my chest.
“My main agenda is to make you feel what the main character is feeling, to sort of have you go through what they’re doing,” Berger says. On that front, Submerged is incredibly successful. It’s when you remember you’re in a headset that the rest of the world comes rushing back in.
Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you. There’s no one else gasping at harrowing moments. There’s no one to lock eyes with, as if to say “Whoa, did you see that, too?” If you were to SharePlay this, you’d just see the ghostly Persona of a friend who isn’t actually there. And then you’d miss out on the whole immersive aspect. When you think about it that way, Submerged is something you have to experience alone.
Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you
Owning (or borrowing) a Vision Pro is also the only way to see Submerged. That’s inherently lonely. The only people I’ve really been able to chat about this experience with were Apple employees and Berger himself. Now that the film is available, I’ll have to wait for the two people I know in real life with a Vision Pro to carve out time in their schedule to see it. When I try to explain it to my spouse, they are unmoved.
Ostensibly, Apple wants these immersive films to serve as a selling point for the Vision Pro. Come, spend $3,500, and see for yourself what the magic is all about. There’s a logic to it. Submerged is truly a technologically impressive proof-of-concept for high-quality immersive content. It’s just also a hard experience to share. I can’t say with a straight face that this is the killer reason anyone should buy one of these things, especially since this was only a roughly 17-minute film. That’s long enough for things to feel snappy and fresh. I’m not sure how well the immersive aspect would hold up over a two-hour feature.
“Not every movie is going to be made on these headsets. It’s not necessary. It would be a waste of resources and waste of time,” Berger acknowledges. Instead, he sees the Vision Pro as another tool in the belt. “Not every movie is supposed to be for every medium. But if I have the right story, I think, ‘I’m excited about telling this and about pushing the medium forward.’”
That’s sort of the quagmire all mixed reality tech is stuck in. It can be magical. When you try it, you can see why some people are inspired and excited. And then, when you inevitably take the headsets off, it’s hard to explain to anyone why the world inside the headset is better than the one outside it. “Pushing boundaries” isn’t all that convincing of a reason. Watching Submerged is like this, too. For all the artistry and technological prowess that went into making this film, I’ve never needed the Vision Pro to imagine how terrifying a sinking submarine could be. It’s just not necessary for immersing yourself in a good story.