The one thing every current Apple Vision Pro owner demands is—to put it simply—more. That is more features and more content. The latest push from Apple to make good on the promise of its first “spatial computer” is Submerged, a short movie directed by noted filmmaker Edward Berger and designed wholly for the Vision Pro. It’s a fun watch, well worth the 17 minutes of strapping the Vision Pro to your noggin. And still, after watching it and other “immersive” content, I’m still left wanting more.
Apple allowed Gizmodo an early look at Submerged before its full release Thursday for free on the Apple TV app. I’ve watched plenty of immersive videos and traditional content on Vision Pro while I await the fabled update that will finally add a 180-degree wraparound screen to visionOS 2. Just like the short documentaries in series like Elevated and Adventure, this short-form content is a nice distraction, but once you watch them once there is little reason to go back.
What Does Submerged Do Differently Than Typical Films?
Spoilers for Submerged below:
Submerged is enjoyable, though not the kind of knockout film the Vision Pro needs. I have big problems with its script and storytelling. Set during World War 2, Submariner James Dyson, portrayed by relative newcomer Jordan Barton, wakes up on board a U.S. submarine to find his friend is not in his bunk. He shuffles down cramped, empty halls, quiet but for the humming machines beside him. Then the movie breaks the tension when Dyson finds his missing friend in the sub’s mess hall. They talk about how much they miss home, about how much they hate the months they spend at sea, and then suddenly, their sub is under siege by a German destroyer.
The short film ends with a tense scene of the crew escaping the submarine after its hit with depth charges. Dyson makes it outside, screaming with joy at the fact of their survival. I enjoyed Berger’s harrowing rendition of WW1 with All Quiet on the Western Front, but Submerged crams both too much and too little story into this 17-minute short. It’s unfocused, and the characters don’t get nearly enough room to breathe or for the film to showcase its themes effectively. Still, it’s tense, claustrophobic, and beautifully detailed, well worth your time if you still have a headset on hand.
What the film does accomplish is showing the challenges and opportunities for “immersive” movies. Despite all the talk that you have a full 180-degree view of the action, Berger puts most of the emphasis on close-up shots. That makes sense for a film set in a WWII-era submarine, but it also forces viewers to see what the director wants them to. You can turn your head to get a better view of the sweat on Dyson’s face, but you can’t escape that Barton’s character is the subject of the frame.
Like all visual art, creators use tricks to draw viewers’ attention to the point of the action. One of the easiest examples to point to is Mad Max: Fury Road. There’s been plenty of film school essays about how director George Miller and cinematographer John Seale constantly set the important action in the middle of the frame. It means viewers’ eyes don’t need to dance to different parts of the shot to follow what’s happening in the film’s frenetic action scenes. Berger tries to do the same thing with a fair amount of success using age-old filmmaking techniques like depth of field effects and spotlighting. Just because you can look around the frame, doesn’t mean you’ll want to.
While Apple’s other immersive video content has all been focused on non-fiction documentary-style content, an immersive movie demands far more thorough attention to camera placement, blocking, and cinematography. In Apple’s making of video, Berger mentioned how they struggled to find ways to hide the specific kinds of 3D cameras necessary for recording the immersive video. You need to have sets and equipment that won’t show something the viewer is not supposed to see.
That’s why it makes sense the movie takes place on a submarine. You can dolly a camera down a tight corridor without fear of capturing something you didn’t intend to. The entire film was shot on real sets that can be rocked, rotated, and flooded. The design team had to put in even more effort to make sure every detail of the environment looked pristine and realistic, especially since the viewer could focus their attention anywhere they wanted.
When the audience can look wherever they want, there’s less chance for the kind of film trickery that might let you get away with cheaper set dressing or Lord of the Rings Hobbit perspective switching. If you went for CG, you would also have to make much more high-detailed computer-generated images to fill up 180 degrees of view. The last shots of Submerged open up to the wider ocean, in which there’s nothing but our main characters and their lifeboats from the camera to the horizon. There’s no hint of the ship that originally destroyed the submarine. It seemed like a large oversight, but I also wonder how much of that plot hole is down to intent versus expense.
What Other ‘Immersive’ Video is Coming to Vision Pro?
In my demo, Apple also showed me a short film for the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend that acts essentially as a small highlight reel with several interesting camera angles behind the basket. There are more episodes of Adventure and Elevated coming later this year, and the next big immersive video will be a “music experience” with The Weeknd for the band’s upcoming album Hurry Up Tomorrow, out next month. There’s more immersive music content with a performance from British artist RAYE in a new series called Concert for One.
Any streaming company knows the issue with passive content is that you constantly need more. Once a subscriber is done binging the latest show, they want to move on to the next thing. If they’re not interested in any new content, they stop paying. The Vision Pro works well as a large screen for watching native apps like Disney+, and with visionOS 2 it’s a fine device for scrolling through YouTube or Netflix on Safari. Still, few will buy a $3,500 headset to watch movies alone when—for that price—you can get an expensive, high-end 4K TV to watch with friends and family.
That’s why Submerged is so important for Apple to get right. The scripted movie needs to prove that mixed reality is a new medium for high-profile, fictional content. The problem is that the potential audience is still extremely limited by the $3,500 Vision Pro’s astronomical price. Market analysts were down on Vision Pro sales earlier this year. Last month, analyst firm IDC reported the Vision Pro saw some increase in sales this year even if its market share in VR came down. The Meta Quest 3 and 3S brought a surge in the cheaper headset market. That newfound focus on VR plus more international Vision Pro sales may be floating all boats.
If Apple does release a cheaper Vision product, it will need more content like Submerged to make it enticing to Apple’s regular fanbase.