How effective is immersive journalism? Volunteer Chris Hopkins captured video of one woman’s reaction to Hunger in LA, an augmented-reality experience presented in the Midway at ONA12. 

As seen at Sundance Film Festival, Nonny de la Peña’s Hunger in Los Angeles is a six-and-a-half minute interactive news piece that recreates an eyewitness account of an actual crisis on a food-bank line. One at a time, a user enters this virtual reality. Using game-development tools, Unity 3-D, a body-tracking system, and a head-mounted goggle display, along with live audio she collected during the incident, de la Peña constructs a fully immersive, simulated world where audiences can suit up, walk around, and interact with other characters in the scene.

For more on this project, check out “How They Did It: Hunger in LA” on journalists.org.