Whale Fall

Whale Fall is a VR experience that invites the user to become a companion to a dying whale, witnessing its final journey as it drifts into the deep ocean. Instead of presenting marine ecology as a distant scientific concept, the project centers the emotional experience of being there, following the quiet bond between the whale and the diver (the user) as they descend together into a shifting, mystical underwater world. The narrative uses intimacy, scale, and presence to help users understand the ecology of whale falls through connection rather than exposition, framing the science within a story of companionship and gentle loss.

This project was created for a course in my Immersive Technologies in Arts and Culture minor, where we explored VR, AR, 360° video, and how storytelling shifts within immersive environments. For the assignment, we were tasked with producing a proof of concept and storyboarding the experience, ultimately generating an animatic that captured the emotional tone, pacing, and spatial flow of the narrative. While this phase focused on conceptualization rather than full development, the project sets the foundation for a future VR build. Our next step is to explore translating this animatic into an interactive immersive experience that fully places the user within the whale’s final descent, deepening both the emotional and educational impact.