ABC's ambitious plans for scripted VR hit new note with 'Nashville'

The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Tennessee is a rustic, 90-seat music club filled with history -- it's where a young Garth Brooks was first discovered, stepping in for a sick headliner, and where Big Machine Records founder Scott Borchetta decided to take a meeting with a girl named Taylor Swift.

And now the musical hub with a rich past is playing a part in scripted television's future.

Earlier this week, a team from ABC's Nashville descended upon the venue to film a special virtual reality edition of Nashville: On The Record, a documentary web series turned concert special that offers fans a behind-the-scenes look at the country series' songwriting process. 

Dawn Soler, senior vice president of music for ABC Television, has overseen all incarnations of On the Record -- from its 60 or so digital episodes to three broadcast specials and the tour of the same name. The point, of course, has always been to give viewers a front-row seat -- and virtual reality lets the network take that to a new, semi-literal level. 

"This new technology, it's so exciting because viewers are going to be able to sit in the middle of a round. That will be such a special experience," she said, speaking just hours before the show's cast would arrive for their evening performance slots.

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On Monday, the team is set for what can be considered phase 2 of Nashville's VR bonanza: a scene that features Aubrey Peeples and Jonathan Jackson, filmed separately both for broadcast and for VR. 

Executing a traditional piece of scripted, intended-for-TV content is its own beast, which may explain why double-duty experiences are few and far between. When done for VR, for example, this scene must be filmed more like a play than a television series, since the team needs to have a clear field of vision in several directions.

It's true that as of now, VR is a bit of a pain for creators. While the technology is increasingly accessible, the industry has had a tough time figuring out how to make the experience satisfying. This year's Sundance, for example, was rife with well intentioned VR experiments that failed to deliver. 

Scripted television, however, may have one advantage that movies don't: feverish demand. The die-hard audience that can set a show trending for hours has an big appetite for content, and VR just might be the double cheeseburger that feeds the beast.

"Everything we've done has, quite frankly, outpaced what our projections were for the pieces," Lisa Siegel, vice president of strategy for Disney Media Networks, tells Mashable. 

ABC's experimentation with VR began in the news division, with pieces produced on the Nepal earthquake and North Korea, among others. And earlier this month, ABC launched a VR experience for its freshman hit Quantico, which recently secured a second season. This particular piece was sponsored by Lexus, but penned by writers from the show. 

So far, it's garnered over 1.4 million video views. 

Siegel is happy to see that show creators and producers have been open to exploring VR possibilities -- but that doesn't surprise her.

"By nature, they're creative and they want to share as best as they can, using, all these tools available to them their stories and their ideas and immersing our viewers in the world they've created," she said. "We've had a fantastic reaction from the creators themselves." 

Both of Nashville's VR experiences will go live in May, in conjunction with the last three episodes of this season.  

"As we go down these new paths -- VR, 360, other experiences like it -- we're going to engage our viewers with incredible programming focusing on our characters and our stories that really expand well beyond the traditional bounds of the TV and of the mobile screen," she said. "There's a lot more to come." 

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