Virtually Viewing The Box Archives

Timebank members from Efford and Stonehouse recently enjoyed a visit from Jilly at The Box.

Jilly got in touch with us at Timebank to offer our members the opportunity to have a go at viewing films from The Box’s archives via their Virtual Reality head sets.

Once Jilly set up the head sets she helped members fit them comfortably to their heads and explained how to use the hand-held remotes to navigate their way around the platform. When they felt confident on their own, they were left to virtually walk around the front of the Civic Centre in Plymouth and select different billboards each with a different archived film from The Box.

It was a weird and wonderful way to engage virtually with the footage from the past. Among the available films was News coverage of Churchill visiting Plymouth, news interviews with shoppers out to purchase the new craze – platform shoes! And wonderful footage of a young girl exploring the inside of the Council House next door to the Civic Centre building.

Everyone who took part found it really interesting and were pleased to be introduced to VR. They would like to see more and conversations were had about other films, Doc in particular enquired about an old Japanese film he had seen before, so Jilly took his details so she could link him up with the right people to view the footage again. Jilly was happy to come along to our sessions again so that anyone who missed it could have the  chance to get involved too.