Our VR experiences begin with testimony. Before any script exists, the Earth Rooted content team works with community consultants, humanitarian field workers and where safe and consented, people with direct experience of the conflict context in question. These are conversations structured around the grain of ordinary life: what did mornings look like? How did you get to school? What did you carry? What did you leave behind?
Months of this kind of listening precede any production document. The testimony is re-read and cross-checked against field documentation and journalism from reporters with long-term knowledge of the region.
The Editorial Calls Nobody Sees
Once testimonies are gathered and cross-referenced, an editorial phase begins. Every episode requires decisions about what to show and what to withhold. Earth Rooted does not recreate graphic violence. Research on vicarious trauma and VR consistently points to the heightened psychological impact of immersive media compared to flat-screen viewing. Our responsibility to the viewer is real and so is our responsibility to avoid reducing people's experiences to their most extreme moments.
Every Earth Rooted episode has been reviewed and revised by someone with direct ties to the community depicted.
Production with Purpose
Each episode ends with a question. Sometimes it is posed directly to the viewer. Sometimes it is embedded in an interactive choice: do you stay or leave? Do you respond or wait?
There are no good choices and that is the point.
What Comes After the Episode
Every Earth Rooted episode is designed to be followed by a facilitated debrief. A structured conversation in which participants share what they noticed and what assumptions shifted.
Facilitators are trained to hold these conversations with care, particularly in school settings where students may have personal connections to the conflict context.
The six minutes inside the headset are the catalyst.
Interested in hosting an Earth Rooted VR session at your school, university or organisation?