Here Be Dragons

Here Be Dragons was an immersive creative production studio working across virtual reality, augmented reality and spherical filmmaking. Founded in 2014 as Vrse.works, it adopted the Here Be Dragons name in June 2016. Its productions combined filmmaking, interactive design and technical development to create documentary, narrative and experiential work for audiences exploring emerging immersive formats.

The studio brought together filmmakers, technicians and interactive designers. Its capabilities included live-action 360-degree production, stereoscopic and volumetric capture, custom camera rigging, VR stitching, visual effects and spatial audio. This combination supported projects ranging from cinematic viewing experiences to room-scale installations, with content developed for entertainment, journalism, humanitarian organizations and commercial clients.

Documentary and immersive storytelling

Its early work included Clouds Over Sidra, a 2015 United Nations documentary about a young girl living in Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp, and Waves of Grace, which followed an Ebola survivor in Liberia. For The New York Times Magazine, the studio produced The Displaced, exploring the experiences of displaced children, and collaborated on Walking New York with artist JR.

Other productions explored different forms of presence and participation. Evolution of Verse, created with Annapurna Pictures, used a photorealistic CGI environment. The Last Goodbye, made with USC Shoah Foundation, presented Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter’s testimony through a room-scale volumetric experience. The Protectors: Walk in the Ranger’s Shoes brought documentary filmmaking into VR through a collaboration involving Kathryn Bigelow, Imraan Ismail, Annapurna Pictures and National Geographic. Its narrative work also included the Mr. Robot VR Experience, the episodic miniseries Dispatch and the horror experience Catatonic.

The studio’s most active production period was approximately 2015–2017. It stepped back from VR and AR content and in-house production around 2018 as the market for cinematic VR contracted. As of the November 2026 research, Here Be Dragons was inactive and its historical website was offline.