The-Artery Is Rewriting the Rules of POV Filmmaking

Innovation isn’t just part of The-Artery’s ethos — it is the ethos. Whether it’s pioneering virtual production back in 2018, producing the first 360° video for Google in 2015, or crafting a virtual TikTok influencer years ahead of the curve, the studio has built its name on doing the impossible.

“We don’t chase technology. We chase stories,” says founder and CCO Vico Sharabani. “But we’ll use every tool — old or new — to get closer to the truth. That’s the future of filmmaking, and we’re already living it.”

Most recently, The-Artery is proving that one of cinema’s boldest experiments — point-of-view filmmaking — isn’t just viable. It’s powerful, emotional, and, in the right hands, transformational.

“Being at the forefront isn’t a marketing position — it’s simply how we operate,” says Vico. “When people say something can’t be done, that’s usually our invitation to try.”

POV filmmaking challenges one of storytelling’s fundamental principles: showing the protagonist, and many people that Vico spoke with believed it couldn’t be done to great effect. But The-Artery has embraced the challenge — working on ambitious long-form films like ‘Presence’ (directed by Steven Soderbergh) and ‘Nickel Boys’ (directed by RaMell Ross and Oscar nominated for Best Picture), as well as a powerful immersive experience for the New Orleans Museum of Civil Rights.

Most recently, The-Artery helped bring ‘Bono: Stories of Surrender’ (immersive) to life — the first full-length immersive film made for the Apple Vision Pro.

To explore how POV filmmaking works, LBB’s Abi Lightfoot caught up with Vico and creative director / VFX supervisor Yuval Levyto find out more.

Making the Impossible, Possible

“POV filmmaking challenges one of the core conventions of cinema — showing the protagonist,” says Vico. “When you remove that visual anchor, you’re left with a massive creative gap.”

Where others might see an absence, The-Artery saw opportunity. “The gap is also where possibility lives,” says Vico, highlighting the importance of pushing the limits of filmmaking even further.

“It forces the audience to embody the character and see the world directly through their eyes,” he says. “It’s emotionally and technically difficult — but when it works, it unlocks something you simply can’t get with traditional third-person storytelling. It becomes an experience, not just a narrative.”

In the case of ‘Presence’, which The-Artery was the visual effects partner on, the narrative centres around a ghostly presence which is never seen by an audience, which watches the events of the narrative unravel through the ghost itself.

“The film’s ambition was unique,” Vico explains. “Single-take scenes told entirely from the ghost’s perspective, with the camera playing the character. That meant dealing with constant reflections, shadows, physical interactions — all the invisible labour needed to make the illusion seamless.”

The camera, instead of passively filming the world, becomes a part of it. Shot on a 14mm lens, the camera moved freely around the house where the shoot took place, with free rein to go anywhere and uncover the story that was unravelling within the property. Yuval described the process as similar to a video game. “You [the camera] can go everywhere. The camera can move in any direction you want to find the story, and follow it with no restrictions.”

Because the camera was the protagonist, there was no room to hide equipment or crew. “The camera wasn’t just observing the world – it was the ghost,” says Yuval. “That meant it needed to move like a character, not like a traditional rig. And since the whole film was shot inside a real house on a super-wide 14mm lens, there was nowhere to hide anything.”

This is where visual effects came into play - to ensure that the illusion was seamless and to reinforce the ghostliness further. The-Artery used a scan of the set for a unique cleanup process. Shadows, reflections and any evidence of a physical presence were removed using visual effects, helping to preserve the illusion that the ghost was physically interacting with the world, whilst adding, in Vico’s words, “a little bit of magic” to the film as a whole.

“But the reward is total immersion,” he adds. “There's an intensity and emotional continuity you just can’t fake with cuts. The camera isn’t just a witness — it’s inside the story, moment to moment, breath to breath. That’s what made ‘Presence’ so special.”

Bridging the Gap

‘Nickel Boys’ uses POV filmmaking to position viewers directly within the American South during the ‘60s. It places them in the shoes of a young Black boy, and his experiences growing up. “It’s a world many viewers may not be able to imagine themselves in,” says Vico.

“POV filmmaking lets us bridge that gap. It became an empathy machine. You’re not just observing his story — you’re living it, walking through his world, seeing how people look at you, react to you, and treat you.

“There were scenes where we used reflections — in mirrors, TV shop windows, ceiling tiles — to show the protagonist without ever fully revealing him,” he adds. “Those moments were carefully crafted with visual effects, often combining multiple plates and subtle parallax tracking, just to maintain that emotional connection. And it worked. It grounded the viewer in his identity, without ever breaking the illusion.”

For Yuval, there was a moment in the film that truly proved the power of POV storytelling to him. “There’s a shot when the boy is looking through the window of a television shop, and he sees all of these screens, and the viewer sees his reflection in the window at the same time as they see the news, which is Martin Luther King’s speech playing on the television.” He adds, “There were so many layers of interaction, and it was then that I realised that we can tell deeper stories through point of view filmmaking.”

After production on ‘Nickel Boys’ had wrapped, The-Artery was invited back to New Orleans to work on an immersive experience for the Civil Rights Museum. Held within an interactive cube, the project recreated iconic moments of school desegregation for viewers to interact with and learn from. “It wasn’t POV in the traditional sense,” says Vico. “But the goal was the same: total immersion.

“You walk into a cube-shaped virtual space, and as you move, the environment responds. Get close to a little girl — one of the first to integrate a school in the South in the ‘60s — and she tells you her story, voiced by the real woman she grew into. Move toward an FBI agent, and you get a different perspective. Every inch of that space is reactive. You’re not just watching history — you’re in it.”

The use of immersive technology at the New Orleans Civil Rights Museum also changes the way that audiences experience storytelling, as they move through the exhibition at their own pace, guided by their own decisions.

“We created a scene when you're walking within a group of people campaigning for human rights in the ‘60s.” Yuval adds, “It's all black and white, and you really feel like you're there walking with them. You move to the right, you move to the left, and the whole world is shifting with your point of view. But this time, it's not through the Oculus or the VisionPro, it’s in a real space and the world is responding to you, and the choices you make.”

“It was incredibly emotional, and incredibly powerful.” Vico reflects, “And it showed us that the same storytelling values we bring to film can transform physical spaces as well.”

Reaching New Heights

The-Artery took the technique to a new level with ‘Bono: Stories of Surrender’, the first full-length immersive film created for the Apple Vision Pro.

The project was “a milestone,” says Vico. “It brought together the highest level of traditional filmmaking — with Bono telling his own story — and cutting-edge immersive technology. It was produced by Plan B and RadicalMedia, and technically approved by Apple’s own teams, who have an incredibly high bar.

“The Vision Pro platform is still new, and the technical demands are immense: extreme resolution, high frame rate, stereoscopic delivery — and yet, we treated it like we would any other film. We brought in our deep experience in directing, finishing, and emotional storytelling, and made sure that it felt like cinema — not just an experiment.”

“We don’t become the technology — we master it,” says Vico, defining The-Artery’s approach to innovation.

“We bring storytelling into new mediums without losing the craft.”