We live in an amazing time. With flame grilled burgers you can cook in 90 seconds and things like 360 VR experiences, humanity has clearly peaked. To prove just how lucky we have it, we created a fully immersive tour through one of the low points of British history, London during the Great Smog of 1952. Optimised for mobile VR through youtube, the tour takes the viewer on a journey through the stunning sites in full VR or 360 video. The route was meticulously researched and the language of classic British tour guides was used to help transport the viewer into 1952...even though you couldn't see a thing for the entire 10 minutes. All you can see is smog. Literally just smog.

We created a fully immersive tour through the Great Smog of 1952. The 10 minute tour takes the viewer on a journey through the stunning sites, if only you could see them through the smog. The intricate sound design brought 1950's London into a virtual reality world, by creating ambisonic field recordings around the walking tour route, using a "tetra-microphone" to capture 360° atmospheres. Working with the latest 3D audio software we created a binaural mix - optimised for playback on YouTube's new 360 video engine. This means the audio tracks your head - changing direction and perspective as you look around. If only you could see anything through the smog.

To keep people watching for the duration, we challenged viewers to guess the last stop, because it was obscured by smog. The winner was awarded a limited edition personalised Rustlers Cardboard VR Headset; so they could enjoy it forever.

The film, featuring nothing but smog, was viewed for 731 hours in total with an average viewing time per person of 2 minutes 12 seconds. For a film with very little media spend behind it, where the point was to give someone a terrible experience that lasted 10 minutes and in which you could see absolutely nothing, the results exceeded our wildest expectations.