A recent episode of “Strange New Worlds,” called “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” saw Christina Chong and her co-star Paul Wesley transported to 2023 Toronto. Many of their scenes took place in Canada, but several of them were filmed against an AR Wall back in the studio. Notably, a scene that took place in a car had to be filmed in a stationary car while the background swirled past them on the screens outside. This sequence, Chong said, was enough to make her and Wesley nauseated:

“[T]he most non-fun scene to shoot. That was the car scene, the interior of the car. Because it was shot on the VR wall, a Virtual Reality Wall. They shot the plates of Toronto, the outside of Toronto, projected it onto the virtual reality wall and then we brought the car into the studio. We were in the car and watching the screen move, but the car was stationary. You can imagine that creates motion sickness, and both Paul and I are massive motion sickness people. We were like, ‘Guys, we can’t do this. We can’t do it. We can’t look at the wall.'”

This may be a similar effect experienced by actors in the 1930s who had to act in front of a rear-screen projection for the first time. Rear-screen projection, of course, was the practice of running an actual film reel against a screen that was on set with the actors, making it look like they were driving a car. One can imagine some actors standing up close to a speeding movie screen and feeling a little dizzy by the speeding movement. The modern AR wall seems to be the juiced-up, high-tech version of the same thing. Chong and Wesley felt a little ill.