Friday FOV: The Magic Leaps, Founder Fails, And VR Innovators of 2016
VR news for the week ending December 30, 2016
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This year in There Is Only R:
As 2016 draws to a close, a banner year of advances in 360 video, VR and AR — and even bigger expectations — is set against the backdrop of a world on edge.
There Is Only R ended the year this week with a look at AI In The Age Of Trump: What risks will be posed by the unprecedented flood of intimate user data generated by AI, VR and AR under the new administration?
Earlier stories in our Threat Catalog series:
- Can VR create the ultimate “filter bubble” so we can simulate our way out of ever dealing with people whose views we despise?
- Is the viral success of Pokémon GO a step toward the All Seeing Eye?
Some other highlights of our VR coverage in 2016:
Interview Of The Year: Our Inevitable Future
In a wide-ranging conversation with Elizabeth Spiers, Wired cofounder and author Kevin Kelly takes us behind the scenes of his new book The Inevitable, his Wired profile of the secretive but lavishly funded AR startup Magic Leap, the meaning of the Pokémon GO craze, and how AI will change VR. Says Kelly:
It’s really hard to kind of invent both the medium and content at the same time, and I’m not actually that interested in inventing the medium. I would prefer to take some of that stuff that exists and make content for it because every attempt I’ve seen in the past for someone to try and do both, it just doesn’t work. They’re really two different mindsets, I think. And my inclination right now is to let others invent the medium and I’ll try and make some content.
Essay Of The Year: VR Director Lessons From Robert Altman
“When it comes to manipulating dialogue tracks and spatial audio perception, there is just Robert Altman,” writes documentarian Mitch McCabe (Make Me Pretty, Finding Normal). McCabe shows how Altman’s directorial bag of tricks, including directed focus and overlapping dialogue, holds vital lessons for a new generation of VR storytellers wondering how to develop a narrative approach that maintain viewers’ agency while guiding their attention. She writes:
The Altman gestalt is not a rigid outline of causation and reaction, not a master flow of conflict, resolution, redemption, hero, anti-hero and other elements of Screenwriting 101 syllabi. Like many VR experiments, Altman films have a “choose your own adventure” quality — or at least, they offer the viewer the illusion of choice. Like today’s new VR filmmaker, Altman gave himself a task: how do you tell a story based on pure experience without falling into a genre of experimentalism that alienates, but instead welcomes you into a bigger tent?
Innovator Q&As
- Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley has long seen augmented reality as key to his plans to evolve the geolocation service into the “Best City Guide.” But, Crowley tolds us, his AR vision draws more upon audio enhancements like Apple’s AirPods and less on games like Pokémon GO.
- Elizabeth Spiers talked with Benjamin Dickinson, director of Creative Control, the 2016 film about a Brooklyn-based ad director that offers “the most elegant and plausible portrayal of augmented reality that we’ve seen in film in recent history, and possibly ever.”
- A team of VR developers and theater students at NYU’s MAGNET facility are producing To Be With Hamlet, an unprecedented, immersive Shakespeare production for the HTC Vive. We spoke with creators Javier Molina and Oliver Bell about the technical and creative challenges.
- Alice Bonasio spoke with Toby Coffey, digital director of the new immersive storytelling studio from London’s National Theatre, whose productions include a VR version of Alice In Wonderland, Easter Rising (about the 1916 Irish rebellion) for Oculus, and Coffey’s look at the world of Sudanese refugees.
- Christopher North, executive producer of the VMA-winning This Is What You Came For, described the problem-solving that went into the making of a Calvin Harris and Rihanna video in 360 with legendary director Emil Nava.
- First Contact Entertainment’s Hess Barber and Matt Candler spoke to us about the debut of ROM: Extraction, first in a series of upcoming releases from the game-industry veterans — as well as their thoughts about what gaming and other branches of VR like medicine can teach each other.
- We talked with Rob Ogden, VP of strategic planning for Madison Wells Media, corporate parent of OddLot Entertainment, Reality One and Relevant Theatricals and backer of other top VR studios including Wevr and The Void. In a wide-ranging conversation, he described how Madison Wells chooses its creative partners, and how the industry plans to tackle the key challenge of locomotion in VR.
- Anthony Batt, cofounder of Wevr, takes us behind the scenes of one of VR’s hottest content studios and releases including theBlu, Waves, and their Gnomes & Goblins collaboration with Jon Favreau.
- Justin Johnson, once known as “the Internet’s first videoblogger” and an early power user on Tumblr, tells us about his pioneering studio 360Buzz.
Industry Analysis
- Cody Brown calls for New York to create a dedicated VR space, “part co-working space, part teaching space, part arcade.” Be sure to see the video we produced featuring qualitative research interviews with participants in Brown and Leigh Christie’s Roomscale event last June.
- Four reasons why a Slate article that claims there are only four good reasons to use VR is wrong. The industry’s success won’t depend on mass audiences immersing in games for hours on end.
- Responding to an in-depth Backchannel investigation, Elizabeth Spiers listed some of the factors behind the sudden decline of early-state VR investor fund Rothenberg Ventures — such as 32-year-old founder Michael Rothenberg’s apparently greater interest in running Hollywood studios than investing in them.
- A look at the critical role AI will play for VR, and vice versa.
- Nintendo’s Virtual Boy was an epic 90’s failure, but it is fondly remembered by some. Its difficulties point to a few lessons for today’s VR gaming industry.
- Revelations that Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey was the secret sponsor of white-supremacist online trolling gave Elizabeth Spiers an opportunity to reflect on the grandiose belief of many tech entrepreneurs that their new wealth entitles them to rule our lives. And Cody Brown hoped VR giants Oculus and Valve would take the hint and “quadruple their investment in diversity.”
- And a lame, sexist joke by Nvidia’s CEO highlights how longtime barriers for women in tech will be a major problem for the VR industry unless tech executives can quickly develop some empathy, Elizabeth Spiers argues. “My experience working in VR so far is that it’s actually more friendly to women than other areas of tech. But that is admittedly a low bar.”
- Alice Bonasio is absolutely sold on Microsoft’s HoloLens and what it means for augmented reality. “Microsoft has built a seriously impressive piece of kit that manages to be cool even though it’s still primarily a corporate tool.”
- Bonasio also wondered when VR will “break the length barrier” and give us the next Toy Story.
Society and VR
- Julia Carmel questioned whether VR will live up to expectations that it can build empathy and foster global citizenship.
- “High-concept silliness” — pressure-free games like Job Simulator and Tilt Brush — can be the whimsical antidote to some of the oppressive gaming heaviness threatening to drag VR down, writes Andre Adams.
- How VR and 360 video can make Fashion Week more accessible.
- Zimbabwe-born VR producer Itai Kaitano looks at the promise of mobile VR and 360 to broaden the world of children in the developing world. “That experience handed to a child who has so far been unable to look beyond fetching a pail of water for the family’s sustenance for the day might just be life changing.”
- VR is already being used to treat phobias. Now, reports Alice Bonasio, it’s being used in Sweden to teach hydrophobic children to swim.
- What to expect when trying VR for the first time.
Westworld Recaps
All ten Season One episodes in HBO’s groundbreaking AI-themed Westworld were insightfully recapped in alternate weeks by Steve Bryant (of Dicks & Betties) and Elizabeth Spiers (founder of VR analytics firm The Insurrection, which publishes There Is Only R), with special attention to the show’s technical and ethical themes. The recaps are all here, and if you are just starting on Westworld, we can promise no spoilers. (As long as you read them in order!) And no matter how much or little you’ve seen, you’ll enjoy Steve’s analysis of the show’s palette, A Unified Color Theory of Westworld.
Well, that’s it for us in 2016! Have a great New Year and we’ll see you soon — like next week!
Don’t forget to catch up with last week’s “Friday FOV: Steam Crash, VR Hangovers, Virtual Tools For Government Surveillance.”
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