[Music]
you
why is it that when you read a great
story in a book you’re just as excited
to go see that same narrative in a movie
I remember reading Jurassic Park I loved
that book and I loved seeing it in the
movie as a movie and I’m not the only
one millions of people knew what was
going to happen and they still went to
the theater and we did this for the Lord
of the Rings series we did it for the
Harry Potter series all the comic book
movies that come out there based on a
narrative you could already read over
the course of my professional career
I’ve gotten to work with a lot of great
storytellers and what I find interesting
is that with each story you tell you
don’t necessarily need a new narrative
you just need to tell a story in a new
way and it’s because as audience members
we all experience story differently
where we’ll find meaning and where we
won’t and so someone who relates to a
love story told as a movie maybe get
something completely different out of it
as a book so you don’t necessarily need
a new narrative you just need to tell
story in a new way and you do it well
and with each telling there’s a chance
that’s at its core why we tell stories
and so we can share our ideas and our
perspectives our passion so that maybe
the audience can take something with
them let me tell you my favorite story
if I were to tell you a story of a young
man a dreamer who’s growing up on the
outskirts of civilization in the boonies
and because of an unexpected event he
gets spurred on an adventure to find he
was destined for something greater it’s
a pretty generic story and one you’ve
seen heard and read many times before
but what if that story was told using
technology that made it feel knew that
was Star Wars Star Wars was a story you
had heard before was a narrative we all
knew but it wouldn’t when it was told
with technology that was magical it
became this memorable and inspiring
experience that has shaped generations
including mine this is a story from
sixth grade and it says something about
me that in my sixth grade glamour shot I
had my first computer so from a young
age I loved technology and I loved great
stories like Star Wars and Jurassic Park
my favorite was Back to the Future and
so what I’m interested in is finding new
ways of telling stories through new
technology when I graduated college with
a degree in computer science I was
fortunate enough to work at Pixar and
over the course of 10 years I got to
work with these amazing artists and
engineers working on these beautiful
films and working at one of the best
companies you could work for but my
favorite story comes before my time
there back before anyone knew what Pixar
was and it was win a small handful of
artists and engineers we’re working on
this 90-second short about a lamp and
it’s ball that short was called luxo jr.
and when it premiered for the first time
in front of an audience in 1985 within
30 seconds the audience was already
standing on their feet and going nuts
and it was a 90 second story it’s a
story about a parent watching a curious
kid at play and it’s a story we’ve seen
before but when this story was told with
these believable computer-animated lamps
that were jumping and acting and ammo
ting it made history and would change
the entire film industry
when i worked at pixar i got to work on
these amazing projects these timeless
widely loved films they were
fundamentally based on narratives you
had heard before like the story of a
hotshot from the city who finds his
heart in the country or the story of a
lovable nerd who just wants the hot new
girl to like him and finally the story
of an old man with the help of some
friends finally completing his bucket
list and what made these stories great
was that they weren’t necessarily new
narratives but they were told in these
fantastic settings with appealing
characters and using dazzling technology
about three years ago I was looking for
our generations leap forward a new
technology that would revolutionize the
way we tell stories and on March 18th
2014 I found what I was looking for that
was the day that the second developer
kit for the oculus rift came out to the
public and within the first 10 seconds
of trying it I was convinced it blew my
mind and this was something that was
going to change my life I had tried
virtual reality back in the early 90s
when he had to go to an arcade he wore
this big device and you were sick within
five minutes this version was so much
better it was lighter it tracked you in
a smooth way and you could bring it home
and had an amazing feature that
convinced me this was the future you
could now move around as well as look
around in a virtual space and if you
haven’t tried virtual reality immersive
virtual reality that you can move around
in if you haven’t experienced immersive
virtual reality it’s an experience
that’s too hard to describe but for
those of you who haven’t tried it when
you do you still know you have this
device on your face and you still know
you’re looking into a screen but it’s
uncanny how a large part of your mind
all the way down to the lizard part
is convinced that you’re in this reality
that doesn’t actually exist and it works
because as you move around in a virtual
world sorry in the real world the
virtual world presented to you moves and
sounds in the same way you’ve always
gotten feedback through your eyes and
ears and the best way to create these
virtual worlds is by using computer game
technology but the cool thing about VR
is that the way you interact with these
gaming systems is the same way you’ve
always interacted with the real world
everyone knows how to move and look
around and so here was our idea what if
we use computer game technology I was
fortunate enough to join oculus and
create a small group of artists and
engineers dedicated to making immersive
virtual reality we called ourselves
oculus story studio and our mission was
to figure out this this new medium to
figure out the language and the tools
I’m going to talk a little bit about
that our first experience was called
lost and a premiered at the Sundance
Film Festival in 2015 it’s about a
mysterious creature you meet in this
moonlit forest and you soon find out
he’s just this lost puppy looking for
something and at the end you meet his
master who’s the 60-foot tall robot it
crashes through the forest looms over
you and then you find out he’s just
looking for his missing hand lost is a
story that takes about five minutes I
can describe it to you in a few
sentences and it’s deeply inspired by
one of my favorite childhood films the
1999 classic The Iron Giant I love that
film
but when we started showing it to the
audience they were saying they’ve never
seen anything like this before this
feeling of this huge robot towering over
them was a feeling they’d never had
before and we call that feeling presence
and this is the magic of dr this is that
thing I was talking about that you feel
in your lizard brain and when you get it
right this is the defining
characteristic of virtual reality for a
second project we wanted to make the
audience laughs and even more
importantly we wanted to introduce them
to an animated character that they feel
present with the result of that was
Henry a 13 minute short that premiered
in late 2015 in Hollywood and Henry is
the story of this cute hedgehog who just
wants another animal friend to hug him
on his birthday but he’s got a spiky
body and so when he makes his birthday
wish it has some unintended and what we
were hoping would be laugh out loud
moments it didn’t work out that way we
were starting to play around with the
fact that we knew where you were in this
virtual world and so we started
tailoring moments like that one we found
the most successful way to have Henry
connect with you was havin glance at the
audience to share moments of happiness
sadness and surprised when he just
looked at the screen you need to keep in
mind he’s not looking at a camera he’s
looking at you the audience member that
feels present in his home and who could
be standing or sitting or even leaning
forward he’s a character acting in real
time so he can change how his neck turns
and where his eyes are looking and you
feel like he sees you an animated
character we feel like we found a new
technique a new word in our language
that we call look at and similar to how
you would use a close-up in film it’s a
way we can create
action between the audience and the
characters a lot of the humor and Henry
comes from moments like this oops yeah
we thought it was pretty funny but
actually what started happening was
because of these look at moments the
silly moments got overshadowed by this
new feeling our audience had for for
this cute character that was standing in
front of them and just wanted another
animal friend to hug and so the audience
felt like they were in the space of his
sadness and they were in that moment of
joy when his wish does finally come true
so as a result we didn’t get as many
laughs as we wanted but we did get more
tears than we were expecting for a third
project we wanted to show that this was
a medium that had range and we could
explore a lot of different topics and
feelings we wanted to try to tell a
story dealing with loss grief and how
you deal with it so for a third project
we wanted to tell the story of a young
girl who’s dealing with a profound loss
in her life and who is a budding artist
herself and our director wanted to put
you inside of her imagination as she was
dealing with this and he felt like the
best way to do that was to have her
imagination draw in around you we just
finished dear Angelica and it’s going to
premiere at the Sundance Film Festival
this coming january and i’m really proud
of this project and what my team did
because it’s unlike anything you can
experience than any other medium when we
started working on dear Angelica we had
this brilliant artist wesley all’s Brook
and she was doing these amazing 2d
illustrations and we tried to take them
and bring them into a virtual space and
it didn’t feel right it felt flat
because she was working in a flat format
and we were trying to make it work in a
3ds
bass and then we had a breakthrough when
indigo keela’s our resident mad
scientist made a tool taking advantage
of new technology where we can track
your hands just as accurately as we can
track your head and with this tool
Wesley can now draw in 3d space all
around her and we can record the order
and the timing of those strokes and use
that to orchestrate a story that draws
in around you to feel present inside
these drawings that draw in around you
and these things have depth you can
actually look around them and even put
your head inside of them it’s really
amazing so you’re now all caught up to
present day and throughout this talk
I’ve been using the word audience and
right now I don’t think that word works
anymore an audience implies that you
simply observe and listen and in a VR
story you participate participant that
doesn’t feel right that feels too
sterile like you’re in a lab experiment
we didn’t like user because a user that
doesn’t feel right you don’t use a story
and a player that’s what you use for
games and puzzles my favorite word is
visitor and I really like this word
because it captures how you feel like
you’re invited into the story and it
implies how the storyteller needs to be
mindful of how they host you in the
worlds they create and how they
introduce you to the characters in whose
stories you’re entering these are the
early days of this medium we’re still
figuring out how to use presence we’re
still figuring out the techniques and
the words like look at and we’re finding
that the audience is actually a visitor
or even having to build new tools like
quill but it’s undeniable that this
feeling of being transported to a
different place in the comfort of your
living room is magical despite the fact
this is what early film audiences saw
this was a blockbuster in the early
1900s to go to your local theater and
see a vaudeville act something you could
have seen in real life but it was this
technical marvel of projected light to
go to a theater and see some spectacle
when my mother saw lost for the first
time she’s actually in the audience it
was also the first time she saw a
virtual reality so i have to admit she
was a bit overwhelmed i’ll use
overwhelmed within the first 30 seconds
she actually began covering her eyes
trying to cover her eyes right she has a
headset on and looking away and it was
just hard for her to took to realize
that she was just in her living room and
then she was in this forest at the same
time but after she got that out of her
system got the novelty shock off she
knew what was going to happen and she
found awe and wonder the second time it
took decades of those vaudeville acts of
seeing the directors tinkering and
experimenting until the audience was
shown a coherent feature-length film
that resembled the movies we watch today
but until that time happened the
audience still showed up for the
experiments that’s where we’re at now
with VR we need the time to develop the
language and the tools so we can show
you a coherent feature-length story in
VR but until that time happens the
experience is so new the novelty is
enough what really excites me about VR
and why I hope to be working on this for
the rest of my career so we have decades
of tinkering and experimenting ahead of
us but what we can do now the way we can
host people in places they could not
experience in any other medium or even
in reality itself is really exciting it
means I can put you in stories
where you feel present in your favorite
childhood movies or where you feel
present inside a story where you meet an
animated character for the very first
time or I can put you in a story where
you feel present inside someone’s
imagination as it draws in around you
this is why I’ve fallen in love with VR
it’s not because it’s a medium that will
unlock new types of narrative it’s
because this is a medium where I can
give the visitor an experience they’ve
never had before and this is why I love
doing it I love giving something new to
an audience and I can’t wait until you
all experience what it’s like to visit a story