Next month will see the return of the SXSW Film Festival and its accompanying SXSW Virtual Cinema. As part of the content lineup Viacom NEXT has collaborated with musician Hot Sugar on a virtual reality (VR) music video called The Melody of Dust which will premiere at the event.
The Melody of Dust is a deconstructed VR music collection that features 87 unique melodies created by Hot Sugar. To reveal the melodies, viewers explore the musician’s ethereal castle and are invited to pick up items that have a sound emanating from it. A variety of melodies are revealed when you toss three different objects into the reactive vortex. Eventually the vortex erupts, revealing a final unique song from Hot Sugar.
“I’ve always preached that any object in the universe is a musical instrument whether we know how to play it or not,” said Nick Koenig, also known as Hot Sugar. “With Viacom NEXT, we’ve created a VR experience that lets the user confirm that concept within the visual aesthetic of my videos.”
“We are honored to have The Melody of Dust, the first of its kind deconstructed VR music experience, premiering at SXSW,” said Chaki Ng, SVP Viacom NEXT. “Our VR design and development team worked with Hot Sugar daily as VR development and music creation happened in parallel.” He added, “What makes The Melody of Dustunique is the whole experience is ‘the song,’ not just the audio soundtrack at the end. We believe this is a glimpse of what the future of music could look and feel like as you step into the mind of a musician.”
“In this year’s new Virtual Cinema, we not only put an emphasis on storytelling and ingenuity but also showcase how other industries are embracing and excelling in this exciting new medium,” said Blake Kammerdiener, VR Programmer. “We’re excited to include The Melody of Dust and Chocolate – among this year’s standouts–to our enthusiastic and smart audiences.”
Other recent Viacom NEXT VR productions include Chocolate created by Tyler Hurd which debuted at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival last month, and Smash Party VR, a HTC Vive title developed in partnership with animation studio Titmouse. Titmouse will also be at SXSW with an immersive VR music video, Show It 2 Me, made with musician Night Club.
38 VR experiences are due to be showcased in the SXSW Virtual Cinema, so for any further VR updates from the festival, keep reading VRFocus.