Headspace Studio – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 21, 2019

Eminem’s 360 Experience Marshall From Detroit Arrives Today on Oculus

After making its debut during last month’s Sundance Film Festival New Frontier exhibition, Felix & Paul Studios’ 360-degree film Marshall from Detroit featuring 15-time Grammy winning musician Eminem, will be arriving later today for Oculus Rift, Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR.

Marshall from Detroit

Marshall from Detroit is a 21-minute experience produced in conjunction with Oculus. Featuring Marshall Mathers (Eminem) and Sway Calloway and directed by Caleb Slain, you join Eminem on a night ride through Detroit with an up-close-and-personal view into the rapper’s thoughts and views on the city

“In Marshall From Detroit, we sought to explore the city impressionistically: Detroit as a memory, a feeling, a dream,” said director Caleb Slain in a statement. “With a front row seat down memory lane alongside Marshall and Sway, this lyrical experience offers an unprecedented glimpse into its eponymous titans. We all have a home. And the extent to which it shaped us is one of life’s great mysteries. But as any native would tell you, Detroit, Michigan is one hell of a place to call home.”

Eminem’s manager Paul Rosenberg and his producing partner Stuart Parr executive produced the experience via their Shady Films banner. The experience was captured and produced by Felix & Paul Studios with Headspace Studio providing the spatial audio capture.

“It was a remarkable experience to collaborate with Marshall on this project,” said Paul Raphaël, co-founder and creative director of Felix & Paul Studios. “Marshall and the place he calls home are deeply intertwined — a motif we have explored with virtual reality since we produced the Nomads series, Through the Ages, and The People’s House. Here we used VR to tell a new side of Eminem’s story, one where audiences will get closer than ever before to this musical icon.”

Check out the preview from last month below before it arrives on the Oculus Store as a free download. Felix & Paul Studios is continually producing new immersive content, with its latest endeavour possibly the most complicated, collaborating with TIME and NASA on ISS Experience where they’ll capture the first-ever spacewalk in 360. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Felix & Paul Studios’ work, reporting back with the latest updates.

January 26, 2018

Headspace Studio Expands VR Sound Operations With new L.A. Office

Technical sound services company, Headspace Studio (Inside the Box of Kurios; Jurassic World: Apatosaurus; The People’s House: Inside the White House with Barack and Michelle Obama) has today announced the expansion of its virtual reality (VR) sound operations with the opening of a new studio in Los Angeles, California.

kurios_1

The new Los Angeles office marks the first expansion for the Montreal-based company. The L.A.-based operation aims to further the company’s mission to provide VR producers, developers, and filmmakers with on-set and post-production audio solutions of the highest technical, execution, and creative standards and an end-to-end process pipeline for 3D positional audio production, post-production and delivery.

“Expanding to L.A. was a natural move for us. Having already delivered soundtracks on 360 video and VR productions for major Hollywood studios and leading VR storytellers, our new presence in L.A. allows us to be even closer to more VR content creators,” said Jean-Pascal Beaudoin, President and Head of Sound of Headspace Studio in a statement.

In addition to the new office Headspace Studio has hired audio industry veteran Viktor Phoenix as head of the L.A. branch, bringing 17 years of interactive audio experience to the role. Phoenix was previously Sound Supervisor for the Sound Lab at Technicolor and held senior positions at AAA game developers Pandemic Studios, an Electronic Arts-owned developer, and Turtle Rock Studios.

“I’m incredibly excited to have Viktor join the team to launch our L.A. office,” adds Beaudoin. “Viktor possesses not only the vast interactive audio experience and leadership qualities required to lead the new studio, but also a shared passion for exploring the power of sound field audio in presence-based immersive storytelling.”

“As virtual reality advances toward mainstream consumer adoption, producing high-quality VR content with seamlessly-integrated positional audio has become more essential than ever,” said Phoenix. “I am excited to be joining Headspace Studio at this exhilarating time in the entertainment industry. Audiences are becoming increasingly sophisticated and expect immersive experiences to feature spatial audio that helps to deliver on the promise of the future of storytelling. Jean-Pascal is a pioneer in cinematic VR audio workflow and mixing and I am thrilled to be joining him and the rest of the Headspace Studio team to lead the charge on the west coast.”

Headspace Studio was founded in 2015 as a separate division of Felix & Paul Studios. Recent projects the company has participated in include Space Explorers: A New Dawn and Isle of Dogs: Behind the Scenes (in Virtual Reality), both of which have premiered during the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Currently Headspace Studio is assisting in production of Kite & Lightning’s Bebylon Battle Royale, which is due for release later this year. For any further updates from the audio specialists, keep reading VRFocus.

October 17, 2017

Felix & Paul Studios Launch The Confessional VR Comedy Series on Daydream

Award-winning creator of cinematic virtual reality (VR) experiences Felix & Paul Studios has announced the launch of a new comedy series called The Confessional, available on Google Daydream and YouTube.

Created in collaboration with comedy festival Just for Laughs, The Confessional is a seven-episode series featuring comedians and YouTube stars, including Lilly Singh, Trevor Noah, Judd Apatow, Howie Mandel, Jim Norton, Moshe Kasher, Natasha Leggero, and Grace Helbig & Mamrie Hart.

The Confessional Lilly Singh

Filmed over the course of 2017’s Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, the series puts viewers in a confessional booth, face to face with one or two comedians, who then ‘confess’ their most awkward, humorous and embarrassing stories.

“When we approached Just For Laughs about creating VR’s first premium short comedy show, it was amazing how quickly we realised we had a shared creative vision – to create a new form of comedic experience by fusing VR’s capacity to create a strong sense of proximity and intimacy between viewer and talent, with the extraordinary quality of presence and performance of the best comedians. Think of ‘Comedians in Cars’ or ‘Between Two Ferns’, but in the highly immersive, intimate and personal medium of virtual reality where the viewer essentially becomes the host,” said Paul Raphaël, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Felix & Paul Studios in a statement. “We are thrilled to launch our first VR experiences on the Daydream platform and look forward to future collaborations with both Google and Just For Laughs.”

“We’re really excited to be partnering closely with talented creators like Felix & Paul Studios and Just For Laughs to bring innovative VR content to YouTube and Daydream. The Confessional series pairs their VR expertise with popular comedians like Lilly Singh and Trevor Noah, resulting in a fun, compelling new VR format for comedy. It’s an opportunity for viewers to connect with their favorite comedians like never before,” said Julia Hamilton Trost, Business Development Manager, Daydream.

Available to stream for free on YouTube, and YouTube VR on Daydream, you can check out the trailer and first episode featuring Lilly Singh below. For any further updates from Felix & Paul Studios, keep reading VRFocus.