Category: Kaleidoscope

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Kaleidoscope’s FIRST LOOK Event Targets Premium VR Content

Kaleidoscope has today announced a two-day event coming in September, designed to showcase virtual reality (VR) content from some of the most innovative studios in the world such as Marshmallow Laser Feast, House of Secrets, Funktronic Labs, Tender Claws, and many more. Known as ‘FIRST LOOK’, the event will be limited to just 200 attendees.

Cosmic Trip headerFIRST LOOK will bring together a select audience of VR publishers and distributors, C-suite executives, festival and museum curators, marketing visionaries, and luminaries from the entertainment industry. Attendees will get a first-look at new VR films, videogames and experiences currently in development and available for pre-sales and partnerships; access to over 100 VR titles ready for licensing, distribution and exhibition; and the opportunity to build strategic relationships with important artists and innovators.

“Kaleidoscope exposes where the future is headed,” says Ted Schilowitz, Futurist at Paramount Pictures. “I’m always impressed by their choices and the way they pursue the medium and the art form. Kaleidoscope continues to be one of the most interesting and compelling efforts to support risk-taking VR creators.”

In the weeks leading up to the event, Kaleidoscope will work with each attendee to create a custom schedule of demos, workshops, and meetings that match their content strategy and advance their business goals. Kaleidoscope also provides a personalised dossier of projects and people they should connect with at the event.

Abandoned School

“The biggest challenge to the future of virtual reality is funding,” said René Pinnell, founder and CEO of Kaleidoscope. “FIRST LOOK helps solve this problem by bringing our industry together to support the creators who push VR forward as an artform.”

To attend FIRST LOOK industry leaders must apply to join Kaleidoscope as a charter member for $199/mo. If selected, they will receive full member benefits including access to Kaleidoscope’s online catalog of VR projects; content bundling, personal introductions, and other white glove services; and invitations to exclusive events like FIRST LOOK.

VR creators may apply to attend FIRST LOOK for free by submitting an original project. If selected, their work will be promoted to Kaleidoscope’s growing network of funding sources, distributors, and festival curators.

FIRST LOOK is the latest initiative from Kaleidoscope, which has helped independent artists raise over $3MM for original VR projects since launching in 2014. VRFocus will keep you updated with further efforts from the company in the supporting of VR software developers.

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Kaleidoscope Creates Marketplace for VR Content

Kaleidoscope was initially involved with the exhibition of virtual reality (VR) content, attempting to introduce works produced for VR to audiences who may have never experienced VR before. With VR increasingly going mainstream, Kaleidoscope have turned their attention elsewhere to the creation of a funding platform for VR content creators.

Kaleidoscope CEO René Pinnell spoke to Filmmaker Magazine about the difficulties faced by VR creators, particularly those who are new to the industry. While there is plenty of funding for VR projects available, it if often hard to locate, spread as it is between various companies and venture capitalists. Kaleidoscope’s ambition is to make the process of gaining access to funding easier.

“To date, most of the funding for original VR projects has come from the major HMD manufacturers — Oculus, Vive, Samsung, and Sony,” Said Pinnell, “However, Kaleidoscope has identified more than 100 other companies and organizations who are actively funding VR content and, while individually their budgets are relatively small, when we bring them all together it can have a major impact on the funding landscape. And that’s what we aim to do. Kaleidoscope’s role is to get all of these industry players on one platform to better coordinate their support for the most talented VR creators and studios.”

Up to 100 funders will be aable to subscribe to the Kaleidoscope service for a price of $199 (USD) a month. This will give funders a first-look at upcoming projects that have been curated from places such as festivals, now creators, independent studios and established creators such as Baobab. From there, funders can create a dialogue with the creators to invest in current or future work. A library of VR titles awaiting licensing and distribution will also be available.

Pinnel believes this is a step towards turning VR content into something as commonplace and mainstream as TV or Film: “In four years virtual reality will be a mainstream technology with an audience of over 50 million in the U.S. The cost of a high-end VR system will drop to below $600, making it accessible to a much larger audience, and the visual fidelity and comfort of the device will dramatically increase.”

VRFocus will bring you further news on Kaleidoscope’s VR projects as it becomes available.

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Kaleidoscope Launches VR Fund to Support Premium Content, $3m Already Raised

While there’s no doubt that the virtual reality (VR) industry has seen significant funding, to continue development whilst attracting the best talent (and promoting current creatives) more investment is needed. So today, Kaleidoscope has announced the official launch of its VR fund, to help independent VR creators and studios raise money for their original projects.  

Funding is still an issue for many developers so Kaleidoscope has built an invitation-only marketplace, limited to 500 members, in which leaders of the industry will be able to get a first-look at new films, videogames and other experiences available for pre-sales, licensing, and other partnership opportunities.

Kaleidoscope PROJECT Apex

Those who apply and are then selected to join the fund will pay $199 USD/month to see curated projects from top artists, with projects from Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca, and IndieCade, work from established teams like Baobab Studios and new creatives such as Eliza McNitt, Arnaud Colinart, and Arjan van Meerten, all available at launch.

“The biggest challenge to the future of virtual reality is funding,” says René  Pinnell, co-founder and CEO of Kaleidoscope in a statement. “And we want to solve that problem. It’s a chicken-egg situation. Artists need funding to make killer content and funders need to prove there is a massive consumer market to sell to in order to justify their investment.”

Prior to the official launch of Kaleidoscope’s VR fund it has already managed to secure $3 million for projects such as APEX, Testimony, and Mad God, as well as a number of unannounced projects currently in development.

But that isn’t enough. The next-generation of VR hardware is just around the corner, with lighter, wireless, standalone devices due to be launched in the next year or so. “That’s why the industry needs to rally around funding content now,” adds Pinnell. “It takes 12 to 24 months to produce high quality VR films, games, and experiences. We need to fund projects today so that when the next generation of hardware is released we have a deep library of amazing content ready to go. Only then will the industry take off.”

For VR to continue momentum it’s crucial that funding programmes like Kaleidoscope’s exist, investing in high-quality content for future consumers. If you want to find out more head to the Kaleidoscope VR Fund website, and keep checking back with VRFocus for the latest updates on the VR industry.

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Kaleidoscope and 1stAveMachine Form Partnership Focused on Branded VR Content

Kaleidoscope VR, the immersive community and platform, has announced a partnership with production company 1stAveMachine to help provide brands with content. 

Kaleidoscope works with an array of artists and directors – around 150 in total – that together with 1stAveMachine 30+ directors will be able to craft VR-centric films, art, games and other engaging experiences for agencies. “For many brands, VR is a new field, and we are providing a place where that experimentation can happen confidently within a proven pipeline,” said 1stAve EP/Partner Sam Penfield in a statement.

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The partnership has already begun work on a retail experience for a leading VR headset brand – without mentioning any names – with more on the horizon. “We are now set up for full interactive gaming and experiential production, live action and animation narrative projects as well as mobile 360 production,” 1stAve EP/Head of Content Andrew Geller states. “We are not focused on any genre in particular, but just want to make killer, award-winning branded VR work.”

Artists under the Kaleidoscope brand have made several well known experiences including Notes on Blindness, Butts, Chocolate and Drawing Room.

“Kaleidoscope’s mission is to give VR creators the resources and support they need to do their best work,” adds CEO/Co-Founder René Pinnell. “By partnering with 1stAveMachine, we hope to provide our artists opportunities for great creative projects, and provide agencies with the exciting opportunity to create amazing virtual reality experiences that embody the emotional core of a brand.”

As Kaleidoscope and 1stAveMachine unveil their branded experiences VRFocus will let you know.

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Kaleidoscope Puts The Best Of VR Movie Making On Tour Next Week

Kaleidoscope Puts The Best Of VR Movie Making On Tour Next Week

There’s so much work going on in VR movie making right now it can be hard to single out what’s actually worth watching. Kaledioscope has curated some of the best work out there, though, and it’s putting it on tour across the globe.

The second season of Kaledioscope’s 2017 Showcase kicks off in London on March 29th before heading to out to cities like Berlin, Sydney, Los Angeles, and Seoul. The official selection for this volume was recently revealed, and there’s definitely some experiences you should check out here.

This season’s featured project is Life of Us, a visually striking exploration of the world around us taking place across the history of the planet. We got an early look at it back in January and found something that you should definitely check out.

There’s plenty more to check out, though. There’s several projects we saw at last year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest, including immigration documentaries like Indefinite and Home: Aamir. You should also check out interactive pieces like the excellent upcoming VR movie maker, Mindshow, and Chocolate from Tyler Hurd.

Tickets to the London show are on sale now for £10. The event kicks off at 6:00PM GMT at Juju’s Bar on Hanbury Street. On top of new films, you can expect talks from Erfan Saadati from Surround Vision, Darren Emerson from VR City and more. Tickets to select other events are also on sale now.

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Stop-Motion Guru Phil Tippett Brings Nightmarish ‘MAD GOD’ Universe to VR

Phil Tippett, the visual effects genius behind classic stop-motion animation sequences from films such as the holochess scene from the Star Wars franchise, Jurassic Park (1993), and RoboCop 2 (1990), brings his latest stop-mo project MAD GOD to virtual reality.

Based on Tippett’s eponymous short film MAD GOD (2013), a long-time passion project and result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the newly released 3D 360 video is filled with the universe’s faceless ghouls, war pigs, and other nightmarish sights. While it’s only a little less than two minutes it length, it’s effect is nothing short of terrifying.

Like in the good old days of movie magic though, all of the creatures in MAD GOD are hand-crafted—something that really makes your skin crawl to see up close and personal via the immersive first-person view of a VR headset.

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Phil Tippett is a VFX pro with more than 40 years of experience under his belt with an Oscar, a BAFTA, and 2 Emmys to show for it, so when he says something about the nature of film and its role in the burgeoning medium of virtual reality, we’re inclined to listen. Explaining his thoughts on VR in a behind-the-scenes look at MAD GOD, Tippett says that VR isn’t so much a continuation of film-making as an art, but rather an entirely new medium, one that pioneering creatives still need to figure out.

“I do not think VR is the future of film making,” explains Tippett. “It’s the wild west. It’s like, nobody knows nothin’. The opportunity to experiment and try things that you haven’t seen and you haven’t imagined, it’s all out there.”

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Even though stop-motion animation has now become a niche field in visual effects, replaced largely by computer-generated imagery (CGI), Tippett still wants to be on the forefront of story-telling.

“It really is that first-person dreamworld. It’s all experimental, it’s all really wild. It was kind of like that working for George [Lucas] or Steven [Spielberg] early on. Why do you want to do what you’ve already done a hundred times before?” he wonders. “Oh. I understand. To make money. My mind doesn’t go there—it’s like … you now what would be really great? […] Like a LSD VR-thing. That would be really fuckin’ cool.”

MAD GOD was made by VR production studio Kaleidoscope and Tippett’s own production house, Tippett Studio. You can download it on Wevr’s Transport app for Gear VR and HTC Vive on Steam.

Check out the behind-the-scenes video below for a deeper look into MAD GOD for VR.

The post Stop-Motion Guru Phil Tippett Brings Nightmarish ‘MAD GOD’ Universe to VR appeared first on Road to VR.

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Oculus Collaborates with Kaleidoscope on DevLab Initiative

Oculus has supported a great many indie developers, helping them technically and financially to create virtual reality (VR) content. On 31st October, Oculus along with Kaleidoscope will be launching a new initiative to support VR creators called DevLab.

DevLab will bring together 28 VR artists from across the globe to incubate new work, explore new ideas, and create the next wave of experiences.

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Those selected for the month-long programme include those who’ve already created VR projects such as, Arnaud Colinart, who created Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness and Ben Vance who made Irrational Exuberance. There will also be first-time VR creators like Josephine Decker, and Julio Medem, both of whom established careers in cinema.

“VR is a convergence of creative disciplines and DevLab will bring experts from a variety of fields to help expand the creative potential of VR,” said Yelena Rachitsky, Creative Producer at Oculus. “Big creative risks will push virtual reality forward, but to empower people to take those risks, we recognize that we need to provide support and encouragement to help an idea become a reality.”

Participants will work with advisors who have backgrounds in architecture, immersive theatre, sound, and storytelling, with the projects created through hands-on workshops, live performances, and round table discussions.

The DevLab will run until 2nd, December 2016, with a showcase event at Facebook headquarters. Participants will present their projects with the aim of securing funding, putting their idea into production the following year to then launch via the Oculus platform.

“Our goal with DevLab is to support independent artists because they tend to break free from traditional ideas of storytelling and discover new ways to express the human condition with virtual reality,” said René Pinnell, CEO of Kaleidoscope.

VRFocus will bring you further details on the DevLab as announcements are made.

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‘Colosse’, ‘La Peri’ Creators And More Feature In Oculus And Kaleidoscope’s DevLab Incubator

‘Colosse’, ‘La Peri’ Creators And More Feature In Oculus And Kaleidoscope’s DevLab Incubator

By challenging developers to come up with and build concepts in a small amount of time, game jams are a great way of testing out innovative new ideas for VR games. Now Oculus and Kaleidoscope are borrowing that concept and seeing what some of the industry’s breakout artists will do with it.

The pair today announced DevLab, a month long incubation initiative that will challenge 28 VR story tellers and artists to come up with new content for headsets. The program kicks off on October 31st with a two day workshop in Los Angeles where creators will watch talks, live performances and discuss projects with others. From there, they’ll have between November 2nd and December 1st to work on their ideas.

On December 2nd, creators will gather once more, this time at Facebook’s headquaters in Menlo Park, California, to showcase their creations to potential investors. Successful projects will be produced in 2017 and be available on the Oculus Platform.

DevLab creators include Daniel Ernst, creator of the Shoebox Diorama series that’s been around since the early days of the Oculus Rift’s first development kit, Hayoun Kwon, director of the incredible La Peri, and Nick Pittom, who worked on VR short story, Colosse, as well as fan remakes of scenes from Studio Ghibli movies.

Irrational Exuberance creator Ben Vance, Traces director Gabriela Arp and Notes on Blindness developer Arnaud Colinart also join the program.

DevLab advisers, meanwhile, include Oculus Story Studio Creative Director, Saschka Unseld, Oculus Head of Experiences, Colum Slevin, and Executive Technical Producer at Here Be Dragons, Joe Chen. Program founders include Kaleidoscope CEO René Pinnell, Creative Director Selena Pinnel, and Oculus Creative Producer Yelena Rachitsky.

It’s not the only initiative Oculus is pushing to help VR filmmaking and more. The company is also helping to promote diversity within the industry with initiatives like VR for Good and its VR Launchpad. With the VR specialist investing $500 million in VR content, expect to see plenty more initiatives like this going forward.

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The VR Job Hub: Supermassive Games, AMD & Resolution Games

Whether you’re an experienced designer, programmer, engineer, or maybe you’ve just been inspired after reading VRFocus articles – either way, you have stumbled across VRFocus’ VR Job Hub. The jobs listed here are located worldwide, from major game players to humble indie developers – the one thing they all have in common is that they are all jobs in VR.

Check out the listings below for all the information you need.

LOCATION COMPANY ROLE LINK
Guildford, UK Supermassive Games Junior Designer Click here to apply
Seattle, US Fishbowl VR Senior Developer Click here to apply
Cornwall, UK Triangular Pixels Unity 3D Programmer Click here to apply
Waterford, Ireland Immersive VR Education Sr Game Dev, Sr Web Dev Click here to apply
Munich, Germany AMD Software Engineering Click here to apply
Stockholm, Sweden Resolution Games Concept Artist, 3D Artist/Animator Click here to apply
California, US Kaleidoscope VR VR Freelancers Check out listing here
Boston, US ViacomNEXT VR + 3D + UI Designer Click here to apply

Look back at last week’s post for ongoing listings.

Check back with VRFocus 4pm BST every Sunday for the latest positions in one of the most progressive industries.

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Lineup Announced For Artistic VR Event Kaleidoscope

Last week VRFocus shared that there will be an event in the UK capital, Kaleidoscope Summer Showcase Vol. 1, which will concentrate on artistic virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) pieces. Now the lineup for the event has been revealed, and there will even be more events to come throughout the next year.

It was announced before that there are over 20 pieces to be showcased, and some that will be shown off are: Transition by Joost Jordens and Mike Von Rotz, which is described as a metaphor for death where you transition from one world into the next; Le Temps Perdu, created by Zohkar Kfir, where viewers can make their own film from a selection of particular narratives; and Drawing Room by Harm Van De Ven, Sara Kolster and Juul Spee, where viewers can discover the room and city they have created through the artists’ eyes.

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“The quality of work in the Summer Showcase is remarkable and proves virtual reality is quickly evolving into a legitimate art form,” said Kaleidoscope co-founder René Pinnell. “We are thrilled to feature new projects from new creators, and to highlight the groundbreaking work of local pioneers in each city. And finally, we are thankful to our amazing Community Directors who invest their time and energy into organizing these Showcase events and fostering each city’s community of VR Creators.”

Kaleidoscope is looking to take similar strides to the likes of the TEDx initiative in the way that it will feature on a quarterly basis, run by a network of local community leaders all over the world including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Portland, Montréal, London, Berlin, Leipzig, Paris, Amsterdam, and Seoul, with more cities launching each quarter.

For more on the latest events in the industry, as well as all the news, updates, and features in the world of VR, make sure to check back with VRFocus.