Felix & Paul Studios Secures Multi-Million Dollar Financing for Next Location-based VR Experience

Felix & Paul Studios, the Emmy Award-winning XR studio, announced it has secured funding for its next location-based VR (LBVR) experience based on what it says will be a brand-new IP.

The studio hasn’t released the exact figure of the financial backing, however says it was a “multi-million dollar” amount which came from Export Development Canada (EDC), The Bank for Canadian Entrepreneurs (BDC), the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC), and National Bank of Canada’s Creative Industries Group.

Felix & Paul have been pioneers in the VR space since the release of early 360 films Strangers and Zarkana. Founded by Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël in 2013, the studio is known for original immersive film productions such as the Emmy Award-winning The Space Explorers series, Traveling While Black, Jurassic World: Blue, Cirque du Soleil, and immersive videos for Fox Searchlight’s Wild and Isle of Dogs.

The yet unnamed LBVR experience, which is set to launch in 2025, is being couched as the studio’s “most ambitious project yet.”

“We are proud to count on the backing of creative financial partners like EDC, BDC, SODEC, and National Bank of Canada, whose support is pivotal to our pioneering role in the immersive entertainment market,” said Stéphane Rituit, CEO of Felix & Paul Studios. “Their support strengthens our commitment to the evolution of digital entertainment. Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, has demonstrated the potential of location-based VR for both financial returns and popular appeal. As we embark on our most daring and ambitious project yet, we’re setting the pace for our Studio’s growth.”

Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, the studio’s most recent location-based VR experience was created by Felix & Paul and Quebec-based PHI Studio. The experience lets multiple users explore the International Space Station, see the Earth from above, and view other 360-degree videos as you experience the life as an astronaut in low Earth orbit.

Showings are currently available in Vancouver and Denver, with an additional showing planned to come to Houston in May.

The post Felix & Paul Studios Secures Multi-Million Dollar Financing for Next Location-based VR Experience appeared first on Road to VR.

Take a Trip Aboard the ISS in Latest VR Film From Lauded Immersive Filmmakers Felix & Paul

Felix & Paul, the studio known for its pioneering work in creating cinematic immersive films, is set to release the first installment in a new VR trilogy shot from the International Space Station (ISS), which is slated to offer stunning views of Earth from low orbit.

Called Space Explorers – Blue Marble, the first in the series is set to launch on Earth Day, April 22nd. The trilogy will be available for free on Meta Quest and Quest 2 headsets.

The immersive film series aims to provide a deeper understanding of our planet’s place in the universe and the importance of protecting it for future generations.

The first episode offers up an unobstructed, 360-degree view, filmed at the nadir of the ISS, which points directly at the Earth below.

The studio’s goal is to offer the viewer a sort of virtual ‘Overview Effect’, or a phenomenon that occurs when astronauts view the Earth from space and experience a profound shift in their perspective and understanding of the planet.

Founded by Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël in 2013, the studio has created a number of original immersive film productions, including The Space Explorers series, Traveling While Black, and Strangers with Patrick Watson. The studio has also created productions with existing franchises, including Jurassic World, Cirque du Soleil and Fox Searchlight’s Wild and Isle of Dogs.

Felix & Paul has won a host of awards over the years, including five Canadian Screen Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Daytime Emmy, along with numerous other awards and nominations.

You can catch Space Explorers – Blue Marble for free exclusively on Quest devices, with the first episode launching Saturday, April 22nd.

Quick Review: Spacewalkers Is A Must Watch For Quest Owners

A new, free 10-minute immersive VR movie, Spacewalkers, from Felix & Paul Studios is available to Quest, and it’s a must-watch for any who owns a headset. Here’s our quick review.

Despite an interest in outer space and the wider universe, before this week I had yet to dive into any of Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers content. With the launch of the new (and free) Spacewalkers special feature, available in the Space Explorers app, Oculus TV or Horizon Venues, I figured I’d jump in and give a spacewalk outside the ISS a try.

After the short 10-minute experience was over, I was left completely astounded, my breath taken away by the scope of what I had just watched. It comprises mostly of 30 – 60 second to minute-long vignettes set at different locations just outside the ISS, showing astronauts completing actions and attending to the space station in low Earth orbit.

spacewalkers

The scale and perspective that this immersive, 3D video offers is overwhelming – it is likely the closest you will ever feel to being in space, using cutting-edge technology to achieve the effect.

The studio is known for having the best capture technology in the industry, and it shows in Spacewalkers. It’s easy to think that you’re watching some kind of recreated 3D model of the ISS, with animated astronauts floating around. I certainly caught myself thinking that a couple of times, and then remembered that I was looking at 100% real 3D footage captured in space.

Most of the space station itself is stationary throughout each scene, with astronauts moving around it as it floats slowly through low Earth orbit. But for me, there was one moment that brought home the realism of what I was watching – while the mostly-static ISS floated above Earth, I looked around and saw a tiny flap of unsecured fabric on the side of the station, flapping in zero gravity. While a tiny detail, it was an astounding moment of realization – this isn’t just an immersive model or recreation, it’s a proper captured event, in all its glory and detail, filmed in outer space.

For any Quest owner, Spacewalkers is a must-watch. It’s available now on Oculus TV (in the highest quality, when you enable device caching for an episode in question), or through Horizon Venues and the Space Explorers app.

Felix & Paul Studios Win Emmy For Space Explorers: The ISS Experience

The Felix & Paul Studios and TIME Studios production Space Explorers: The ISS Experience has taken home the Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Program at the 73rd Emmy Awards this week.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is an immersive VR production and the second series in the Space Explorers saga by Felix & Paul Studios. Each series is split into a few episodes, with episodes one and two of The ISS Experience available now via the Space Explorers app for Oculus Quest and RiftEpisodes three and four of The ISS Experience are still to come.

The series takes place aboard the International Space Station, putting you right up in the action:

The largest production ever filmed in space, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is an epic four-part immersive series that invites you to join eight astronauts on life-changing missions aboard the International Space Station. Shot over two years with exclusive access to the crew, The ISS Experience offers an intimate take on the joy, wonder, and dangers of life in orbit.

At this year’s Emmys, The ISS Experience was up against three other nominees in its category, only one of which, Inside COVID-19, was also a VR experience. The other nominees included a YouTube Original, Create Together with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and an Amazon Prime Video production, Welcome To the Blumhouse Live.

In other Emmy news, the AR experience ‘For All Mankind: Time Capsule’ won the Emmy for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Programming (Juried) and Baobab Studios won its ninth Emmy with the Outsanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program award for Baba Yaga.

You can watch episodes one and two of The ISS Experience now on Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift.

First 3D, 360° Scenes Filmed Outside ISS For Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers Experience

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience

Capturing decent quality immersive imagery has gotten easier as camera technology has improved but trying to do it in space for the first time adds a whole new level of complexity. And that’s exactly what Felix & Paul Studios has been doing for its latest project, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience. The team has confirmed this week that filming of 3D, 360° scenes in space has taken place for the first time.

Space Explorers

Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers has been developed over the last several years, with The ISS Experience a culmination of that work, collaborating with NASA and TIME Studios to make the project possible. The newly captured scenes were possible thanks to a customized virtual reality (VR) “Outer Space Camera”, attached to the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, functioning as a “Space Crane” on the zero-gravity movie set.

The Outer Space Camera is a customized Z-Cam V1 Pro consisting of nine 4K sensors allowing for a 3D, 360-degree image at 8K resolution. Low atmosphere orbit is a harsh environment so the camera had to be specially hardened by Nanoracks to withstand a vacuum, solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, temperature extremes, impacts from micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD), and other conditions.

“Today’s immersive cinematic capture of scenes in outer space is the culmination of close to three years of preparation. We are excited, honoured and truly humbled to have the opportunity to film in the most challenging environment known to humankind,” said Félix Lajeunesse, co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios and Director of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience in a statement. “Our mission since day one was to enable billions of people to experience what it is like to float in space and witness Planet Earth from above and we are pleased that this one-time dream will soon become reality in the final two episodes of our ISS Experience series.”

Space Explorers

“Capturing the Earth in stereoscopic 3D, 360-degree format from space, outside the space station, has never been attempted until now,” adds Jonathan Woods, Executive Producer of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience at TIME Studios“It’s beyond exciting and surreal to see this happening, knowing that the dream for this ambitious project started over five years ago in 2015.”

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is going to be a four-part series with episode one made available in May for National Space Day. When it comes to viewing this exciting new footage it’ll feature in episodes three and four, available in 360° mobile format on 5G-enabled tablets and smartphones; at big-screen venues, domes, planetariums, space visitor centres and science centres; in VR on the Oculus Store for Oculus Quest & Rift Quest, and in touring interactive exhibit, THE INFINITE.

When a release date has been revealed, VRFocus will let you know.

Space Explorers Episode Two Streaming For Free Until July 23 On Quest

The second episode of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is available to stream for free in Oculus Venues on Quest, starting today and running until July 23.

The event is running in celebration of National Moon Day (which itself commemorates Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon) and is available on a 24-hour loop in Oculus Venues for Quest users.

The episode, titled ‘Advance’, is the second in a planned four-part series from prolific and veteran immersive media creators Felix & Paul Studios, in association with Time Studios. Here’s a synopsis of the episode:

The daily workload of conducting pioneering scientific experiments continues on the Space Station as the crew prepares for the departure of three astronauts who have completed their six month stay. A changing of the guard offers an opportunity to reflect on the vital role of women in space. 

The first episode in the series was available to stream for free in Venue back in May. However, if you missed it, you can catch up by downloading the Space Explorers app for Quest.

The ISS Experience is the second series offered by Felix & Paul Studios as part of Space Explorers, the first of which is titled The Journey Begins and features two episodes. The individual episodes, from The Journey Begins and The ISS Experience, are available for $2.99 each as an in-app purchase.

Episodes 3 of The ISS Experience is due out in the Fall, while episode 4 is set for a Winter 2021 release. The series has also been nominated for an Emmy this week, competing in the Outstanding Interactive Program category.

Inside COVID-19, Felix & Paul’s Space Explorers Nominated For Emmy Awards

Two VR experiences available on Oculus Quest have been nominated for Emmy Awards.

The experiences — Inside COVID19 and Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers: The ISS Experience — are nominated in Outstanding Interactive Program 2021 category, up against two other non-VR titles. Last year, The Messy Truth VR won an Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program, while The Line won for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Programming.

Here’s a description of Inside COVID19:

Follow Dr. Josiah Child, an emergency department director and physician, as he readies his staff in five different hospitals to respond to the impending pandemic. In the midst of his preparations he is infected with the novel coronavirus. 

Inside COVID19 is available to watch on Oculus TV for the original Quest and Quest 2. You can head to this link and press Watch in Device, which will open the experience as soon as you put on your headset.

Likewise, here’s a description of Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers: The ISS Experience:

The largest production ever filmed in space, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is an epic four-part immersive series that invites you to join eight astronauts on life-changing missions aboard the International Space Station. Shot over two years with exclusive access to the crew, The ISS Experience offers an intimate take on the joy, wonder, and dangers of life in orbit.

Only two episodes of the planned four are currently available, with episode three scheduled for a Fall 2021 release and episode 4 for Winter 2021. Space Explorers is free to download on the Quest store, but access to each episode will cost $2.99. That being said, episode 2 can be streamed for free in Oculus Venues between 12am PT July 20 and 11:59pm PT on July 23. The app is also available on Oculus Rift.

The winners of the 2021 Emmy Awards will be announced on September 19.

Space Explorers Episode One Streaming For Free Until May 10 On Quest And Rift

The first episode of the immersive VR series Space Explorers will be available for free in Oculus TV and Oculus Venues until May 10 to celebrate National Space Day.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is available as a Quest and Rift app spread across four episodes, the first two of which are available now. However, to celebrate National Space Day on May 7, the first episode, Adapt, will be available to stream for free  until May 10.

It is now available on a 24-hour loop in Oculus Venues or on demand in Oculus TV until Monday. If you watch episode one and want more, you can download the Space Explorers app and purchase episode two. Episodes three and four aren’t available just yet, but are scheduled to release Fall 2021 and Winter 2021 respectively.

Here’s a synopsis of the first episode:

Episode One, “Adapt” documents the arrival of a new crew of astronauts aboard the International Space Station as they discover the joy, wonder and danger of living in space. Years of training come into play as the crew overcomes disorientation from microgravity, responds to potentially catastrophic emergencies, and learns to operate as a close-knit team. The extreme nature of this unique shared experience brings them to form family-like bonds. 

Space Explorers is a Felix & Paul Studios and Time Studios production, and was filmed entirely in space using Felix & Paul Studios’ specialized 3D, 360-degree space camera. It is the largest production ever filmed in space.

The first episode goes for approximately 24 minutes and is available now on loop in Oculus Venues and on demand on Oculus TV for Quest and Rift.

For National Space Day Watch Episode 1 of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience With Oculus

Space Explorers

The start of May offers quite the cosmic week. May 4th was obviously Star Wars Day while tomorrow ends the week with National Space Day. And to celebrate Oculus is continually streaming the first episode of Felix & Paul Studios’ Space Explorers: The ISS Experience exclusively via Oculus TV and through Oculus Venues.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience

In the first episode of Felix & Paul Studios’ groundbreaking Space Explorers series, viewers get to see: “the arrival of a new crew of astronauts aboard the International Space Station as they discover the joy, wonder and danger of living in space.” Clocking in at 24-minutes, the immersive experience features astronauts Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques, Christina Koch and Nick Hague who served as cast, film crew, and narrators, utilising Felix & Paul Studios’ specialized 3D, 360-Degree Space Camera.

Space Explorers originally began several years ago as a two-part series with Space Explorers: The Journey BeginsA New Dawn followed by The Journey Begins – Taking Flight. This idea was then greatly expanded by Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, the largest production ever filmed in space. It produced over 200 hours of 360-degree footage, 18 hours of exclusive astronaut logs and interviews, as well as the first spacewalk in 360. The ISS Experience will eventually be a four-part series, with two more episodes to be released.

The second episode called Advanced only launched just over a month ago. The 33-minute film sees: “Astronauts perform critical experiments that push the boundaries of life in space as three crew members prepare to return to earth,” explains the synopsis.

Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, Episode One – “Adapt” will be streamed on a 24-hour loop for Oculus Quest and Rift owners between Friday, 7th May at 12 am PT through to Monday, 10th May at 11:59 pm PT. Currently, there are three other episodes available for purchase ($2.99 USD £2.29 GBP each) if you want to watch even more of Felix & Paul Studios’ amazing footage. For further updates keep reading VRFocus.

One Of The Largest Productions Ever Filmed In Space Is A VR Experience

Felix & Paul Studios is behind one the largest productions of any type ever filmed in space. And, while the VR version of episode one of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience was recently released, they currently have multiple VR cameras in space capturing content both in and outside of the International Space Station, including the arrival of the first commercial SpaceX crew.

Regardless of your plans for space travel in the near future, this first of four episodes is your opportunity to spend virtual time in microgravity, amid 16 daily sunrises and sunsets, with astronauts Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques, Christina Koch and Nick Hague. “It’s about humanity’s present and future among the stars” explains Felix & Paul Studios Co-Founder, Félix Lajeunesse. “We’re transporting audiences to space. We’re giving audiences the opportunity to feel like they’re living with the astronauts… with the capacity to watch planet earth from space and get a unique perspective of our world.” That perspective, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacque shares, spans environmental to geo-political issues. “It makes you fall in love with our planet, and makes you want to go beyond our difference and focus on all that we have in common with our fellow humans.”

For me, this first step into Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is both awe-inspiring and an essential reminder for the immersive storytelling industry that there is still a large void on store platforms for experiences that allow us to visit real places and people. This purely real footage made me feel even more connected with our earth, even while I was inside a virtual visit in a space station over 400 kilometers from my living room. Co-Founders Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël discussed their studio’s journey into space with me, along with insights that can inspire other live action cinematic immersive experiences.

Create a VR Master to Reach the Largest Audiences

While Space Explorers: The ISS Experience is filmed in VR, audiences will be able to witness the episode stories on Oculus Quests, Oculus Rifts as well as on mobile via select 5G network providers, big screens, dome screens, planetariums and even a largescale travelling exhibition. The content may vary between some of these platforms, based on what is best for their intended audiences. But they all leverage the same source capture, leading to the original footage being best described as the virtual reality master. And this virtual reality master is high resolution, as the in-space capture resulted in specs equivalent to “about 8K per eye and 30 frames per second” explains Lajeunesse.

Raphaël highlights the benefit of being able to direct for all forms of this content in post-production since the content was captured in VR. This was especially important since there was nobody from the studio that was able to direct alongside the astronauts in space. The astronauts became the whole film crew in space, and creative collaborators, all between their ongoing expedition duties. Saint-Jacque was the first astronaut to take the VR camera out of its box when it arrived in space. “In terms of the setup” he explained “we were provided with very detailed instructions for camera location and hardware [and] software setup. A support team on the ground was able to see a preview of the scene before filming started, and could advise on arrangement and lighting.”

Customize the Best Possible Camera

The largest production ever filmed in space was captured using a customized camera that has helped to make Felix & Paul Studios the only media studio implementation partner of the International Space Station. To get this VR camera to space in time for the production to capture the intended moments in space history, it was not as simple as sending one of the studio’s renowned cameras up. This first episode was captured using a modified Z CAM V1 Pro, developed in collaboration with the Z CAM team and Nanoracks. Object weight and size are just some of the constraints of camera space travel, so the team modifications addressed everything from thermal management to its sizing to get its space certification. Its modification also allowed for an even higher resolution capture, and the studio’s entire production process and software that is used on their in-house cameras was able to be integrated into this modified camera.

This is no longer the only VR camera that Felix & Paul Studios has in space, with production of this series planned to continue through to January 2021. And, from a higher-level standpoint, the next journey for their VR cameras may be deep space exploration. Raphaël said they “are also looking at the moon, and mars.”

Emotional Engagement with Real Experiences

This series is designed to take millions of people to a place that “so few human beings have been able to experience” explains Raphaël.

Lajeunesse notes that “we are trained to experience reality through our senses…but you know if it’s not true. In cinematic virtual reality, with real human beings inside a real environment… maybe you’re not able to start walking around and reaching things. But your mind knows that this is a reality. It creates a different type of emotional engagement.”

This is not to say that that real-looking experiences cannot create emotional engagement. But it may be a different emotional experience when you know for sure that every single detail happened in reality in the moment you are standing in. Visitors truly witness history in that way.

There was a lot of support to create 360 content a few years ago, but the focus has largely shifted to social and interactive experiences and games. “The real world has a place in virtual reality” states Raphaël.

Use Interactivity with Real Footage Wisely

When immersive stories are not entirely real captures, interactivity can help visitors feel physically present in the story. But Raphaël explains, in the case documenting the journey of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, interactivity was not integrated since it is “all about you experiencing something that is real.” The content captured were real moments that happened, and nothing that a virtual visitor could do would change the course of the true narrative. There are no breaks or “lyrical moments” as he described the studio integrated into the award-winning documentary Travelling While Black, which allowed for some “subtle gaze-triggered events.” What they are experimenting with right now is how they can achieve “six degrees of freedom remotely,” to allow for virtual visitors to move around their space as the events unfold above the earth.

Episodes 2, 3 and 4 of Space Explorers: The ISS Experience are expected to release Spring 2021, Summer 2021 and Fall 2021 respectively. They follow the chronological evolution of the real-life space expeditions, with a specific theme explored in each episode.

Laura Mingail is an award-winning marketer, strategist and thought-leader in the entertainment space. She founded Archetypes & Effects to provide organizations in storytelling industries with impactful strategy, marketing and business development support. She is also a contributing author and media commentator focused on innovative forms of storytelling and technologies.