Category: Traveling While Black

Posted on

Felix & Paul Studios’ Catalogue Comes to Oculus Quest in two new Apps

Traveling While Black Felix Paul Studios

Last week saw prolific virtual reality (VR) film producer Felix & Paul Studios release its latest work Alegría – A Spark of Light for Oculus Go. Today, the studio has rolled out two apps so Oculus Quest owners can enjoy all of its current and back catalogues.

Felix & Paul

The content will be split between the Felix & Paul Studios Portal and the Jurassic World Portal, enabling the creator to bring together its catalogue of cinematic VR experiences in one space for the first time.

For the launch today, the Felix & Paul Studios Portal will showcase some of its most well known titles:

  • Strangers with Patrick Watson – Created back in 2013, it features an intimate glimpse into the studio and process of the musician.
  • The People’s House – Step into President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House.
  • T​raveling while Black – Learn about the long history of restriction of movement for black Americans and the creation of safe spaces.

While the Jurassic World Portal will offer:

  • Jurassic World: Apatosaurus​ –  The closest you’ll get to what it’s like to be in the presence and close proximity of this particular dinosaur.
  • ​Jurassic World: Blue – The same, just with a velociraptor.
Felix & Paul

“The Oculus Quest has been a game-changer in getting more users into virtual reality and we’re thrilled to finally be introducing our collection of experiences to a whole new audience,”​ said Paul Raphael, co-founder and co-director of Felix & Paul Studios in a statement.

This initial release will then be followed in the coming months by Nomads, LeBron James – Striving for Greatness​, Marshall from Detroit​ and Gymnasia. Additionally, a Cirque du Soleil and a Space Explorers Portal will arrive, offering new release Alegría – A Spark of Light and the first two episodes in the series respectively to audiences.

As Felix & Paul Studios continue to release more content, VRFocus will keep you updated.

Posted on

Step Inside the International Space Station Like Never Before With Cinematic VR Series ‘ISS Experience’

Felix & Paul Studios are one of the most prolific creative companies when it comes to cinematic virtual reality (VR), with two of its pieces Marshall from Detroit and Traveling While Black currently at the Sundance Film Festival. Continuing its relentless content creation, the studio has announced that in collaboration with TIME the pair will be combining their expertise in the creation of a new VR series called ISS Experience.

ISS Experience - inside

ISS Experience will be a documentary series filmed both in and around the International Space Station (ISS) over the course of a year. Thanks to the support of the International Space Station, U.S. National Laboratory and the access provided by NASA, will document life on board, capturing the first-ever spacewalk in cinematic 360, learning about what it’s like to live there whilst providing insights into the future of space exploration.

“We are excited to be working with Felix & Paul Studios to bring this project to many different audiences, across many different platforms,” said Mia Tramz, Emmy-winning VR producer and editorial director of Enterprise and Immersive Experiences at TIME in a statement. “This project will have a life on digital, immersive and physical platforms, and will ultimately serve as an educational experience to inspire generations to come.”

To begin capturing content for the ISS Experience TIME and Felix & Paul Studios launched two specialised Z CAM V1 Pro cameras to the ISS on 5th December 2018. These were adapted by Felix & Paul Studios incorporating purpose-built hardware and software that allows the crew of astronauts to shoot in these unique conditions.

Two additional cameras are slated to reach the ISS early this year, built to film outside of the ISS and to capture the spacewalk.

“Everything we have done to date as a studio has led up to this moment. We’ve immersed audiences around the world in extraordinary settings—from the White House to Eminem’s Detroit to the plains of the Serengeti—but space is the ultimate destination,” said Félix Lajeunesse, Emmy-winning creative director at Felix & Paul Studios. “We’re proud to be on this ambitious journey with our partners at TIME, producing the single most immersive experience ever made of life in space on the International Space Station.”

When completed the series will be distributed as both a digital XR experience and physical ticketed experiential exhibition at select museums and public locations. When these details are made available VRFocus will let you know.

Posted on

Oculus Debuts Two VR Experiences at Sundance, One is an Oculus Quest Title

The Sundance Film Festival is currently taking place in Park City, Utah, showcasing not only the best in original film but also the very latest in immersive experiences. As part of the event Oculus has premiered one title while teasing another, they are Traveling While Black and The Under Presents, respectively.

Traveling While Black

Traveling While Black is the work of Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams and co-directed with Ayesha Nadarajah and Felix & Paul Studios, created in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs. It is a 20-minute  documentary focusing on the long history of the restricted movement for black Americans and the creation of safe spaces in communities.

“I hope Traveling While Black sparks a conversation that inspires real solutions and awareness,” Williams told Oculus Blog. “If this film asks the right questions and gets people to think about this ongoing crisis in America — not avoid or gloss over it, just to have a profound discussion about race in America instead of looking the other way — then we’ve succeeded.”

If you own an Oculus Rift or Oculus Go headset then you can watch Traveling While Black for yourself, available through the store for free.

The Under Presents

The Under Presents, on the other hand, is merely a teasing glimpse at what’s to come later this year. Created by the team behind Virtual Virtual Reality and augmented reality (AR) experience Tendar, Tender Claws aim to blend immersive theatre and virtual reality (VR).

“There is a lot of interest in exploring the overlap of immersive theater and VR,” says Samantha Gorman, co-founder of Tender Claws. “The project’s narrative revolves around fate and free will and as part of that we’re interested in playing with the change of feeling of interacting with both pre-recorded and live characters. As well as other players and past recorded versions of themselves.”

Merging live actors and scripted performances with a narrative arc that centers on themes of time, fate and free will, for The Under Presents Tender Claws collaborated with NYC-based theatre collective Piehole to feature both motion-captured characters and live actors throughout the story.

The Under Presents will be coming to standalone headset Oculus Quest later this year. When VRFocus has further details we’ll let you know.

Posted on

Oculus Quest Experience ‘The Under Presents’ Debuts at Sundance 2019

Oculus today announced that it’s bringing two VR experiences to this year’s Sundance Film Festival— the previously announced Traveling While Black for Oculus Go & Rift, and the newly unveiled The Under Presents for Oculus Quest.

The Under Presents

immersive theater and VR, allowing you to interact with characters and other participants within the experience’s magical ship called ‘The Under’.

Oculus says in a blog post that in ‘The Under,’ the user enters a vaudeville stage that exists in a “special dimension outside time and space, where you are guided by a mysterious proprietor. ‘The Under’ operates on a loop with different live and recorded acts coming and going — and the main act ‘The Aickman’ is the story within the story.”

“There is a lot of interest in exploring the overlap of immersive theater and VR,” says Samantha Gorman, co-founder of Tender Claws. “The project’s narrative revolves around fate and free will and as part of that we’re interested in playing with the change of feeling of interacting with both pre-recorded and live characters. As well as other players and past recorded versions of themselves.”

The experience is said to arrive on Oculus Quest “later this year.”

Traveling While Black

Oculus also debuted Traveling While Black, a VR documentary film that centers on the history of restricted movement for Black Americans.

Directed by Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams and co-directed with Ayesha Nadarajah and Emmy-Award winning directors Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël (Felix & Paul), the project was created in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs.

“It started as a need to talk about this forgotten period,” Williams says in the Oculus blog post. “It’s about connecting the past to the present and explaining to people that we, as Black people in America, are at risk every time we step out the front door. There’s a history that makes you anxious and tense because you carry it with you everywhere you go.”

“I hope Traveling While Black sparks a conversation that inspires real solutions and awareness,” Williams added. “If this film asks the right questions and gets people to think about this ongoing crisis in America — not avoid or gloss over it, just to have a profound discussion about race in America instead of looking the other way — then we’ve succeeded.”

Traveling While Black is available today on Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, and on the NYT Op-Docs page.

Sundance 2019 will be taking place from January 24th – February 3rd in Park City, Utah.

The post Oculus Quest Experience ‘The Under Presents’ Debuts at Sundance 2019 appeared first on Road to VR.

Posted on

Sundance Film Festival to Feature 18 VR & AR Experiences Next Month

Park City, Utah is already preparing for next month’s annual Sundance Film Festival, and this time around 18 AR & VR films and exhibitions are set to debut at the festival’s New Frontier program.

The New Frontier program is a curated collection of independent and experimental media works that festival organizers say “leverage[s] new technologies, visual aesthetics, social media cultures, immersive designs, game theory, transmedia activism and shifts in the boundaries of authorship.”

The 2019 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 24th, 2019 through February 3rd, 2019 in Park City, Utah.

Here’s the full list of VR & AR projects coming to Sundance 2019, divided into ‘Exhibitions’ and ‘VR Cinema’:

AR/ VR EXHIBITIONS

Belle of the Ball (VR)

A VR journey into a futuristic reimagined utopia of queer + trans family and dance made in collaboration with members of New York’s ballroom scene.

Lead Artists: Ro Haber, Silas Howard, Pussykrew, Twiggy Pucci Garcon,

Key Collaborators: Renaldo Maurice, Kya Azeen Mizrahi, Rouge, Saschka Unseld, Jennifer Tiexiera, Jenna Velez

Cast: Renaldo Maurice Tisci, Kya Azeen Mizrahi, Rouge, Jack Mizrahi, Sinia Reed, Jonovia Chase.

Embody (VR)

Piloted by movement and whole body engagement and dialogue, this shared game of trading and transforming avatars aims to leave players with a deep feeling of physical embodiment, and surprise at their bodies’ forgotten potential.

Lead Artists: Melissa Painter, Thomas Wester, Siân Slawson

Key Collaborators: Joey Verbeke, Jordan Goldfarb, Ben Purdy, Peter Rubin, Eric Adrian Marshall

Emergence (VR)

Enter an open-world environment, expressing the primal desire to maintain your individual identity whilst being part of a crowd. Showing 5,000+ intelligent human behaviors, this powerful VR experience is made possible by advanced graphics technology. 

Lead Artist: Matt Pyke

Key Collaborators: Chris Mullany, Simon Pyke, Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin

Grisaille (VR)

In 2016, a young artist traded her paintbrushes for a headset and began inhabiting virtual reality more than the real world. In this VR installation, join her in a recursive exploration of the infinite self. When your body leaves the experience, your presence lives inside her ever-expanding virtual painting.

Lead Artist: Teek Mach

Key Collaborator: Joel Douek, Andrew Sales

REACH (VR)

A next-generation VR photobooth allowing attendees to step inside the story. Users can be captured in dimensionalized video, placed into one of several “walk around” environments and automatically create a volumetric VR experience that can be viewed on any device and shared online.

Lead Artists: Nonny de la Peña, Chaitanya Shah, Hannah Eaves, Cedric Gamelin

Key Collaborators: James Pallot, Sandra Persing, Charles Park, Roshail Tarar

Runnin’ (VR)

This interactive dance experience takes the player on a journey of musical expression. Play along with the music in an intimate neighborhood record store and be transported to a retro-future dance party. Show off your moves on the dance floor alongside a troupe of dancers.

Lead Artists: Reggie Watts, Kiira Benzing

Key Collaborators: John Tejada, Amy O’Neal, Ani Taj, Adam Rogers

Cast: Reggie Watts, John Tejada, Amy O’Neal, Ani Taj, Kate Berlant, Ben Schwartz

Traveling While Black (VR)

Confronting the way we understand and talk about race in America, this virtual reality documentary immerses the viewer in the long history of restriction of movement for black Americans and the creation of safe spaces in our communities.

Lead Artists: Roger Ross Williams, Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël, Ayesha Nadarajah

Key Collaborators: Bonnie Nelson Schwartz, Stéphane Rituit, Ryan Horrigan

Cast: Sandra Butler-Truesdale, Virginia Ali, Courtland Cox, Samaria Rice

THE DIAL (AR)

A woman smashes through the stone wall outside her family home. This visual tale unravels the formerly wealthy family’s emotional underbelly and what happened that fateful night, as seen from shifting perspectives. An interactive narrative combining Augmented Reality and Projection Mapping where you control time by moving your body.

Lead Artists: Peter Flaherty, Jesse Garrison, Trey Gilmore

Key Collaborators: Jake Sally, Sal Mannino, Ela Topcuoglu, Julia Bembenek, Brian Chasalow

Cast: Michael Gladis, Beth Grant, Jackie Hansen, Charlie McWade

The Seven Ages of Man (AR)

The Royal Shakespeare Company explores theatre’s future with Magic Leap technology in this sublime production of the “Seven Ages of Man” speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. This mixed reality experience featuring cutting-edge volumetric capture and an original musical score, turns the line “all the world’s a stage” literal.

Lead Artists: Royal Shakespeare Company, Magic Leap,

Key Collaborators: Jessica Curry, Gregory Doran [Royal Shakespeare Company],Andy Lanning, John Monos [Magic Leap])

Cast: Robert Gilbert

VR Cinema

4 Feet: Blind Date

Juana, an 18-year-old girl in a wheelchair, is anxious to explore her sexuality. She’s going on a blind date with guy she found on social media. She didn’t tell him about her disability. Overcoming fears and an inaccessible city, they meet. Together they discover what their bodies feel.

Lead Artists: Maria Belen Poncio, Rosario Perazolo Masjoan, Damian Turkieh, Ezequiel Lenardon

Key Collaborators: Guillermo Mena, Florencia Cossutta, Gonzalo Sierra, Martin Lopez Funes, Marcos Rostagno, Santiago Beltramo

Cast: Delfina Diaz Gavier, Cristobal Lopez Baena, Elisa Gagliano, Candelaria Tapia, Irene Gonet.

Ashe ’68

Fifty years before Colin Kaepernick there was Arthur Ashe. This VR experience immerses you in the tennis champion’s defining moment in 1968 as he becomes the first black man to win the US Open and uses his newfound celebrity to lift his voice against injustice.

Lead Artists: Brad Lichtenstein, Beth Hubbard, Jeff Fitzsimmons, Rex Miller

Key Collaborators: John Legend, Mike Jackson, Masha Vasilkovsky, Ruah Edelstein, Madeline Power, Vernon Reid

Cast: Chris Eubanks, Michael Cleary, Peter Begley, Andrew Panter, Alex LaCroix

Ghost Fleet VR

An immersive look at the true story of modern slavery in the Thai fishing industry, told through the experience of one man’s harrowing ordeal to escape a prison of water after 10 years at sea.

Lead Artists: Lucas Gath, Shannon Service

Cast: Tun Lin, Vithaya Pansringarm

Kaiju Confidential

Grigon’s not the toughest beast on the block, but he’s certainly the most neurotic. When he discovers the legendary Mega-Hydra rampaging on his turf, it becomes a stand-off of passive-aggressive proportions.

Lead Artists: Thomas O’Donnell, Ethan Shaftel, Piotr Karwas, Raul Dominguez

Key Collaborators: Eric Rosenthal, Corey Campodonico, Alex Bulkley, Matt Jenkins, Monica Mitchell, Ryan Franks

Cast: Blake Anderson, Paul F. Tompkins

Last Whispers: An Immersive Oratorio

At an unprecedented speed faster than the extinction of most endangered species, we are losing our linguistic diversity—and the very means by which we know ourselves. This immersive oratorio is an invocation of the languages that have gone extinct and an incantation of those that are endangered.

Lead Artists: Lena Herzog, Jonathan Yomayuza, Meghan McWilliams, Laura Dubuk

Key Collaborators: Nonny de la Peña, Mark Mangini, Amanda Tasse, Cedric Gamelin, Marilyn Simons, Mandana Seyfeddinipur

Live Stream from Yuki <3

Yuki live streams her love life as usual to a group of supportive netizens, though an uninvited guest crashes the party and strips her of her disguise. Can you see what is real and what is fallacious?

Lead Artist: Tsung-Han Tsai

Key Collaborators: Meng-Yin Yang, Inch Lin, Pu-Yuan Cheng

Cast: Jia-Yin Tsai

Marshall from Detroit

Growing up, Marshall Mathers dreamed of rapping his way out of Detroit. Years and fortunes later, he still hasn’t left. Join him on a night ride through his hometown, where the mirrored struggles of Eminem and the Motor City speak to the heart of what we call home.

Lead Artists: Caleb Slain, Felix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphael

Key Collaborators: Stephane Rituit, Ryan Horrigan, Paul Rosenberg, Eric Hahn

RocketMan 360

A few minutes before taking off to Mars on a dangerous, noble mission to colonize the planet, an astronaut receives a 360 video from his girlfriend.

Lead Artists: Millo Simulov, Gabriela Hirit

Key Collaborators: Filip Columbeanu, Andreea Serpe, Gabi Ranete

Cast: Monica Odagiu, Anghel Damian

The Tide: Episodes 1 & 2

Something strange is coming. Can we survive? One day, previously-unknown giant fish begin to appear among humans, who are escalating into conflict amid the worst drought ever. A disaster thriller about a new survival battle: human vs fish.

Lead Artists: Taekyung Yoo, Sanghyoun Lee

Key Collaborator: Seok Cho

Cast: Robert Joe, Lorne Oliver, Tracey Starck, John Michaels, Kristen Cho

The post Sundance Film Festival to Feature 18 VR & AR Experiences Next Month appeared first on Road to VR.