 Hi, I'm John Furrier with SiliconangularCube. We're here in Sundance 2018, all weekend, capturing the most important stories of how technology is impacting the new creative. So check out our footage, check out the soundbites, most important content here. We believe a new creative renaissance is coming in application development and also artistry, the role of craft and the role of technology and software coming together at the intersection. But also there's a few thought leaders at the front end of this big wave setting the trends and they're here with us. Sundance is a place where storytellers come, you know, it's all about the creative. It's always about the artist. It's been a pavement talking to the most important people. Sundance has been on the leading edge of exploring new technologies. AR, VR, AI, machine learning and all the neat acronyms we love to throw around. People coming here with a willingness to learn, wanting to learn from other people. Just meeting people and seeing the new projects that are coming out. There's so many great venues like here at the DELDEN where you can come and get your hands right on this technology and talk to experts about, you know, what's possible and get your questions answered. It's the pool of knowledge that's available inside of Sundance that everybody that comes here can actually tap into. I just think that's brilliant because in that community spirit that's really going to help enable this industry quickly. And they need it, that's what this is here for. Sundance is turning into kind of an artistry tech show and the game is changing your thoughts. Not just film anymore. The idea of an interactive or 360 canvas, basically there's different ways to tell stories now. If I look back just a couple years those are really just discussion points. Back in the day when it was one or two it was a lot of, oh you do VR, what's that then? The emerging technology used to be like the additive thing like let's go see what's next. Now it's just a part of the big story. It's not that VR's here. Oh good, we have a VR section. It's a lot more of an integrated setup and it's been really encouraging to see. Something about this year feels a little bit different and I think maybe it's that people are getting more familiar with the technology. I think the artists are getting more comfortable with how to push the boundaries. This is a new generation here and you're seeing a younger demographic, you're seeing savvier consumers. More demanding than ever before. They love tech. My kids think Marvel's special effects are the norm, right? So how do you create content to keep them enticed in these short bites and their shorter attention spans? This year there's a lot more social VR. We're connecting people even though they're in the same space they're able to to be in this new virtual world together. Everyone knows that VR can bring you to brand new worlds and exciting places and immerse you in places that you can never go. But the one thing that I think we learned is that if you can create a bond between the user and other characters in the experience that they believe is real then they want to come back again and again. Yesterday we had a number of people come through hero and a number of them actually couldn't handle it. Had to come out the moment we took the headset off, tears were streaming down their face. You know empathy, empathy machine you know gets thrown around a lot. You could do a drinking game around it you know but it's important to know that there is a truth to that. There's a level of emotional impact VR is extremely able to cut through. When you're in the first person perspective there's so much more you know it feels more personal. It's not that you're playing a character, it's not that you're in a separate world. You are you inside of that space and that that is a dangerous but very promising ability of VR. Oh look at the beautiful vistas and the beaches and the peaks and you can almost be there. Now you're taking a different approach of putting people in situations that you know probes some emotional response. All over the world every day people are going through horrific stuff. We're fortunate because we're the kind of people who in order to experience say a tragedy in Syria we're fortunate that we have to go to Park City Utah and go in virtual reality to experience something that is tragic real and deeply emotional and so our goal is to put people through that and come out of it changed, traumatized actually. Pushing people to think about their moral conviction. Is it appropriate to affect people's minds and connect with them in a new way because you could actually be affecting their long-term behavior and how you know how they interact with technology even to the extent of whether or not putting a child in a VR headset is appropriate because you could start to play with their ocular muscles and all kinds of things right. So people have to be respectful of the human element and the ethics and the morality around what they create more than ever before in my opinion. A new creative artist is out there, a new storyteller. Not just indie filmmakers, we're talking about kids, adults, creatives who are doing film-making things in virtual reality. They're having the hits around the characters so there's a thirst and a demand for technology but it's hard to build. Understanding the bridge between all the different mediums and disciplines, I think new things are created when you combine areas that have not been traditionally aligned. The new creative is somebody who is curious, they're not concerned with what it is that they're going to be making or the media format they're going to be making, they're curious about what story they're going to be telling. It's a kid in his basement who no one knows and is screwing around with it and is going to do something that everyone thinks is stupid. Like it's going to be that. The young kids, they don't have baggage. They look at it with a clean slate and going, I want that. I can see myself using this. I can self-actualize with this. And they're not going to be shackled by artificial constraints, they're not going to be shackled by budgets that stop them, that make them take creative ideas off the table. They're going to pursue what they can do themselves. They're going to leverage technology in unique ways and we're going to see some pretty amazing stuff happen. The future is about having a passionate audience, making things for that audience, understanding it and being able to communicate with them on a daily basis or weekly basis in a powerful way. And the audience is part of the journey. Yes. And the comments and the way in which people are taking the thing that you made and re-interpreting it is really interesting. I think we're going to have a digital hippie revolution. Definitely. A 60s-like movement in this modern era where it could be a major catalyst for massive change. And you're seeing a larger shift into that actuality where we're not quite there yet, where we can talk about the experiences everyday Americans are going to have. What is the real ready player one that we're actually going to have existing? We're not there yet. Pushing experiential, pushing brand content, pushing original content. We're getting a lot more into that game long form series, VR series. The boundaries are really being pushed in entertainment and film. That's always been the case. Commercials have always been a bit of a laggard. They want some stability in what's going on, but the creation that's going on here is absolutely fantastic. The work itself doesn't really mean anything until people get to experience it because the speeds and feeds is the software. Why isn't it going faster? Or is it going faster? One of the key things is the creator tools themselves, right? They are still somewhat cumbersome. If you can collaborate in a real-world space, you should be able to also collaborate in VR and have change control and all those sorts of things that are necessary to the iteration of a project. Automation of the simpler tasks should be a given. You don't want creatives to get hung up on trying to make your cheek look exactly the way it needs to look over 500 frames when you want them to be making bringing the story to life. Give them more time to work on their art, not worry about the scaffolding in the software. That's exactly it. Just even having the ability to flip up the screen and transition from the virtual world to the real world in milliseconds, it allows you to be able to create things more at the speed of thought. Instead of coming up with an idea, coding it, making sure it works, and then eventually putting on the headset, the sooner that we can actually be ideating inside this virtual environment is when things will get really interesting. For me, the thing that's holding back VR in general is actually the art form itself. In the early movies were 10 minute almost like plays that people would go to a almost a playhouse and they'd watch this thing. There were no cuts. There were no angles. It was a single wide shot. Great train robbery came around and it was this crazy thing they did called an edit where they spliced film together. People will have no idea what they're watching. There's no way people will be able to follow that. People were not happy with it at the time. Now it's stuff that children do on their iMacs at home. They do it on their iPhones, on their Android devices. These are normal languages of film that we have. VR doesn't have that yet. It's the really expensive thing that your friend's neighbor has. You know, you get to play it a little bit, you're like, that's great, but there's no way in hell I'm gonna, you know, I can't afford that or like that just doesn't really work with my life style right now. So it needs to incorporate itself into our everyday, our habits. One of the trickiest parts of VR is trying to get people to have repeat views. When people who are the mainstream consumer put on a VR headset, it needs to be more than just a magic trick where they go, well, that's cool. That tends to be the vast majority of experiences. So what is the thing that is going to make someone go, oh, I get why we have VR as a medium. And we're not there yet. I always just look at it, though, it's these are tools that empower the creatives to do more. So although it's very cool and exciting to think about technology and tools, it's really, ultimately my goal is like someone who specializes in visual effects software is just to empower creatives to do, you know, whatever they want to tell their stories. The things that do well take cultural context into account and speak to the people in that way. We always look forward to seeing the new works by Indigenous filmmakers that are native to the United States and from around the globe. It's like a feedback loop that it's creating with its own audience. So whether it's issues, whether it's about people, you know, what we're doing, we're all different kinds of people, but we're Indigenous. So I think that's really important that we are changing and correcting the narrative. We're constantly making mistakes, but then learning from them. We need to let it go. And sometimes we're frustrated. We're like, where's the standards? Where's the one ring to rule them all where there's not going to be one? And it's good for us that there's not right now. It's frustrating from a business perspective. Sometimes you're like, I can't, you know, peanut butter myself around, you know, all of these places. But I think it's just a very unique time. The technology is accessible. That means that so many creators can now bring their fresh voice to this space. And it's just going to be fascinating to continue to watch. It's sort of like up to the filmmaker to make sure that they have the scruples that they are playing by the rules because it's heavily regulated right now. But as soon as, you know, there's other means of distributing the content, you know, that it could take a different sort of face. I'm very interested in sort of the democratization of visual effects tools. You don't have to spend a lot of money to access these tools. In the past, getting involved in content creation and making a living at your passion included understanding a lot about the technology that you needed to use. And in some cases, that technology was priced out of your range, especially for folks coming out of school. You're trying to come from a place of an enthusiast into a professional space. That migration has really happened. Cameras started becoming much more affordable. And now the editing tools, things like Media Quasar first are essentially free and as powerful today as Media Quasar was, you know, just a few years ago. But now really it's also distribution. Getting your story out there is easier than ever before with all the social media and the over-the-top platforms. You know, you give me a YouTube video I caught all come out within five months of each other. Not only can we make it and edit it in our laptops, we can put it out and millions of people could watch it. That was the first time that was possible and it was a revolutionary. I think it still is to some degree. Those barriers, which were historical barriers, are gone. It's not so much of a risk to take a chance on being an artist anymore. You can really just sort of say, okay, well, the tools are free. I can shoot a movie with my phone. Let me take the weekend to see if I, you know, I can take this big idea I have and turn it to something special. What I see being the biggest challenge for people now is honestly a lack of knowledge. Right now it seems to be culminating in the hands of a few. And so seeing that being able to port to the hands of the many through discussion and documentation is something we've really been focusing on. Disruption in the form of a new technology and a new medium. While scary to some people is actually the most exciting and fertile time to equalize. Previously it's actually been quite expensive to actually take that first plunge into it. So now by democratizing and bringing price points down, it makes it more accessible. That helps content creators because there's now more of an audience that can now consume that content and the people that can then play with the medium and consume it now have a better reason to do it. Small studios, big studios, game studios, independence, anyone who wants to tell a great story. What does that mean to you to be able to react real time and be able to do your creative craft where you are and then be able to share that so readily. It's really democratizing the creation process. People in tech, we kind of get obsessed with things like resolution, frame rate. And these are very important, but it's also good to remember at least for me, I watched some of the best experiences from storytelling when I was a kid, eight years old on a 12 inch screen that was 640 by 480 with scan lines on the VHS. But for me, the story is still resonated and it's important to think of the story first, but obviously it's a dance between the story and the technology. You see very few people really prototyping what is the concept of story as per VR. Stories kind of are driven by characters. So in our world, great characters are characters that are simulated through physics and anatomical simulation to achieve levels of plausibility and reality that previously was maybe only accessible to the very top budgeted productions or the very top VFX studios of the world. I think we're just scratching the surface to empower filmmakers to do more with visual effects truthfully in a lot of ways. People are just learning how to do this kind of thing like I mentioned face replacement or mixing different shots and that kind of thing. They made Kurt Russell, I mean literally, I don't know how they did it, but he looked normal like he looked, you know, probably 40 years ago. And it was like, it was too creepy. It was like, how did they do that? Because it didn't look fake. It didn't look at all. I was like, no, that's what he looked like years ago when he was, you know, 25 or 30. So I don't know how they did it. So that's cool. But then I guess sometimes it's like, you know, a little maybe too much. You just want to make stuff you actually want to watch. How hard is that? You know, the thing where you could just buy the media and expect the results is trickier and trickier. There will always be room for the classics. Sometimes on a rainy day, you just want to curl up and watch a black and white and you don't need it to be fast paced and fancy. That's the nostalgia you're actually seeking because you're human. So I feel like there's a bifurcated movement going on where there will be room for new filmmakers to make classic productions that will entice and enthrall people because that's what we look for. I guess it just depends on the film and it depends on, you know, what the artist is trying to get through. That I guess either way could help. Maybe sometimes you just don't need all that technology. I think contemporary storytelling is so critical. I mean, there's always films that showcase our culture and historically our people in the past. But at Sundance, there's an opportunity to showcase what's happening in modern-day society for Native and Indigenous peoples. With, you know, new forms of media, there's other ways for people to do that where it's more cost-effective for Native storytellers to engage. I don't have to ask for permission anymore. Being a filmmaker or a storyteller, I can just sort of, I'm my own studio. I'm my own distribution channel and that's what's really amazing. We shouldn't look at AI and automation as something to be concerned about. We need to look at it as a tool and it's to say, well, how do I do the last mile? How do I do the last 10% of what I do really good and have all the other stuff kind of taken care of for me? Just a super time to be an artist and an editor and a content creator, a storyteller as we like to say, because the opportunities are really boundless. That's sort of our mission is to inspire your childlike sense of wonder using two mediums that are so meant for each other, which are animation and VR. And the technology is there for you, so it's really interesting to see what happens next. Everybody wants bigger, stronger, better, faster and working with partners like Intel to get those faster processes in there, get faster graphics cards in there so that we can get people more emotionally bought and we can do better textures, we can get more immersion inside the content itself. Very, very quickly someone who's doing technology is going to see what we're doing content-wise and go, well, I can do that better technology-wise and then we're just going to keep leapfrogging. And it's very similar to the phone the same way that we're not at the final stage of the phone. Like, we're at our stage of the phone and no doubt in 30 years people will laugh at us for carrying anything. People are struggling when they go to college, what should I major in? And there's a narrative right now, oh, you got to learn how to code, you got to be a computer science major, you don't. Some of the most creative and technical brilliance can also come from other disciplines. Almost every single major state school has like an interactive art program now and that wasn't the case like two or three years ago. The education piece is like key is actually going out there to schools and actually letting them experience VR and play with VR because it is a whole new different medium. Learn the language of being a character and having hand controllers so you can play fetch with an alien dog or mirror their actions or they might mirror yours and creating these bonds and these experiences, that sort of fresh perspective is really exciting. Now the world really is the oyster for all the creatives out there. People are clamoring out for modelers, artists, storytellers, story experiences to be able to use that inside their commercial environment to make their businesses more effective but they're not going to have a 360 video production company inside of that commercial organization and it's then leveraging all of the creative here and all the great stuff here which is really going to help the whole world a lot. I totally agree with what Brooke said, you know it's really about the culture and about educating the audience and getting them up to speed. There are some VR experiences that if as soon as they put on the heads like somebody who's never done it before immediately we'll take it off because they'll get nauseated and then there's people like kids who are like jet fighters they've seen everything their worlds are changing and they're like bring it because they're ready for that. Young boys and girls would actually bring their parents back to the experience and say this is what I want to study in college this is what I want to do and seeing that level of interest from that age group was very sort of affirming to us that we're on the right track in terms of the next generation of story time. Entertainment is great right and that's really pushing the envelope and allowing us to then take it for the good of humankind. The companies are embracing it for training but when you start seeing the healthcare implications MRI scans inside of VR or AR talking a patient through it so they can actually see exactly what you're talking about you're now no longer pointing at flat things on a screen you're now actually taking them through it that's affecting you deeply emotionally. If you can make that for good and change somebody's trigger points inside of PTSD and the autism side of helping somebody in interview techniques to be able to be more self-sufficient it's absolutely awesome. What would you say to that person to motivate them and to give them that passion? It's the same advice I used to give to game makers when people would be like well I want to learn how to make games it's like go to YouTube download a thing and go do it there's literally no reason why you can't. Are there meetups there's like the homebrew computer club that's there are there are infinite groups of VR people who are more than happy to give you all the terrible and wonderful opinions that come with that. In experiment break things that's really the only way to learn I would say watch as much VR as you can because sometimes bad VR is the best VR because you can learn don't do that and if you if you learn if you put all that together then you can really you know it's like this lexicon that you can really follow. If we work together collaborate truly open our minds and as cliche as it sounds our hearts to it then I think it only adds to the art into the storytelling. If the people from Hollywood are willing to learn from the people who do gaming in Silicon Valley who are open to learning from the people in New York who grew up on live theater finding those beautiful intersections are where we're going to thrive. You guys highlight that multi-disciplinary thing but also highlights why diversity is so important diversity brings the most perspectives of the table the most data most contribution it might be a little bit longer to work through the arguments right I mean you gotta be patient. It's up to the institutions to change and to allow for our storytelling but it's also up to the audiences to demand these types of diverse stories. There's a lot more diversity than there used to be it's a lot more and so it's fun to have things like black house and just walk down the street and see many more men and women of color and a bigger LGBTQ presence and it's just it's just great. We're coming back here with a purpose really not just here to be seen we're really here with real things and want to have real conversations on how tech can enable what people are doing not really you know not just from a brand perspective but from from a real hands-on. Anyone who's come here and has felt sort of cast out or wanting to see more opportunities a little more that open era concert venue type stuff that they do in warmer places like Las Vegas you know that could kind of get the excitement going and sort of hue in on some of the scheduling a little bit of that exclusivity is going a little too far you know. Let's keep Sundance focused on these young writers and film producers and let's focus on that that's what I would prefer. I think Sundance is doing the best that they can in a time in this country where we're all feeling a little angst and a little kind of beaten down to see some of the good art and work that is happening kind of gives you hope so that's one of the things that I look forward to with Sundance. It's a very nice audience and this will continue the momentum for for future festivals throughout the year but also you know will excite people that have never done VR before people who have never been to Sundance before we're seeing that there's a lot of new people and that will you know continue to influence you know many years to come. Props to you know the man himself Bob Redford and you know his whole team for allowing this to happen and it's kind of magical what happens here. The parties are great and this skiing is good too but definitely take advantage of all these unique opportunities that Sundance offers. We are here to support the storytelling, support their mission and support their goals. I finally got a producer from my film so I'm juiced and we hope to be filming later this year. I wrote a screenplay this last year and so hopefully it'll be here someday. You guys are reimagining the future and building it same time so entrepreneurially and also with content and technology so thanks so much for sharing on this panel of new creative. This is what it's all about, sounds of Sundance, democratization not elitism that is the theme here this week we're exploring that topic on the CUBE special coverage Sundance 2018. Really showing creative developers a new way to reimagine storytelling. Thanks for watching.