Raindance Immersive 2024 opened last weekend in VRChat, and will run for the next four weekends featuring the latest innovations of virtual culture with 77% of experiences happening on social VR platforms and 69% that feature VRChat. I spoke at length with co-curators Mária Rakušanová and Joe Hunting about each of the 36 experiences that span nine different categories with four experiences each including Best Art World, Dance Experience, Game, Live Show, Music Experience, Narrative, Out of Competition experiences as well as the Music Video of VR and Short Film of VR.
There are a number of mixed reality games that will be showing on the Apple Vision Pro and Quest 3, as well as the four narrative experiences that will be showing at a physical exhibition at Raindance, but otherwise the other 30 experiences all have some connection to a social VR platform.
The best live show and best dance experience categories are new this year, and Hunting is continuing to cultivate the two film categories featuring short films and music videos, all of which were shot within VRChat. I talk with both Rakušanová and Hunting about the shift from June to November, and then dive into each of the nine categories and 36 experiences highlighting the latest trends and innovations by indie XR artists who are primarily working on social VR platforms including VRChat, Resonite, and EngageXR.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So on today's episode, I'm featuring a couple of the curators of the Rain Dance Immersive Festival, which is happening all throughout the month of June online on platforms like VRChat, but also other social VR platforms like Resonate and Engage. And they're actually going to have a physical installation that's at the Rain Dance Film Festival at the end of the month. But the Rain Dance Festival actually goes all the way back to 1993, and this is the ninth edition of Rain Dance Immersive, where Maria Rakeshunova has been the curator, really looking at the independent spirit of immersive storytelling and gaming. And it's since really spread out to be documenting the virtual culture that's happening on online social VR platforms. A little bit more than two-thirds of all the entire program of 36 projects are on the platform of VRChat. There's a couple of them on Resonate and Engage. And so over three-quarters of the entire selection that are featured on these social VR platforms. So I had a chance to sit down with the co-curators of Maria Rakhushinova as well as Joe Hunting to go through each of the 36 different projects that they've curated this year and some of the different new emerging trends that they're seeing here. And I highly recommend going and trying to sign up for some of these different events. Pay attention for Monday or Tuesday of this coming week as they're going to be releasing the Eventbrite links for the second half of the programming. And it sold out pretty quickly. So you're going to have to jump onto the Discord and really pay attention to get signed up to some of these different events that you can go to. So that's what we're covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Maria and Joe happened on Wednesday, June 5th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:56.028] Mária Rakušanová: Hi, my name is Maria. I'm the curator of Raindance Immersive since 2016. And this is the ninth edition of our festival. And I've been working across the VR industry for various hardware and platform companies, as well as a few independent gaming studios since about 2014.
[00:02:22.134] Joe Hunting: And I'm Joe Hunting. I'm the co-curator of Rain Dance Immersive. I've been co-curating since 2021. And I'm also a director working on virtual production projects. I released my feature-length documentary, We Met in Virtual Reality in 2022, which was filmed entirely inside of VRChat. And since then, I've been leading a small studio called Painted Clouds, which is a real-time CG virtual production studio that creates films using immersive VR pipelines. And so we're supporting various film and TV productions that use VR chat or other social VR platforms for projects. Yeah, that's a bit about me.
[00:03:06.576] Kent Bye: Awesome. And maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into curating the Rain Dance Film Festival.
[00:03:14.380] Mária Rakušanová: My journey started in the tech industry, predominant in mobile. And in 2014, I was fortunate to get a call from a recruiter to be recruited to work on the Gear VR project at Samsung. So that's kind of where my tech journey continued. And then after three years, I went solo. And obviously by that time I have possibly watched a lot of VR films and tried various VR experiences. And I was fortunate to be introduced to Elliot Groh, who is the founder of Raindance. And he asked me to come on board and be the curator, to which my answer was a little bit hesitant first, because obviously coming from tech, not coming from film, but actually coming from a completely different background. I believe gave a very fresh perspective to curation and also structuring the program. And sometimes when you start working on something where you don't have much experience, kind of the world is your oyster, sky's the limit, and then you come up with quite interesting framing. And throughout the years, I've gone through various companies. One of them was HTC Vive, also a couple of indie studios in London. And yeah, every year I just come back to Raindance. It's a joy to curate. It's an absolute pleasure to meet various artists and also be able to take a kind of an elevator kind of view what's happening in the industry, both from storytelling point of view, but also the way how various creators are pushing the technological and innovation boundaries in XR. And each year it's different. And each year we look at a spectrum of the entire industry across platforms, across genres, and we start finding various themes that help us curate our various awards categories every year to make sure the program is fresh.
[00:05:14.178] Joe Hunting: Wonderful. My journey started in 2018 and I have a lot to thank when it comes to Raindance because I volunteered for the festival and it was the first time I ever tried a VR headset. I met Maria in 2018 as a volunteer underneath her. And then in 2020, Maria was interested in bringing the festival into VRChat during the lockdown. And so I supported Maria in that journey and forming the Raindance Embassy world in VRChat and hosting the first virtual edition of the festival in social VR, which was an incredible experience and a very unforgettable moment for me and the festival and Maria. And then... The year after that in 2021, I really wanted to support further and I was given the opportunity to assist in curating and have been doing it ever since very, very happily. And I've been growing with the festival and we've been improving the world and improving our virtual experience, which has become a really key component of the festival. And most recently in 2023 and this year, we've also introduced short films and music videos made with social VR into the categories, which is where I've been really leading and putting most of my curation efforts now.
[00:06:32.970] Kent Bye: Nice. And as I look at this year's program, there's a lot of similarities, I think, from the previous years. So maybe some new categories where I'm not sure if you've had dance performance before. And there used to be two categories for immersive art world and immersive world. maybe before we start to dive into everything, there's a little bit of a timing shift this year where it was usually later in the fall and like November timeframe. Now we're into June or it's happening all month of June. My understanding is that there was a timing shift with the other festival of Raindance. Maybe you could just give a bit more context for why the shift, because that ended up giving the artists and makers a little bit less time this year to submit. So I don't know if that was a part of why there wasn't immersive world and immersive art world is that maybe the creators had a little bit less lead time to prepare, but I'd love to get a little more context on that.
[00:07:22.034] Mária Rakušanová: Yeah, certainly. So we're still one and the same festival, Raindance Film Festival and Immersive. It's all part of one Raindance. And our team on the film side of the festival have kind of reconsidered the month of November. And over the last couple of years, we started to see a lot of events, physical events, especially after London opened after the pandemic. And in order to kind of avoid clashes with our physical events during the months of November, we decided to move it to June. And June is still a bit of a test month. We may still move it next year, maybe May, maybe April, we'll see. But it's fun to have actually host a festival during summer month, because since 1992, when the festival started, it always has been November. So that's the main reason. We'll see how the test year goes. Luckily this year, 2024 actually gives us five weekends, which is fantastic for our ability to host the festival in VRChat. It gives us five weekends. And the first four weekends are dedicated to various events, live shows, meeting the creators, getting together. And then the final weekend is dedicated to celebrations such as the two awards ceremonies and the kind of final grand finale shows.
[00:08:46.991] Kent Bye: There's also a physical exhibition as well. This year, when I do a count of the different platforms, there's three different Apple Vision Pro experiences with six different MetaQuest 3 experiences, which one of them has both Apple Vision Pro and MetaQuest 3. One event in Engage, two events in Resonite, and then 25 VRChat events. either using the platform for the videos or there's different events that are actually happening in vr chat and so clearly there's a continuation of the theme last year of like a very heavy focus on these social vr worlds but you do have some of your program that will have a physical exhibition that you're able to show some of these experiences that What I noticed from when you were going over the program, you wanted to have a real clear focus on mixed reality as a new modality of a medium and really highlighting the emerging forms of gaming that are happening in these mixed reality contexts.
[00:09:39.660] Mária Rakušanová: That's right. So yeah, our physical event will be in London between 18th to the 23rd June. And on 19th of June, we will host our annual Raindance Immersive Summit. which we kick off with a keynote where we introduce the selection and the various trends that we're seeing. Then the show floor will be Joe's to screen short film music videos. And then after that, we will also host a talk with Charlotte Mikkeborg, who is the director of one of the Apple TV adventure films. And she's on our jury and she will share her experience taking that director seat and working on the project. We also have game developers who worked on spatial slash mixed reality games. And I'll host a panel with them to talk about spatial computing and what has been their experience as developers working on Apple Vision Pro games as well as Meta Quest 3 games. And then we also have a female narratives focused panel because the best narrative category this year actually highlights female stories or stories from a female point of view or stories about women. And that's a beautiful theme that we actually found this year, which I'm now kind of jumping into introducing the selection.
[00:11:01.653] Kent Bye: Yeah. So just to clarify, because there are music videos and short films, you're having exhibitions of those in the context of this virtual recreation of the BFI. I think it's called like the BFI in the context of VRChat. But did you say that you're also screening those selections in the context of the Rain Dance Film Festival?
[00:11:19.761] Mária Rakušanová: Absolutely. I mean, after all, we are a film festival.
[00:11:23.482] Joe Hunting: Yes, that's right. So we'll be screening the films and music videos on June 19th, our physical venue. And then we're doing our virtual screenings in the VFI VRChat world on the 15th and 16th of June. Okay.
[00:11:39.030] Kent Bye: So the world premieres technically will be happening in... In VRChat.
[00:11:42.772] Joe Hunting: In VFI. Yeah, in VRChat. That's right.
[00:11:46.112] Mária Rakušanová: And Joe, perhaps you could explain what is VFI? There is such a beautiful symbol.
[00:11:50.915] Joe Hunting: Yes, of course. Yeah, so when we say VFI, we're referring to the Virtual Film Institute, which is a world created by the talented Lucy Liu, who we're very lucky to be collaborating with again this year. We also collaborated with her last year. And the Virtual Film Institute is a world inspired by the physical IMAX cinema for the British Film Institute in London. in terms of its architecture and its spatial design. So it's a really cinematic place and it's a great venue for VRChat filmmakers to gather and premiere their work. It has a very natural cinematic flair in terms of the space. So yeah, we're very excited.
[00:12:31.261] Mária Rakušanová: As well as IMAX sound, which is quite mind-blowing when you experience it.
[00:12:36.644] Kent Bye: That's right. And so there's 36 total experiences. Some are out of competition. But when I look through the numbers, 25 out of the 36 that you've selected are happening on VRChat. And all but eight, the best games and the best narratives are all happening in the context of platforms outside of social VR. So you are, again, heavily focusing on what's happening in the culture of online social VR platforms like the mostly VRChat and some resonate and engage, but I'd love to hear a little bit about your focus on VRChat again, in terms of really promoting what's happening in the virtual culture and how you start to think about this year's selection.
[00:13:17.236] Mária Rakušanová: Sure. So we're an independent festival and our ethos is to champion independent artists. And we're lucky to actually find them both in the gaming industry. There is a lot of solo game developers or small indie studios, as well as there is a lot of solo storytellers who create beautiful narratives. But even more so, the true one person indie creator Yeah, we do find them on VRChat. That's why we return every year because that's at the very, very heart of our festival, championing independent artists. And VRChat is a beautiful home for such artists, especially younger artists who are starting out on their journey. And our ethos at Raindance is discover and be discovered. And it goes especially for first-time XR creators and first-time filmmakers. And at the same time, we're also, we just remained a hybrid festival since the pandemic. Of course, it's really important to show audiences in London, as well as international audience members and creators who fly into London, the cutting edge of the industry. So we typically showcase narratives and games that are typically single player experiences. So it's impossible to show them in social VR. And then we have an even bigger audience all around the world with headsets at home. incredibly engaged, incredibly receptive, and also incredibly lovely for being part of our community. And with them, jointly with them, we host these different events and celebrate the independent artists across social XR platforms, as well as filmmakers.
[00:15:00.313] Kent Bye: Nice. And maybe it's worth to dive into this year's selection and some of the different highlights that you want to point out because there are quite a lot of immersive creators in the realm of VRChat that you have in these different categories from best art world, best dance experience, best live show, best music experience, best music video of VR, best narrative, best short film of VR. and then some out of competition. And then we spoke briefly around the stuff that isn't necessarily in VRChat with both the best game and best narrative experience. But yeah, maybe love to have you give us a little bit of a tour of how you start to think about this year's selection.
[00:15:34.469] Mária Rakušanová: Absolutely. I'll do all the XR experiences and Joe will do the short films and music videos. So first I'll start with just, it's been a joy curating this year's festival, despite the much shorter timeframe. We found incredible talent, incredible experiences, and also at the same time, this is now our fifth year on social VR platforms. We already know a lot of artists. We already admire the work of many artists. You know, there are artists that you can't curate every year. You kind of always put them on a little list and then, okay, let's get back to a conversation perhaps next year. So it was a combination of kind of looking at organic submissions, but also really active outreach to people that we know, to people who are in our Braindance family, our network, as well as word of mouth recommendations. So the shorter timeline kind of actually had no impact whatsoever. It was really, really fun. So I'll start with the category that we typically curate from organic submissions, which is best narrative. As a film festival, obviously we do get a lot of narratives. It's hundreds of submissions. And this year it was a joy to see over 50% of submitted experiences have been directed by women. or non-binary creators as well as transgender women which was really interesting and it also allowed us to curate a selection that is telling female stories so there are four selected experiences fly to girl radio heartbeat and the elephant i found under my skin And they tell a story about womanhood. So I can quickly start with the elephant I found under my skin. The main protagonist is a young woman who is intimidated by going to the doctor and having her breasts examined. Of course, every lady I think can relate to that experience. And the creator, she wanted to make this experience less intimidating for fellow women. And she made it into an animated project that is all hand-drawn in Quill. And it's just super whimsical. It's super fun. And actually, we believe that it also helps men to understand this kind of embodied experience of what it's like to go to have your breasts examined. And we've received a lot of feedback about this project, a lot of great feedback. Then Girl Lamp and Radio, that is also about a young woman who, actually a true story, about a K-pop star who went through, unfortunately, online bullying. And of course, this kind of touches on the topics of mental health, as well as obviously the kind of younger TikTok generation where a lot of people can relate to it, especially younger people. And it's a beautiful animated project for actually two players, where one of the players is The Lamp. the other player is the radio and the lamp is listening to the story of the k-pop star and then radio is playing tunes to comfort the k-pop star while she is going through various hurdles of course there's a beautiful script and and resolution to the story it has a has a good ending Then we have Heartbeat, which talks about motherhood and the unfortunate situation of miscarriage. It's from a perspective of the protagonist, who's actually the writer on the project, who went through such experience. It's a series of voice recordings recalling her memories. And the experience is animated and the visuals are constructed around her own voice recorded experiences. And we cried, of course, all of us watching this project. I mean, who wouldn't? We challenged everyone not to who comes to London to see this project. And same case with Flight U, which is a story of an older woman in Korea. It's also a story of sisterhood. So her and her sister got separated when they were 11 and 12. She went to South Korea. The older sister remained in North Korea. And for over 70 years, they have not seen each other. And it's highly unlikely they will ever see each other again. Perhaps the sister in North Korea has already passed. Nobody knows. She keeps on sending her letters. There's beautiful shots of this older lady looking over the border and looking at the birds that freely fly between the two Koreas. It's a very, very touching story, of course, also about Korea. The world being divided by walls, and that's also the theme of our festival and the motto of our festival, which is give film a chance, give peace a chance, give film a chance, give storytellers a chance to make the world a better place, to help us being more understandable to each other. Then as you said, Kent, so in the gaming category, a little bit of departure from the previous years where we would always curate narrative games puzzle adventure games that would have two three four sometimes nine hour gameplay and this year we're celebrating the arrival of apple vision pro and meta quest 3 and each of the selected games are actually spatial games that utilize both the real world and overlay fun gameplay elements So each of them really represents spatial gaming and computing really well, or if we call it mixed reality. And they're very easy to get into, very easy to understand this new medium. So that was one of the choices for the curation, the kind of easy to get started. When we put people in headsets in London, they can understand this new medium in a matter of seconds. Laser Dance is a really wonderful example, which you can set it up actually 10 by 10 meters play space and it's super fun, the bigger the play space is. And it's inspired by Ocean's Eleven, the film where the character Fox kind of goes and steals the jewel and dances throughout various laser beams. And you feel a bit like a spy, like a jewelry thief in a museum. And yeah, you need to get through various lasers and the progression is also really fun. Of course, you fail, it makes a sound and it's really, really fun. But it's also fun watching people play it. So I'm sure we'll have really a lot of fun watching people as well as people will have fun playing it. in London. Next one is Runaways. It's an endless runner on Apple Vision Pro that actually launched on the App Store on the 27th of May, so fairly recently. It has a really fun story. The game opens in a comic book and it tells you the story of the main character, Hank. and Hank is being haunted by the Overlord, and he is trying to escape from one portal to another, and Hank is kind of going through a series of obstacles and running away. And you can play the game for a short period of time, or if you get really, really good at it, you can play it for two hours. I played it for two hours, and the hand tracking on the Apple Vision Pro works like a charm. So that my wrist actually started hurting. I was incredibly immersed. Next one is Thrasher, which is from the creators of Thumper, a classic VR game for those who remember. And it's a kind of a rhythm game, but instead of boxing or slashing cubes, you have a space eel. And you need to guide the space eel through a series of beautiful shapes. And each level is a beautiful environment. And it has an originally composed soundtrack to it. And this game is going to launch on MetaQuest 3 and Apple Vision Pro PC VR. As well as on flat gaming platforms in a few weeks. So yeah, please check it out. Do download it once it's out. And yeah, we look forward to showcasing that as well. And I have no doubt it might be one of those top three, four, five games that you play, at least when it comes out. And next up is Wisp World, which is on the Apple Vision Pro, created by actually a filmmaker called Keiichi Matsuda from London under his own studio, Liquid City. The VR veterans will probably remember Keiichi's film Hyper Reality from 2016. I had a recent conversation with Keiichi and Jasper, the two co-creators of this game, as well as the entire team in London. Keiichi apparently attended a film course at Raindance, so that really warmed my heart to welcome an artist back who obviously took a film course at Raindance in the past. So Wisp is a lovely spirit that you grow over time. You have conversations with Wisp and the more you converse, the more you get to know each other. It's almost like a diary as well in a way. the nicer Wisps forest world rose, and there is some element of very simple but beautiful environmental storytelling and world building in this game as well. And yeah, congratulations to Katie, Jasper, and the team, because this was a launch experience on the Vision Pro, which I'm sure was a very interesting experience from a development point of view. And this is also a topic that we will cover at our Raindance Inversive Summit during the panel. So best art world. As you said, yeah, we have merged best art experience category and best diversity world category into one. It was both a creative choice as well as a practical choice. So each year we don't want to have more than eight award categories. Already eight is a lot. multiply that by all the nominated experiences, and there are years when we have 40 experiences in the selection. This year it's 36, but it's still quite a lot for an indie festival. So from a creative point of view, we were incredibly excited to discover visual artists picking up world building. Some of them already have a bit of experience with VR chat and other platforms. Others might be a tiny bit new. But each and every selected artist actually is a visual artist first. And then over time, they picked up VR and social VR as their kind of paintbrush or medium. So we wanted to highlight that, and we also would love to see more visual artists picking up social VR and presenting their beautiful artworks in social VR. First and foremost, social VR can be comparable to going to an art gallery, and we hardly ever go to an art gallery on our own. We always go with friends or family members. It's always a shared experience. and unlike in a physical art gallery where most of the time you're looking at a painting or a sculpture in social VR you feel you stepped into a painting and you're exploring it you're exploring the world building of the painting as well as you can interact with the various sculptures so I'll start with Liminal this is a beautiful incredibly surrealistic experience on Resonite And it kind of reminds us that if Salvador Dalí would be alive 100 years later, we're convinced he would be doing something incredible in social VR. And Liminal very much reminds us of the melting cloth painting. So you're in a desert world, it's kind of open world. And you get to explore various sculptures and hidden secrets. And it also has an element of live performance because the artist appears at one point when you're exploring the world as a group, as the wanderer. Then the artist then becomes your guide and kind of role plays with the group that is exploring the world. So we have scheduled tours, preliminary with the artist. and you are in for an absolute treat. It has beautiful environmental storytelling. Next up is Strange Ways, which is done by some of the artists from the Metaverse crew, which is a group of artists and world builders that explore various social VR platforms. They have been active since 2020. And they teamed up with an illustrator from London, Adrian, and he provided 2D illustrations. So the world has very much of kind of like a linear storytelling. You go through a series of rooms and environments and the spawn point is completely white and the first thing you experience is jumping down kind of like a rabbit hole and then you go through a series of 2D illustrated black and white environments and here and there you start seeing splashes of color and corners start twisting and things start being a little bit wacky and it has incredible storytelling in terms of the various environments that are presented as well as there is fun humor splattered around the world just based on the various environments that are presented. At one point you end up being a fridge and there is a disco party, there's a disco ball in that fridge. So lots of humor actually and one would think, 2D illustration in a virtual world, how does that work? Well, come on the tour with the artists on 22nd of June and give it a go. The world is still in development and will remain in development for a little while until it gets published. So I invite everyone to join us in VRChat. Next up is Suku by... A veteran artist who we had in the selection a couple of times, Dirk van der Meer, a Dutch artist, and he currently lives in Curaçao. And the environments are inspired by Studio Ghibli. So the kind of visual and artistic treatment is very, very much inspired by the animations. If you look up at the skybox or if you look at the way how the grass has been painted and treated, you really feel like you stepped into landscape painting. So in essence, it's a nature world, but with surprises. And so you start moving around the map. and you start exploring also various 3D sculptures that are original, made by Doug, and they are treated completely differently with different textures. However, somehow that kind of Studio Ghibli-esque animated feel and the various textured 3D sculptures really blending together extremely well and there's also incredible lighting in the world and the sculptures make beautiful sounds and then finally there is tales of a mystic cat also a project in resonite so strange ways and suku are in vr chat liminal and tales of a mystic cat in resonite This is a really unique and interesting project, which starts with a five-minute on-rail animated narrative, which was fully animated in Resonite. It tells you the story of the cat. Apparently, in Japan, where the artists are from, when a cat grows old, it becomes a bakoneko, kind of like an almighty cat that can fight demons and evil spirits. You very much see that in this animated first five-minute introduction. Then the cat, as it goes through various environments and fights demons, actually jumps on a 2D canvas. And then you are invited by the guide throughout this experience to step through the canvas. And that's where the second part of the experience starts, where the two visual artists, Gunbury and Torazzo, start hand-painting a virtual world in front of you. So this is a real-time art world building. And the narrative continues, the cat's journey continue. So Gunberry, he starts painting a dragon very much like with brush strokes that we can see similarly in like Tilt Brush or Open Brush. It's really interesting that Resonize has these tools. And then Torazzo, the other visual artist starts laying rocks around us and kind of like build a set design. And then not only that they build a world, but as they're building it, there is drumming, there's music and they are changing it. So, and the narrative evolves. So we start during daytime, a dragon is born, cat is fighting it. And then we end up in nighttime and then the dragon is fuming flames, fighting with the cat and cat wins in the end. and there's some dramatic music and it's a live art performance and it's incredible. Throughout kind of like my 10 plus years in VR, I've never seen anything like this. This kind of social art creation as well as social experiencing of art. So that is Best Art World.
[00:33:03.715] Kent Bye: Great. I'm going to jump in because we've covered three out of the nine categories. I'm going to bring in Joe so we could talk about his categories. But before we dive into that, I wanted to also point out that there are Eventbrite links on each of these different pages. However, it looks like, as far as I can tell, the entirety of all these sessions were pretty quickly sold out. Is that accurate?
[00:33:23.344] Mária Rakušanová: That's right. They're selling out incredibly fast and the festival is just growing at an astronomical pace. In VRChat, perhaps we'll cover that later. We've grown from about 300 members in our VR chat group to 1,200 in less than a week.
[00:33:41.109] Kent Bye: Okay, so unfortunately, it sounds like most of these events that we're going to be talking about are not going to be available for people to easily get into at this point because it did sell out very quickly, although you're shaking your hand, so there might be some opportunities or more shows.
[00:33:53.975] Mária Rakušanová: Yeah, so far, we have only posted the first two weekend events. The third and the fourth have not yet been posted, and we post events every week gradually.
[00:34:06.803] Kent Bye: Does that mean that there's still an opportunity for some folks to get into some of these?
[00:34:10.268] Mária Rakušanová: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:34:11.230] Kent Bye: Yeah. Okay. That's great to hear. Okay.
[00:34:13.430] Joe Hunting: Yeah. We've always said it's a good problem to have, isn't it? That things are now selling out very quickly. You know, it's a very good problem to have, but we also want to give everyone an opportunity to try and see these shows. So yeah, we're making it work. It's a similar story with the film and music video shows. Most of those have all sold out now as well. So we're finding ways to help spread the films for people and the Q&A specifically for people to get in touch and be a part of that conversation as well. So those events are included in that too, unfortunately. But we'll be announcing ways for people to watch the Q&As at the very least after the shows. Okay.
[00:34:49.314] Kent Bye: Okay. And I'm sure that there might be things on VRChat side that you alluded to that in order to do the capacity planning for events like this to maybe have people on stage and having many different instances, I think that would be something that would be amazing to do at some point. But as of right now, it's like either you get in or you don't. But hopefully there'll be more technological solutions to that in the future.
[00:35:08.624] Joe Hunting: Absolutely. Yeah. We'd love to really fulfill that. And yeah, that would be amazing. The dream really. So to talk about the approach to curating short films and music videos from VR, we put out a submission form like most film festivals and most of the curating was dealt through that submission form. So a lot of it was organic submissions and similar to the other categories. I felt really lucky that even with the short window, of development time and the date change, we received a wealth of submissions, but there was certainly an increase of submissions that are still in development. And we selected five projects that were still in development and have been working since the selection with the filmmakers to really polish their projects and assist in a delivery to the festival and Very glad to say at this stage that everyone has really pulled through and delivered their work amazingly, which is really exciting. And it's been really wonderful to give those filmmakers a premiere for their work that's been in production. So the short time window was certainly a challenge, but we're lucky to have a very creative and thriving community that fulfilled in creating their work. And to speak from a more theoretical place of curating, always interested in selecting categories that have a lot of diversity in terms of genre, style, form. And so that is a very important aspect of selecting projects and also selecting films and music videos that not just have good quality, good technical quality and really push the boundaries of VR filmmaking and present new ideas, but also have a really solid script and present emotional themes and relatable themes and stories that we can connect with. So it's both good story, good script and technical quality. So I'll start with talking about best short film of VR, and I'll open with discussing a Japanese video, Monotone, made by Shin-Oji Damgan and some Japanese studios, so small Japanese film teams. One notable team is called the Kadesh or Hotel Kadesh team that I think really led this film. And it is a black and white noir crime thriller that has no dialogue, so a silent film. It's really mysterious, drenched in atmosphere and is a really immersive watch and also has some really stunning grading in terms of its use of black and white cinema. And with them, I am really happy to be welcoming back a documentary this year. We had a documentary last year and it was really important that we had another documentary in the category this year. So we're this time showing a documentary that presents a portrait of New Eden Evergarden, which was actually in the festival last year, presenting a show. We've got a documentary filmmaker that explored that community further and has made a film called Behind the Magic. And it goes behind closed doors and shows the performers of this cabaret show rehearsing how they get ready for the show and the intentions of the directors of the show as well. So it's a whole portrait of New Eden community. And that film is directed by Madame Karner, who's a wonderful French director. Some might recognize her from a lot of promo videos and a documentary that she made about Raindance last year as well. Next, we've got a psychological thriller by a first-time filmmaker called Dee Ghostly. And this is a very unsettling film. For me, as someone who's very sensitive to horror, I would definitely call it a horror, but for most, they'd probably call it a psychological thriller. It's really immersive and also has a bit more of an experimental structure. And it's very clear that Dee Ghostly, the director, had a very... clear vision and artistic intention that's actually inspired by a musical album that is in the film itself as well and so it's a really immersive thriller but be prepared to be a little spooked for that film And finally, to finish the short film category, we're welcoming back a filmmaker that was in the best short film category last year, Buddy Ball, with his film A Conversation Between Two People That Don't Matter. And this is an intimate portrait of two strangers finding themselves talking about the shared difficulty of finding friendship and their place in the world. It's very sweet and the ending is so uplifting and filled with a lot of hope. And that ties a bow on the short film, best short film category this year. I can jump straight into talking about best music video?
[00:39:56.686] Kent Bye: Yeah.
[00:39:57.186] Joe Hunting: Yeah, let's do that. So next we have best music video of VR. And the intentions regarding curating are very similar to short film, looking for projects with really great technical quality. a good script or structure. But also something we really wanted to highlight this year was selecting projects that also made some original music or did an original cover. There was a lot of artists in VR that are making music videos and performing the songs. And that was something we wanted to recognize this year that wasn't super recognized last year. Really pleased to say that all of the music videos in the category this year are original songs or original covers, which we're really proud to say. and also have amazing stories and great technical quality. So the music video category is really stunning this year. We're very happy. To start off, we have a Japanese video called Carp DM, directed by Ari Rawatari. And this is a joyful portrait that presents a coming-of-age story with a really strong message of seizing the day and overcoming your mistakes and being the best person you can be. And this video has a lot of original assets, so they created costumes, worlds bespoke for the video. On that note, another video that did that is by Starheart. And it's called I Still Love You. And this music video is a 1950s inspired black and white romantic drama with some incredible dramatic lighting that is graded in black and white. Similar to Monotone in the short film category, we have another black and white piece. And I love the way she has crafted the light in this video. Next, we have Like Crazy, which is directed by a filmmaker who was in the short film category last year, Ariel Emerald. And this is a spectacular sci-fi video starring TFM Johnny and Lydian Melody, who performed the song. as well and i don't want to say too much about this video because there's so much spectacle to be found in the full video it hasn't released yet but it's certainly going to be worth the watch and there's a lot of really interesting technical achievement in this video that hasn't been fully explored and it's quite difficult to achieve in vr chat i'm gonna just say no more there so certainly one to watch if you're interested in camera and blocking when it comes to shooting in vr
[00:42:26.991] Kent Bye: Yeah, Ariel told me that it was shot in IMAX with 5.1 stereo sound so that it really pops within the context of the VFI to really get the full experience. So this would be one to definitely try to see in the context of VRChat rather than trying to watch the video later because this is going to have a full immersive component that may not translate quite as well if you're just watching out of YouTube.
[00:42:50.270] Joe Hunting: That's right. Yes, and we'll be showing that in the premiere. And if not, I recommend anyone to take the link of the video when it premieres and go and watch it in the VFI if you can. And if you can't go to the screening, because it's so worth seeing it in a cinema space, even if it's in the Virtual Film Institute. To tie a bow on the best music video of VR, we have another Japanese-made video called National Anthem by an amazing music video team called Project Visitor. And this is another sci-fi inspired video, which has some incredible visual effects, especially in how they worked some particle systems in creating these really big starry and stunning images. Hard to explain. There's moments where these incredible holographic images and patterns and structures appear in the frame, but they're not actually in the world. They're based on avatars. I could talk forever about the particle systems in this video, but alongside that there's some incredible acting and follows a story of action of a character who is kind of the last man standing in a sci-fi battle. So yeah, lots of spectacle to witness in this one. I love that we have two sci-fi spectacles in the category this year. And National Anthem is a song by Monden Masaki from his album Pure as well. And I believe this video is essentially his official video as well. You know, the director's worked with him on crafting this video specifically for the song. And so, yeah, it's nice to be featuring that as well. And I want to mention that additionally, we have Kung's film, Love Sorrow, which is out of competition. And this is a 360 film that we encouraged Kung to make as a tech experiment, a tech demo to shoot 360 film inside VRChat. which he's achieved incredibly well. And it's a great piece to watch if you're a fan of our winning Best Short Film of VR last year, Emergence. This film steps back into that world and gives more backstory to the protagonist of that film through a 360 experience. You can see that now in the Virtual Film Institute world. There's a button you can press to jump in and see that now. But I'm sure Kung will also be releasing that on his own channels as well. Yeah, that's our best short film of VR, best wasted video of VR categories. I'm really happy to have three Japanese projects in the selection this year, more than last year. And a lot of diversity and sci-fi spectacular.
[00:45:27.587] Kent Bye: Nice. So there'll be screenings. Are they showing one film at a time or do you have a screening where you show all the films? Because I know you do Q&A afterwards. So is it just one at a time or can you get to a screening and watch all of them?
[00:45:39.636] Joe Hunting: For the screenings, it's a mix. We're doing a screening of National Anthem and Monotone to suit the Japanese time zone. After each of the films, after National Anthem, we'll have a Q&A with the Project Visitor team. And after Monotone, we'll then have a Q&A with the Hotel Kadesh and other team members who directed that film. And that is at 1 o'clock on June 15th, UK time. And then later that evening, we're then showing the rest of the music videos, Carp DM, Like Crazy, and I Still Love You. And each video will be followed with a Q&A. And so it'll be video, Q&A, video, Q&A, and then so on. And then we're going to do the same format with the short films on Sunday, June 16th at 6pm UK time. Gotcha.
[00:46:25.404] Kent Bye: Okay. Perfect. Well, that gives a good sense of this year's selection of both the short films as well as music videos, taking the context of a social VR platform like VRChat and doing lots of different cinematic techniques. And I'm really excited to see the latest innovations of recreating different techniques within the cameras that they have, expanding out to IMAX formats. Obviously, it's not being shot on IMAX, but being shot in a format that can be displayed in a screen that is the same aspect ratio, at least. So, yeah, really interested to see how this year's program starts to continue to explore different dimensions of storytelling and music video creation in the context of these social VR platforms. So, yeah, very excited to see the continuation of the beginnings of last year and then continuing on this year. So, yeah, back to you, Maria, to cover the last four sections of both the Best Dance Experience, the Best Live Show, Best Music Experience, and then you've got a couple of other out-of-competition experiences that are also thrown in the mix.
[00:47:23.874] Mária Rakušanová: Sure. I'll just add also to Joe's note about Love's Sorrow, which people can experience either in London or at the VFI World. So in addition to having Love's Sorrow 360 film at the VFI World, we also have Fly to You and The Elephant I Found Under My Skin for any VRChat user to go and experience. So now on to the three award categories that are actually all live events. And that's kind of a theme this year, really. Previously, we would showcase a lot of virtual worlds. This year, we've seen an explosion of live shows across various genres, anything from jazz to opera to beatboxing, you name it. We've never seen this variety of various genres. As such, we then created three dedicated distinct awards categories for live events. So I'll start with live show, best live show. These are in essence stage performances or live concerts with either live bands or live performers across various genres. This year, actually, each and every nominee in this category is from Japan. That is just a coincidence, but it's a lovely coincidence. I'll start with Connected Waves VR Jazz Session. It's a group of professional jazz musicians from Japan, and they call themselves EMN Records. and they created a custom built world, which is a beautiful, beautifully lit, very dim lighting, a virtual venue. You're teleported into an atmosphere of, I don't know, like a Ginza, central Tokyo, like speakeasy or jazz bar. It's really, really beautiful. And it also has a very interesting audio visual system. So the musicians will perform various songs. Each time they will improvise. So Every show you go to won't be the same because they're improvising. And the kind of connective tissue is that they're using a so-called Yamaha sync software that allows them to be remote and actually connect their various musical instruments. And also, it's a very interesting creative execution of the show where the jazz musicians stand in a circle and they face each other. And the audience members stand around them in a circle. It's really, really beautiful. And above the musicians, you see rings that are illuminated. Each of them is synced to one of the performers, whether it's the vocalist or the guitarist or the drummer or the pianist or the saxophone player, and as they start playing various musical instruments or singing vocals, these rings turn into waves, then they start changing color, and thus the beautiful name of the show, Connected Waves VR Jazz Session. Very creative, actually. Next one is Elementor V by Team Wayne. And it's a beautiful mix of, on one hand, custom created virtual Denny world and It's also an introduction of a brand new J-pop album with six songs and four different vocalists perform those songs, as well as each of the performers and the band members wear custom created avatars that are part of a fashion collection. So it's a beautiful world building. incredible fashion collection, fashion as art, as well as an introduction of an original J-pop music album. Really, really interesting. Next up is Inspiration, Fusion of Light and Sound. This is an ongoing quarterly event in VRChat, similarly to what EM and Jazz do. They actually run their events on a weekly basis. And Inspiration is, as the name suggests, it's about inspiring your senses. Taki, who is the lead creator, he's a raw drum player from Japan. And he curates fellow artists who create very meditative or inspiring music. And for this show, he collaborates with a real opera singer. Her VR chat name is Amarili. And I went to one of their shows and She made me cry. It's very unexpected to hear a real opera singer singing and performing in VR chat as an avatar and performing Ave Maria, which is my mom's favorite song, so I was in tears. Her name is also Maria, just like mine. And then also a real jazz musician, Az. And Az on this occasion performs a very, very meditative series of songs that really put you into a kind of like a zen state of mind. Really, really interesting. Then Taki, in his usual beautiful style, plays the rush drums and together the three performers really put you into a very, very meditative state of mind and just the pure visual joy as well. Then we have Scream Garden. This is a group of about 30 performers, theatrical actors, singers, musicians from Japan. And as the name suggests, Scream Garden, it's a tiny bit spooky, but not as spooky as Where the Withered Flowers Grow, the film. And they have a Victorian, spooky, haunted, mansion kind of world created for their performances. For this particular performance, they do them about on a monthly basis. So they selected a Japanese showman, really. I think showman is the best way to call Yamami. Yamami is his artist's name. He plays about 10 different musical instruments. He screams, he dances, he moves around the stage, he flies, he has angel wings, you name it. He's a showman, he does it all. And he obviously very much will entertain us and the music will be ever so slightly spooky in a very kind of like scream garden fashion and it kind of feels like you're attending a Broadway show or like a musical. So that concludes best live show category this year. Next up is best dance experience and both best live show as well as best dance experience are new categories this year. And dance experience is, as the name suggests, these are all for live dance shows. I'll start with Shadow Canyon, A Puppeteer's Tale. created by three very prolific creators on the VRChat platform, one of which is Das Bunny. She is the founder of the VR Dance Academy. She's a professional dancer and teacher, and also she starred in Joe's We met in VR documentary films, so many of you will remember Das Bunny from there, but I'm sure a lot of people know Das Bunny from social media or attending her classes, her dance classes. So she was the co-director and co-writer of the story and the dance choreographer, and she's also performing in the show. Then we have Maikana Mandy Canales, she directed the actors and she was in charge of the live theatrical component of the show, because the show is both kind of 50% live immersive theater, 50% dance show. And she works with various improv actors on VRChat and she directed the main character, the puppeteer, the mystic and the guide character as well. And then the third collaborator is Ann Prowler, a very, very prolific VRChat world builder who created a beautiful world similar to his previous Horse Canyon world. This is a shadow canyon world, which is a nighttime world, and the dancers basically are able to cast shadows. Obviously, the world has beautiful lighting, beautiful environmental storytelling, and the entire experience starts with a really good onboarding. I must give kudos to this team. They really nailed that flow. And the guide who is kind of your onboarding help then hands you over to the guide character who brings us into the middle of the map, into the middle of the world where the first scene unfolds and we get to understand that a puppeteer is going through some troubles and he lost his inspiration, his mojo. and he tries to reconnect with his puppets and then there's the mystic character who comes and helps the puppeteer and brings back hope and guides the puppeteer and helps the puppeteer to reconnect with the puppets and as the naming suggests the dancers are the puppets and the three characters the puppeteer the mystic and the guide kind of guide us through the various sections of the world And in various beautiful sections of the world, dancers perform various dances and it has a very, very happy ending because the puppeteer and the puppies reunite and we all just celebrate the show because it's really, really beautiful and joyful. Next is Shiro Four Seasons. This is also a Japanese team. Lead performer and director on the project is Yoikami. who is known for many different productions, social dance productions that actually were at other festivals, as well as art festival, as well as theatrical performances. This is his first true solo show, and the experience starts in an absolute whiteness and void. And Joikami, of course, through his dance movements, makes shiro, which in Japanese means white. It's also white, we're not just referring here to the color white, but also the concept of emptiness. We start creating things from nothing, from emptiness. That's what the color white symbolizes here. It's also very much of an interesting concept in Japanese culture. Then as Yoikami starts dancing, the four seasons unfold and the four seasons bring a lot of color and joy into the performance. The dance performance is also inspired based on a haiku that Yoikami wrote and created. And as Yoikami dances, there's animations that unfold and there's beautiful narration. And then the latter part of the experience turns into a bit of a cultural experience where we are being taught how to pray in a shrine. And there is also another dancer who is Yoikami's student, Torako, and he also performs a sword dance, very action-packed, beautiful dance in front of the shrine. Next up, also another Japanese group, Taiko Takibi Dance Night Flames of the Soul. So TTD, as they call themselves, they do regular events in VRChat, and it's kind of like an open mic dance. And there are two drummers, Maru and Haruki, and they play two different drumming instruments. And throughout the night, there are kind of like three various themes. So one is Middle Eastern drumming, another one is African and then kind of like klezmer band type of drumming. There is several dancers, each of them have very, very iconic style of dancing. And basically the world, which was custom created for this show, it's nighttime, you're dancing around the bonfire. The passion of the dancers is palpable. The flames are palpable. Everything is very, very evocative and dramatic and also very beautiful. And you really feel that drumming inside your chest. Even with the VR headset on, you feel like you're in a desert in Morocco or Western Sahara. Really, the vibe is just so incredibly real. The dancers, of course, they wear various avatars, and each of them has their own style. It's another probably dance show that will make people very, very, very emotional. And one of their dancers is a professional dancer at Cirque du Soleil. That's also interesting, having various professional talent actually coming to VRChat and sharing their talents with all of us. Next up is The Friction of a Modulated Soul. This is a prolific dancer, Softly Steph, and she and her team created a custom world. Her style is interpretative dancing. It's very much narrative-led performance. A lot of the music is actually original, co-created by fellow creators on VRChat, musicians. And the very interesting thing is the particle system in this world that was created by Apple, Blossom and Adidas, two very talented creators. And the system allows Steph to kind of multiply herself as an avatar, or she also plays with scales. So sometimes you see only her hands and fingers dancing. It's really interesting how she actually plays with VR as a medium, because dance can be conveyed through anything, even finger dancing. So sometimes she's small, sometimes she's ginormous, other times we don't see her body, we only see her hands and the beautiful particle system that also her avatar very much kind of matches that particle system. It creates this really beautiful, whimsical, and very, very bold overall dance spectacle show. Something we would probably never be able to see in real life or if through some holograms and that would cost millions of dollars to create them. In VRChat, it's just a really beautiful dance spectacle. And the last but not least.
[01:01:46.931] Kent Bye: Hold on, before we dive into the music experience, I just wanted to call in that there is one immersive theater show that didn't necessarily fit into either of the best live show or best dance experience that is out of competition. So, you know, we have a lot of live music and other things that are happening live show, but there was one other one that I just wanted to call out that Grimm will call back. Maybe you could say a few words about that.
[01:02:08.049] Mária Rakušanová: Yes. Grimm Will Come Back is created by Screen Garden team. And this is their kind of foray into immersive theater. It's also kind of a bit spooky in that kind of very Scream Garden-esque style, as they always do. But this is a stage performance with actors in Japanese. And Western audience members will be on a Discord server receiving real-time English translation. So that will be interesting. I personally have not seen theatrical performance in another language, let alone Japanese, let alone in social VR. It's a really fun experience overall, and even though we don't have an immersive theater category, we just had to include them into the selection out of competition. So last but not least, best music experience category that we had in the selection already last year and previous years. And it's celebrating the growing music and rave scene in VRChat. And the selection is quite eclectic and interesting. So the first show is called Candy Trip, Other Side. Candy Trip, they are a group of Japanese DJs and VJs and particle system geniuses. The venue is a cube that turns into an absolute trippy, colorful, like a candy bar, colorful melting pot of sounds and visuals. And the three DJs and BJs have prepared a narrative for us. that they will take us through throughout the show. And the shader system in the world is also really, really interesting. And sometimes you find yourself dancing in zero gravity. Sometimes you find yourself being attacked by the various particles or being rained on because it's rain dance. Why not? So it's an incredibly fun show and the style of music that they play at each of their shows is psychedelic trance and yes, the world and the experience and the music is incredibly psychedelic, very candy trippy, very candy trippy. Next up is Children of the Seed by Flowers Wright. She is a very prolific world builder on the VRChat platform. Little did we all know who admire her world building skills and her roles that she is also a musician and a music composer. And in under two weeks, she composed an entire orchestral music album, which she is presenting during the show in a custom built world. and her walls are typically kind of very fantasy-esque. You almost feel like, I don't know, you're an elf and you came to your elvish kingdom. So you find yourself at this point when you just arrived on a boat and the artist herself welcomes you at this point, an elf avatar, and then she guides you through various bridges and first you think you're going to medieval castle but when you reach your actual destination which is the stage you end up in a tree trunk and it's absolutely beautiful and then flowers right appears on stage in front of you she plays these various orchestral songs that she composed there is also a bit of electronica here and there I do get a bit of Jean-Michel Jarre vibes, even though the music genre is very cinematic and very much of an orchestral music, but in the way how she executed her show. And also there is a beautiful visual system that matches various tunes and songs as she plays music. And yeah, it's rained on, so at some point it rains in her show as well. However, there is one of those songs that are kind of nature-inspired. The next one is Kaleidosky Down the Rabbit Hole. Kaleidosky is an incredible music venue created by Ru and the worldbuilder Terra, and they run weekly shows every Saturday. We just admire a lot of creators like Ru, their commitment that they run weekly shows in VRChat. It's not just like an hour long show. Some of the shows can be like 12 hours and going and across every major time zone. I really admire the dedication of Rue and many people like her who run weekly music shows in VRChat, and we wanted to celebrate that. But for Raindance, they created something really special because it's Kaleidosky Down the Rabbit Hole. So it's a custom curated, created, produced show where she curated various musicians and artists from within VRChat, and each of them is a character from Alice in Wonderland. And Starheart, who we have nominated in Best Music Video category with I Still Love You, she actually is Alice in this music show, wearing a really lovely Alice in Wonderland avatar, but with very much of a Starheart head. So we know that, oh yeah, that's Starheart, and she's now Alice in Wonderland, the story. Rue typically wears a White Rabbit avatar, so guess what? She's White Rabbit. She's our guide in the story. And then the various other performers are Jabberwocky or the Mad Hatter. And there is also Dust Bunny, the performer and the creator of Shadow Canyon Show, who is dancing in front of this kaleidoscope or kaleidoscopic kind of video projection system. that projects her as a dancer, but turns her into these very beautiful kaleidoscopic shapes. And the kaleidoscope is basically above you as a skybox. So that's the point of Kaleidosky that the audio visual system is really interesting and live dancers can actually real time change the skybox above the heads of participants and become VJs. And there are also, of course, many VJs as well that collaborate on the Kaleidosky shows. And then last but not least, Night Under Light presents Seasons and Moonpool. very interesting musical show also talking about the four seasons we have in the darls category shiro four seasons and this is three djs and three djs teaming up together in a custom build world with the audio visual and shader system created by apple blossom and adidas who are the same creators who created something similar for the friction of a modulated soul down show So there's so many different collaborations in between various teams in VRChat. It's actually beautiful. And in Night Under Light, you're actually in a world which you're kind of sitting around a swimming pool or you can jump right into it. And the water is turned into a particle system as well as the kind of the ceiling above you. And as the DJs play, the VJs control all the particle systems and the visuals. And yeah, we are in for a treat. listening about Four Seasons. So it's an interesting take. We have a dance show reinterpreting Four Seasons as well as a music show. It's interesting to see this kind of various connections across the selection. I mean, we could also argue there is laser dance in the gaming category and the candy trip uses a lot of lasers as well. So you're kind of dancing with lasers. It's really fun. It's really interesting to see the connection across various selected experiences. And the last but not least, we have the out of competition experiences. So yeah, we already mentioned Love, Sorrow, and Grim Will Come Back by Screamgarden. Then we have the Temple of the Jeweled Dragon, which is a really unique experience on the Engage platform. A tech company in Japan created a digital replica of a real life temple in Gero City in Japan. It's both a spiritual and educational experience. The experience has three components. The first one is the museum part where we get to learn about Zen Buddhism. and the kind of origins a thousand years ago, and also kind of how we can connect throughout our busy lives with Zen and what does it mean to connect with Zen, as well as there is questions posed about immortality and AI and how can that reflect back into Zen and Do we even want to be immortal? So it's a very kind of philosophical experience as well. Then the second part is we are brought into a meditation environment with the chief priest of the temple, Kakusan. He is an avatar in Engage. It's kind of, again, very unusual to meet a Zen Buddhist priest in social VR. He's very much interested in concepts of metaverse and connecting people through social VR and helping people to meditate and teach people to meditate. So throughout 10 minutes, he explains us various meditation techniques and it takes a good five minutes. It's actually really hard to relax your mind. It's not an easy task. challenge at all. So good five minutes is just being used for settling your thoughts and then possibly the next five minutes you actually are focused and concentrated and actually are meditating. But there's various breathing techniques as well. So something that you can learn in 10 minutes and actually take away for the rest of your life, which is interesting. And then the final experience, we are actually in the temple, in the digital replica of the temple. They scan the temple and they also scan the over a thousand year old Buddhist statue, which is a cultural heritage in Japan. And that's where also the Q&A happens with the priest. And we have session in Japanese language only, as well as live translated session into English. And then we have Aoiro, which is a club that we've collaborated for our opening event. And they completely redecorated their venue using some really fun festival elements like champagne bottles with a festival branding and whatnot. And they curated about 30 different musicians from the Japanese VR track community. and created a music video playlist for us to celebrate the musicians in Japan who also joined us at this after party that we had. The first hour was just for nominated artists and jury members, and then the show went on for another four hours, open to anyone in the Japanese-speaking as well as English-speaking community to come and enjoy and celebrate the opening of the festival.
[01:13:40.640] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, we did it. We went through all 36 of the different pieces that are both in competition in the eight categories and then the one out of competition. And yeah, just an amazing selection here and a lot of work to feature these independent artists. And I know that with your opening, you had a whole gathering within the Virtual Film Institute. You had a teaser trailer that showed clips from each of these that folks can check out. There's a lot of like either teaser trailers or some of the short films are actually online already that you can check out. We went into a whole world that had the posters and you had the creators have a chance to speak about it. And then you did sort of what we did today where you stood up and if there was no creators there, you would say a few words about what the experiences were. So I think this is a really great overview of what you have going on for the next month. Like you said, five weeks, you're already into the first week. Let's pass weekend with the opening. and then four more weekends to really dive into all these amazing different experiences that you've selected across all these different immersive creators. I guess before we start to wrap up, is there anything else you wanted to mention around the festival?
[01:14:45.048] Mária Rakušanová: Yeah, well, also, Joe and I would like to thank Hysterium, our world builder, who created the Rain Downs Immersive Gallery world, where we host the posters as well as the teaser trailers of the nominated experiences for anyone to explore. And yeah, it was fun to... be in that world with the nominated artists and jury members and walk everyone through the selection this year and also meet each other and celebrate each other.
[01:15:13.106] Joe Hunting: Yes, and also we must shout out and give a huge thanks and say that this selection would not be possible without our additional curators, Tropy Ginger, Fangs and Joe Lee. The 2024 Raindance and Mercer Festival would be possible without their help. So a huge thank you to them. And also just whilst I'm thanking you, a huge thank you to any of the nominees who are listening. Thank you for sharing your work with us and for your efforts on bringing your incredible projects to the festival this year. We're very grateful and very excited. Yeah, that's it for me.
[01:15:48.254] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, I'll recommend folks joining the Discord and really stay tuned for when the second batch of live performances and shows are going to be made available. It's sold out really quickly for the first round. So is there a date for when you're opening those up?
[01:16:02.298] Mária Rakušanová: Typically Mondays, Tuesdays.
[01:16:04.339] Kent Bye: Mondays, Tuesdays.
[01:16:05.100] Mária Rakušanová: Okay.
[01:16:05.760] Kent Bye: Yeah. I heard some feedback from some folks where all of the different time zones were opened up at the same time. And so maybe consider for different time zones for Japanese time zone, European time zone and American time zones. having a staggered opening up of those time zones just so that folks who live in those time zones can have an equal opportunity. I heard some feedback from folks in North America who experienced some of that, waking up and having all the shows that were already booked out. But it's one of those dilemmas where it's a good problem to have, but also there's a high demand to see these types of immersive experiences. Yeah, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear what each of you think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and these types of immersive experiences, immersive stories, what that might be and what it might be able to enable.
[01:16:52.096] Joe Hunting: Yes, of course. The question we get every year. Well, I always come in from a filmmaking perspective because that's where my expertise lie. And so for me, the future of VR and my interest in it is certainly with shooting CG media in real time, shooting computer generated animation or any sort of real time animated work in headset immersed with your actors and inside your virtual environment. And the future aspect of that is to reach a quality where that content is happening in real time and is on par straight out the gate to typical animated workflows. And that's something that I'm. currently exploring and attempting to pioneer in some ways within my Painted Clouds team. And so if you're curious about shooting in VR environments in real time and bringing your characters into a different form of animation workflows, then yeah, please find me. But that's what I'm really interested in when it comes to the future of VR is raising the level of quality and production tools for VR virtual production.
[01:18:01.126] Mária Rakušanová: Yeah, for me, I typically give a techie answer. And I'll do give a techie answer as well. Well, one of the things that I'm most interested in, obviously, I was very excited February the second when the Apple Vision Pro started and went on sale in the US. I was actually in the US and then bought mine. Of course, it opens up incredible opportunities for productivity, for all kinds of industries to use this new technology, as well as storytelling and gaming as well, despite Vision Pro doesn't have controllers, but you can still achieve a lot with just eye tracking and voice recognition. and hand tracking. One of the things I would be really excited to see how that's going to start exploding hopefully when perhaps the price of the Vision Pro is a bit more affordable is actually how filmmakers will start experimenting with Apple spatial video format. And actually, we have been on the hunt and lookout for such videos to be able to curate this year. Apple has very much positioned this feature as more of something to preserve memories or when your child is growing up, you might want to record your child, which is wonderful. But I am just amazed that the Vision Pro has, I believe, 11 cameras and two depth sensors. If we remember back in the festival years, I think at Tribeca and Hallelujah premiered their volumetric video technology. But in essence, it's this video with depth And just given the camera system that was used in that 360 video was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and now we have not the same, but similar technology in the Vision Pro It costs four, four and a half thousand bucks, but given what you can already do, and I highly encourage independent filmmakers, if you have the funds to afford a Vision Pro or an iPhone 15, which also has the spatial video shooting capability. Go pick this up as a tool and experiment because you can create some really powerful, intimate moments utilizing this new technology and this new platform. I'm really, really curious and calling all filmmakers to submit to Raindance if you're working on such a spatial video format project. Joe and I would love to see it. That's right.
[01:20:32.362] Joe Hunting: That's a really good suggestion.
[01:20:35.378] Mária Rakušanová: In the time being, I did give my own vision pro to a friend of mine who was an AR filmmaker and a game developer. He's working on something. It's not going to be ready for this year's festival, but we might see some fun spatial video with NPCs at the festival next year. Then last but not least, the kind of non-tech answer is this year, the festival theme is give film a chance. Obviously, with a lot of conflicts going on in this world, we just kind of like to draw back the attention to filmmakers and XR creators, kind of embracing XR as a very, very powerful, meaningful medium to tell stories that hopefully can bring us hope, bring us joy, and connect us all together so we can all have an open mind and make art and not war. So that's where I'd like to end. Thank you, Kent. And thank you, Joe.
[01:21:35.919] Kent Bye: Yeah, that riff on Give Peace a Chance with John Lennon. And that piece, Hallelujah, was shot on Lightshow. And I had a chance to see it at SIGGRAPH, where I did an interview with the creators that I haven't had a chance to publish yet. But yeah, these ideas of both digital light fields, but then things like Gaussian splats, and hope to see much more of how that starts to get translated into these different immersive experiences, but new types of volumetric capture techniques that are able to do digital still life, but also eventually have movement to these. And so, yeah, I'm excited to see where that goes. It's a whole new rendering pipeline when you think about Gaussian splats and neural rendering and other types of techniques with machine learning that are just at the very beginnings that we're presented, I think, for the first time in August of last year at SIGGRAPH. So we'll see a lot more of that developing even over the past year of all these different innovations of different volumetric capture techniques and how people are using that to not only capture their own memories, but also to tell stories. And I think that's a lot of what you're focusing on there at Raindance. So yeah, is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community? No, I don't think so. I think that's good.
[01:22:42.607] Mária Rakušanová: Make art, not war. And let's celebrate that.
[01:22:49.189] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Maria and Joe, thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast to do a really in-depth look at this year's selection. It's really featuring a lot of innovative artists. And like I said, around 69% of all the different pieces have a connection to VRChat, but even more with social VR platforms in general, with eight of the different pieces that are outside of the social VR context. But Yeah, just really great to see this highlighting and curation of these artists. And it's really created this feedback loop of artists being inspired to actually make these different pieces because there's this feedback loop of creation that requires to have an audience to be able to watch these. And so that's what I really love about Raindance is that you're really bringing together these independent creators and giving them a context to be able to have an audience to really bear witness to this work that's being created, but also to inspire other people to continue to push forward what's possible with this immersive medium. So really excited to see all these live performance categories, new categories each year. And it's a real opportunity to tap into some of the emergent trends of where the future of creation that's happening in these platforms is going to see this selection at Rain Dance. So highly recommend folks, any way that you can jump in and see what's happening with the bleeding edge of innovation with virtual culture that you're really highlighting this year and in years past with your ninth year. So thanks again for joining me today to help break it all down.
[01:24:10.188] Joe Hunting: Thank you so much, Kent. And thank you to our community who make all of that possible. Yeah, we're very lucky. Thanks, Kent.
[01:24:18.447] Mária Rakušanová: Thank you so much for having us. And thank you again for joining our jury this year again.
[01:24:24.394] Kent Bye: Yes, for sure. I'm excited to see all the pieces. So that was Maria Rakeshinova, as well as Joe Hunting. They're the co-creators of the Raindance Immersive Festival. So I have a number of different takeaways about this interview is that, first of all, well, Raindance has always been looking at the independent spirit, whether it's from independent games or immersive storytelling. But they've really expanded out into documenting the virtual culture on these online social VR platforms. specifically VRChat, but also new emerging ones like Resonate and then also Engage. But also featuring some of the mixed reality gaming that's happening on the Apple Vision Pro as well as the Quest 3 is something that they're really focusing on in the gaming part. And then for the storytelling, they're really focusing on women's stories this year. So I highly recommend getting onto the Discord and trying to get into some of these different live events, some of the different immersive worlds you'll be able to check out on your own without having to go to some of the different events. And some of the different films you'll be able to either watch on YouTube and there will be some of the films that were shot in VRChat that will be best seen in the Virtual Film Institute, the VFI, which is one of their main venues that they're showing a lot of these different events. So lots of different live performance events that I'm looking forward to getting a chance to see a lot of the different ones. And I'm actually on the jury for the dance experiences this year. And so I'll be checking out each of those. And hopefully I'll have some time throughout the course of this month to check out some of the different experiences and then catch up with some of the different creators that have been really pioneering and innovating what's possible with some of these online social VR platforms. So lots of really amazing stuff that's been produced by these different communities. So listen to Maria talking about all the different types of innovations, lots of different live music performances, which requires a lot of synchronization of people who are not co-located in the same location. It ends up being super tricky. But I think some of those different technological solutions have been worked out in the way that allows people to do this type of live collaborative music production, which is requires a low latency synchrony between all the different technologies so super exciting to see where this is starting to go and there's entire new programs this year with the live shows that really focusing on a lot of those different live musical performances that'll be very curious to see how that is all coming together Yeah, just a real international selection as well with lots of different international creators from around the world. It's on VRChat in a way that they're able to really dive into documenting what's happening on the social VR platform, but also having a VR festival actually happen in VR I think is pretty revelatory in a way that Raindance has been doing that for a number of years now going all the way back to 2020, but there's also been... Other iterations where that's happened with the Museum of Other Realities and Venice has had experiences within these social VR platforms. You know, they usually have a VR worlds gallery, which is not in competition. But each year there's been a number of these different VR chat worlds that have been in the Venice competition. The difference is that most of those different worlds have to be a world premiere competition. So I'll be very curious to see if some of those different world creators are holding out for Venice, if that's part of the reason why we don't see as many this year with Raindance with the earlier time. Venice is in September, so I expect to see a lot more of the social VR worlds being featured there. But I think also Raindance has really cultivated a lot of strong relationships with the creator community and not only finding and discovering talent of these immersive creators, but also featuring them within the context of Raindance Film Festival. So it's a real opportunity to check in with some of the latest innovations of virtual culture that are happening on these different platforms. Great to be able to check in with both Maria and Joe and to see how a lot of these different existing media of both music videos and short films are being reinterpreted and documenting both what's happening in these platforms, but also using the platforms to artistically express themselves either through these music videos or these short films. So that's also an increasingly popular selection platform. And really great to see that they're showing it both at VRChat with the world premiere, but also having these selections that are shown in the Reindeer and Swim Festival in a physical screening. So that'll also be happening there in London. So that's all I have for today. And I just wanted to thank you for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listener-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring you this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com. Thanks for listening.
