One of the best narrative VR experiences that I had at Sundance New Frontier was 6×9, an immersive experience of solitary confinement. You might ask, “Why would you ever want to do that?” Well, it was less about having a direct experience of solitary confinement, and more of a polished immersive journalism piece that explores the psychological damage of solitary confinement using a number of interesting VR storytelling techniques. I had a chance to unpack a lot of these techniques with Francesca Panetta, who has a strong background in audio production and audio narrative journalism.
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6×9 utilizes a lot of innovative immersive storytelling techniques to show you the hallucinogenic effects of spending an extended time within a 6′ by 9′ prison cell. You experience blurred vision, floating, objects that disappear if you try to look at them, and a lot of animated text projected onto the virtual walls.
Audio interviews are pointing out different things about the environment and describing what you’ll be experiencing, and Francesca said that she took a lot of inspiration from listening to a number of GPS-based audio tourism guides. She had her interviewees address you in the 2nd person, which focuses you on your own personal experience immersed within the space. Francesca tried to include some of the 1st person stories of other people, but she found that it was less impactful because it takes you away from having your own experience.
My experience with audio narration in VR pieces is that a lot of times it can be a little overwhelming if there’s too much other visual stimulation happening at the same time. The times that it works well is if the audio connects you more to the scene or if the visuals are limited enough to be able to put most of your focus on the audio. I thought that 6×9 found a really good balance of doing both of these things well.
6×9 also uses the environment around you to illustrate different points. It includes some non-linear stories triggered by your gaze on a number of different objects, and it also uses very effective technique of projecting text within the walls of the environment. The audio soundscape also has it’s own dramatic arc in that increases in intensity over time adding to the level of tension of being within a solitary confinement cell. It uses actual audio recorded from a solitary confinement jail cell, and it really increases the sense of immersion within the piece.
Francesca is still expanding and working on this piece for The Guardian, and hopes to release the full version sometime in April.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:12.040] Francesca Panetta: My name's Francesca Panetta. I'm Special Projects Editor at The Guardian, and my job there is to kind of innovate and storytelling. And the latest piece that I'm doing for The Guardian is a virtual reality piece about solitary confinement in US prisons.
[00:00:27.378] Kent Bye: Yeah, so I had a chance to check out this experience and I think this is probably one of the more sophisticated experiences that I've seen in VR storytelling that really uses the environment to both create a sense of presence, but also tell a story. So talk a bit about like your process in terms of like how you were telling the story beyond the voiceover, which there's voiceover, but you're also doing a lot of different things to kind of use the environment to tell the story.
[00:00:52.390] Francesca Panetta: Yeah, so obviously you have the cell, you are in the cell. I very much wanted this to be a story where you're the protagonist. So this is about your time in solitary confinement. So there are a few things that I've done both with the kind of physical space and also with the language that's used within the audio as well. The physical space changes during the time that you are there, so you go into a very empty cell, then the cell populates with the objects that you are allowed in the cell, a maximum of five books, two pairs of clothes, of t-shirts, of trousers, and that's really about it. There's a letter as well there, so the cell begins to populate. I have put key information as projections on the wall, which kind of animate in various different ways over the experience. But really the focus of the piece, the editorial focus, is about the psychological damage that can happen to you while in solitary confinement. And there have been studies done by psychologists who've studied people who are in solitary confinement and psychological effects. and they can range from anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks, to things like audio hallucinations, visual hallucinations, increased likelihood of self-harm, increased likelihood of trying to commit suicide. And so the climax of the piece really is me trying to illustrate what that can feel like. So a feeling of disembodiment. One of the people that I interviewed said that he felt he was floating on occasions and so in the VR piece you actually float up to the ceiling. Another thing that the psychologists say is a typical symptom is kind of blurred vision as well. So in the virtual reality experience that happens in the scene as well. the audio becomes distorted. Visually, you begin to see things in your peripheral vision. So again, we're using kind of the interactivity that is possible in a virtual reality piece. So you'll see someone in the corner of your eye, it remains there until you turn around and look at it, then it disappears. The minute you turn back, it reappears. So that idea that you think you're seeing something, but then when you look, it's not there. So those are things that we're kind of specifically using, you know, the techniques that are available within Unity, which is the software program that we've used to create this. And then in terms of the language, I did all of the interviews asking them to talk to you as if you're in solitary confinement. So the second person, this is what you will experience. This is what's going to happen to you. This is what you should do now. Look around at your cell, count the bricks in your cell. So usually kind of within documentary you would ask people to tell you their personal story and I very much I had this feeling even before going into the piece that their personal story wasn't going to be very relevant in this piece even though they're horrific stories. I mean I interviewed seven people and one of them was in solitary confinement for eight years. They're strong stories, but they're not actually relevant within the virtual reality piece, because this is a piece about you. So, you know, interestingly, as a documentary maker, you're always told, like, get the personal story, you know, pull on the heartstrings. But actually, the first few edits I did for this piece where I did use that material, you just didn't really care because, you know, you're there in that cell experiencing. So, I mean, those are just a few of the techniques that are different from a traditional film or radio documentary that you would make about solitary confinement.
[00:04:14.680] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think it was brilliantly executed because I felt like I was getting enough information and the pacing was amazing and just kept moving forward and there was enough time of like sitting in this space where it felt like a very expanded experience like I may have been in there for 18 or 20 minutes but I know the experience isn't nearly that long. But you get this sense of being isolated, but yet it's not an experience where you're just completely in solitary confinement, because that would be a totally different experience just to do that and not have the story that keeps moving forward with all the different kind of techniques that you just listed there to kind of keep it interesting and moving forward. So it seems like a little bit of a tension of like, yeah, it's a piece about solitary confinement, but you're not going to go in there and just feel like you were in solitary confinement.
[00:04:59.400] Francesca Panetta: That was a decision I had to make about how truthful you are to the experience. Do we just leave people in a space and not have voiceover? Do you not essentially speed up time? I'd like to do that as a piece as well. Maybe that's an installation piece where not very much happens and you just see how you can cope in that space. But this had a very specific editorial focus, which was this kind of psychological damage, and for that I wanted to tell a story, I wanted a narrative arc, and I wanted that sense of compressing time. So I just decided that that was going to be the form, essentially.
[00:05:36.778] Kent Bye: Yeah, and there was one moment where this is not a 360 video experience. It's actually dynamic and interactive, and so it's able to actually respond to some of the things that you're doing. And so, like you said, there was things that were sort of disappearing. When you looked at it, I didn't actually see that, so I'm curious to see it again. But there was things where you had different objects, and the way that you put it together, whether or not you were looking at the book, the story starts, and if you look away, the story kind of, you know, lags, and it stops, and then you have another story. So you get this sense of, like, depending on what objects you're looking at at that moment, you're kind of making a choice as to what sort of narrative fork that you're going to go down for this little vignette.
[00:06:13.451] Francesca Panetta: Yeah, so that scene is non-linear and I'm quite a fan of trying to explore non-linear storytelling and making it work. There are lots of non-linear pieces which don't work at all and I thought that for this particular scene it really would work because this is about, this is your space. You're looking around it, trying to figure out, OK, what can I do here? What am I allowed? What are the rules for this environment for me? And me just giving straight dialogue over the top, it wouldn't be your space then. And this is a way that you are exploring it. And as much as possible, if you're the protagonist, you need to be in control of how you're interacting with the stories.
[00:06:52.868] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I think the way that you were doing the projections so that the text was kind of being projected onto the wall. I've seen a lot of VR documentaries that fade to black and then they show you text, which to me kind of takes you out of this being in a space. And so in this experience of 6x9, for the entirety of the experience, you have visual continuity of being in this cell and having like handwriting that's animating. You're having like things that are written all over as kind of like the informational part of it. you kind of get interested to see, like, you know, because things are appearing and they're disappearing and so there's just like, oh, I gotta, like, look at and read everything before it's gone.
[00:07:30.050] Francesca Panetta: And actually, I don't want you to have to read everything. So it's very much my intention that if you don't read any of the projections on the wall, you'll still have a good experience. You don't see the figure in the corner of your eye. That's absolutely fine. I don't want you to see every single detail. And even the interaction, I would say like on the user testing that I've done, half the people realize they're triggering stories and half of them don't. And that's fine too. I want the experience to be different for different people. and maybe you do it again and get different stories triggered and you see different things.
[00:08:04.148] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I've also noticed that sometimes, like, I've not actually been a fan of voiceover and VR experiences because I find it hard to actually kind of track the sounds of what the story is while at the same time being kind of overwhelmed, being thrown in the midst of a scene where I just am trying to take it all in and it's hard for me to do both at the same time. I kind of have to make a choice in my mind because, you know, if somebody was in the scene talking to me, maybe that would be different, but it's sort of like this constructed narrative that gets put on top of it. And I feel like sometimes when you're doing VR filmmaking, that's a bit of a crutch to be able to just rely on the audio narrative. But for yours, I feel like being in that single space, that it really worked, that I wasn't being overwhelmed. It was actually kind of interesting to listen to it. But I don't know if you had any thoughts about that.
[00:08:51.082] Francesca Panetta: I've got lots of thoughts about that. I mean, first of all, it's not voiceover. It's not scripted. None of it is scripted. They're interviews, so it sounds real. I mean, I think it sounds real because these are real stories from people who were in prison and psychologists. So it feels to me less stilted than your usual scripted, active voiceover. I think, second, you're right that the visuals are quite limited, so you have more capacity to absorb story. But also, I think the way that I did the interviews is meant to try and direct your attention to the environment. So before doing this project, I did quite a lot of GPS audio guides. So that's when you walk around in a space, in a landscape, and stories are triggered to you by where you go. So I've done quite a lot of work in how those stories can direct your attention in space. So asking people, you know, look at the cracks in the walls, how many bolts are in the walls, count your bricks. I know that these are techniques that help you engage with your landscape more. And so this is just a virtual landscape. But if you can use those same techniques where you are supporting the visuals with the audio, then I think it can work fine.
[00:10:06.528] Kent Bye: Yeah, because there's definitely been experiences where I didn't think they were, they were actually in conflict, like direct conflict, where I had to actually make a choice. And I was frustrated because I was choosing the visual and kind of feeling like I was missing the story.
[00:10:19.225] Francesca Panetta: And deliberately actually in the stage where you are experiencing this kind of psychological symptoms I really like the fact that it's very very blurred as well so actually your attention is moving more and more inwards and that's actually quite an intense scene in terms of the audio but you can really concentrate on it because you're seeing less and less in fact.
[00:10:40.528] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I know from my experience of doing documentary films and editing, I kind of have this informal rule that if I can't watch it like 10 times in a row, then, you know, I got to like make it more tight. So this is a piece that I can get the sense that it's been seen over and over and over again, and trying to really hone it down to the core essence of all the points that you want to make. And so maybe you could talk about that process of like, as you're developing a story about solitary confinement, what was it like to put yourself into solitary confinement and kind of listening to this over and over?
[00:11:09.868] Francesca Panetta: Well it's interesting because at the beginning, I mean what I did was I created the narrative first so I've been building this in Cubase as it happens and what I would do is have a still of the cell just in cardboard and basically be editing then listening to it with cardboard on going okay that's far too fast that's you know and then re-editing and doing it again over and over again because how that pacing of the piece changes very much once you're in that space. You know, you almost want to be editing blind almost, you see what I mean? So that you are in that space and contracting and compressing and just trying to find exactly where that line is of allowing someone that sense of being there and of claustrophobia, but also not so much that they're going to take the headset off and go right on board and, you know, I'm not going to do this anymore. So yeah, that's what I did was it was very clunky. It was like me in the studio editing with cardboard on my head. And then later we put it into Unity and I would be exporting files over and over again into the various spatialized parts. So there's like maybe 12 audio spots around the cell and I had a workflow system where it would export straight from Cubase into the Unity spots and I would just be doing that over and over again replacing them and trying to get that both the balance in terms of balancing the audio and getting a good mix but also in terms of kind of linear flow as well. But that's still doing it in Unity though is not the same as having those goggles on your head which that you know that is the bit where the pacing totally changes.
[00:12:52.989] Kent Bye: Yeah, and what have been some of the reactions to this piece so far?
[00:12:57.118] Francesca Panetta: Here in Sundance, really good. I mean, every single person has come out really quite moved. Some of them have said it's actually changed their opinion on the judicial system, which is fantastic. And I've been surprised that people have actually been picking it out of the long list of VR pieces that are here, because I guess one of my concerns was, are people going to voluntarily go into a solitary confinement cell when they can be swimming with dolphins under the water? But they do seem to be deciding to do that, which is good.
[00:13:28.404] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think technically, I think it's probably, you know, the most sophisticated realization of the potential of storytelling within a interactive mobile gear VR. So it's a mobile VR experience. So it's also just holistically, you know, everything from the visuals to the story to kind of the impact of the message of it. And, but also there's a lot of ambient sounds and stuff. And so maybe you could talk about some of the other sound things that you're doing to kind of help flesh out this experience.
[00:13:55.722] Francesca Panetta: I was really, really lucky to be given raw sound files from PBS Frontline. As part of the research I watched a documentary that they made last year called Solitary Nation where they'd got access into Main State Penitentiary and they filmed and recorded loads of just kind of actuality. Their film is incredible and I contacted the executive director and the director and executive producer who I kind of actually knew them anyway from this kind of interactive circuit and told them about my project and said I wanted their files and they just sent me 25 hours worth of raw tape which I then went through and that's what I've constructed all of the ambient sound layers from. And those actually have a narrative arc as well. So at the beginning you hear very little of those sounds. They're just like little radio bleeps and footsteps and tiny little murmurs down the corridor. But then as the piece progresses, actually the ambient becomes more a part of the story. So you begin to hear actual conversations between the prisoners shouting down the road to each other. and then you hear them starting to basically have a kind of full-on riot towards the end where they're all banging on the doors and shelling and yelling and screaming. So it wouldn't have been nearly as immersive if I hadn't had that tape and it gives it a real authenticity as well.
[00:15:19.928] Kent Bye: Yeah, it sort of reminds me of this training course that I just took on creative live with Alex Bloomberg, who is a planet money, but also he's doing media now. So he's doing the startup podcast. And so he's talking about like the process of telling stories with audio. And it seems like with your audio background that in some ways, audio storytelling, podcasts, and you know, this American life planet money, this type of narrative podcast, it seems like it could actually have more in common with virtual reality than, you know, film.
[00:15:47.097] Francesca Panetta: That's what I think. I mean, when I saw virtual reality pieces two years ago, I was like, this is an amazing opportunity for radio producers and sound artists, because you're essentially can tell stories through audio in amazing landscapes. And I actually think that, you know, I have got no film training at all, but actually I think that's probably almost an advantage in making a piece like this, because you are forming the narrative before you've necessarily got all of the visuals in place. And having a very strong understanding of audio narratives, yeah, I think that definitely helps. That's what I see it as for sure.
[00:16:24.222] Kent Bye: Yeah, one of the things that was kind of surprising was Alex Bloomberg and Ira Glass saying that audio is actually a very visual medium, where good audio stories are kind of like trying to paint you a picture. And so when you're really trying to describe the details of a scene, so it's like details, details, details. And at some point, after 45 seconds, they say you have to have a punchline. And so that's like Alex Bloomberg's formula for kind of creating stories. And you just kind of nest those anecdotes together to tell the larger story. So I'm just curious about how you kind of think about the process of telling a story in audio as a way to kind of contrast it to how telling stories in audio can inform how you made the experience of 6x9.
[00:17:06.273] Francesca Panetta: It's different with visuals. So the Alex Bloomberg 45 seconds of description, you do not need that if you've got the visuals there. The visuals are all around you and overwhelming you in virtual reality. I mean, I come from a kind of sound artist, musician, I'm a musician, so what I think can be brought into something like Six by Nine is telling the story through a landscape of sound, you know, this is not someone just talking at you continuously, description, description, punchline, you know, this is how sound can take you viscerally into a space. So I think that that has got an enormous role in virtual reality. Like very, very strong sound design, but also narrative sound. Narrative not as in voiceover, but like how that sound can grow over time. I think that strong story in itself has got a place in virtual reality. And I know that you were saying that you had reservations of like, here's a voiceover of some nice landscapes. But that is just not good audio. I mean, if you get really, really good interview material or excellent writing and delivery, I think that can definitely pull you through. And some of the virtual reality experiences that I've done that haven't had that, that have been quite abstract landscapes, are very beautiful, but they don't necessarily hold you. And so I think that having the skills of kind of audio narrative storytelling, I think that definitely has a very, very strong role in virtual reality. But I think it's not just pure radio, as I say, I think it's almost like location audio. So that's what I see it as, audio in a landscape.
[00:18:50.379] Kent Bye: So when you're going forward now, since you're at The Guardian, there's likely many other journalistic stories going forward. So do you have some of those projects planned out? And what else can we see going forward here?
[00:19:00.563] Francesca Panetta: I mean, you can just use this for so many different topics. It's kind of slightly overwhelming. I was writing a kind of brainstorming list with my colleagues the other day and we were like, just wow, all of these things that we're interested in covering we could make amazing immersive pieces for. Now I'm not saying that virtual reality suits every single story and you have to think very carefully what that is. So if you're doing, for instance, the migrants who, you know, this is going to be an ongoing story, the problem of migration in Europe. but the way that you tackle that story cannot be the same as a kind of film approach to it or even an audio approach to it. So I think that as journalists we just need to be careful that when approaching these stories we are doing them as appropriate for the medium and not just getting filmmakers to do exactly the same shoots and exactly the same kind of storyboards and storylines that they would do for the medium that they're kind of comfortable with already. And I think that's why 6x9 is quite a good example of something that in form is very different from what we would do in a film or in a written article. And I would very much like to kind of keep pushing that form, pushing treatment, so that even though it is journalism or it is documentary, it's kind of innovating in actually its storytelling, not just in technology, but actually in storytelling it's innovating.
[00:20:22.776] Kent Bye: So what makes a good VR experience then for you? Like a story that would be really well told to use the strengths of the virtual reality medium?
[00:20:31.477] Francesca Panetta: I think that when the technology is in place, I'll be really interested to see kind of verite, like when we can get cameras in place for when things are really, really interesting things are happening. We've got to the stage now where people have smartphones and they can record when dramatic events are happening, but we don't have that yet with virtual reality. But that will be a very interesting time when we don't have to recreate and very much direct, which we do. I mean, we're really heavily directing these 360 videos or these kind of virtual reality pieces. So when it can be a little bit less obtrusive, I think that will be fantastic. I think it's experimentation at the moment until we find some kind of solid structures for storytelling. It feels hugely eclectic in terms of the techniques that people are using. I don't think anyone's found the form yet, but I mean I think that's good, that's exciting isn't it?
[00:21:27.985] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think it's kind of the wild west and we're all trying to figure it out. And so I think that what's interesting to me is that people from different disciplines are kind of coming together and, and adding their different perspectives. And, you know, is talking to someone from the void who's a magician, you know, and he was like talking about different ways of having to prove that it's real and, and your audio background and these different people with different experiences from all dimensions of life are coming together to bring out different aspects of what the strengths of VR actually are.
[00:21:54.888] Francesca Panetta: I don't feel that's really happened for another genre for a really long time. Film seems to be dominated by a particular kind of filmmaking techniques and people and the same with radio. And it's like, wow, you suddenly got musicians making pieces or performance artists making pieces. And that's just, that's incredibly exciting and bringing possibilities to it that I just haven't seen that. before.
[00:22:26.470] Kent Bye: So what do you want to experience in virtual reality then?
[00:22:29.353] Francesca Panetta: What would I like to do, like my perfect virtual reality piece?
[00:22:33.777] Kent Bye: Not necessarily that you have to produce, but that you just want to experience.
[00:22:38.661] Francesca Panetta: Can I pass on that one? I don't know, what's yours?
[00:22:42.950] Kent Bye: Well, for me, I think that there's kind of a lot of, like, experiences that could potentially do neuroplasticity, experiences to tap into latent human potentials that we don't even know about. I think that's really fascinating and kind of uncharted because of being able to hack your mind to be able to do, like, to go into virtual reality and come out a better person, I think is the one thing. Also, like, what would it be like to be able to interact with artificial intelligence agent where you have both local agency where you're able to control what you're doing in the store in the short term and maybe flavors the experience, but maybe there's a number of different fixed outcomes, like five or 10 different outcomes where you can, based upon your behaviors, change the overall outcome. So you have both local and global agency. So I think those are the types of things that I'm really interested in experiencing at some point.
[00:23:29.995] Francesca Panetta: I mean, I guess because I'm from a documentary background, I want to kind of push this in terms of both story form, but also in terms of like the impact that it can have in terms of making people realise what change, political, social change needs to happen. And, you know, I guess From Six by Nine is an example of that, but I'd love to continue to experiment with the form to try and make the world a better place. I mean, it sounds a bit cheesy, but, you know, if it can be informative and yet immersive and powerful, like not an enjoyable experience, but like, you know, something you want to do, then I think, yeah, that's probably what I want to be making.
[00:24:12.112] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:24:18.073] Francesca Panetta: I've got no idea. I've got no idea. I mean, we don't know where the technology is going. We don't know where the storytelling is going. I mean, it's, I certainly do not want to predict where virtual reality is going. Do you know the answer?
[00:24:35.388] Kent Bye: I've asked this question to over 300 people now, so I actually feel like I have a sense of like, it's like an elephant in a room, and you have different people that can see different aspects of it. So it's kind of an interesting litmus test for people to see how far they've looked at the future and potential of virtual reality. And so I've done a presentation at Nike where I try to summarize from all the different dimensions and all the different fields and stuff. To me, it's like this exploration and connection and being able to eventually go into virtual reality and come out a better person. I think that if I were to summarize it, that's what I want. I want to be able to have these experiences that people can go in and they experience them when they come out. They feel like they're either a better person, they know more, or they're able to achieve more. Or maybe it's just like they're able to have fun, you know, and the whole telepresence and being able to connect to family and, you know, there's all these different dimensions where sometimes, depending on who I talk to, they've kind of been focusing on one dimension of that. So, yeah, it's kind of like even hard for me to answer that question because I've given an hour-long presentation on it. So it's kind of challenging to have the tables turned. But, yeah, I don't know if you have any other thoughts or ideas.
[00:25:45.183] Francesca Panetta: Okay so I was saying before like no one knows and I'm not going to say that's not true because it is true and no one knows but what I was saying was that I'm going minute by minute on this project and trying to make it with the technology that's available now as good as it can be but you know when I first saw Virtual Reality two years ago and there weren't very many projects done there I just saw that there was huge scope here for storytelling It's when you see something that just, in newspaper terms, if it's got a strong headline, you know it's a story. And it's a bit like this with virtual reality. It's so clear what the concept is and it works. And it's now just a question of finding what content to put inside it and developing that technology. in as many interesting ways as we can. Following our noses, like really just scanning all the time. I kind of think with technology and storytelling, you're just sensing and scanning around all the time. Okay, oh, we can now do that. Well, that means that with this kind of story approaching technique, I can do that. Then this bit over here opens up and you are just all the time trying to be as mobile as possible.
[00:26:54.351] Kent Bye: Yeah, that reminds me of one of my favorite answers to that question from Max Geiger, where he says, he cites Amara's law, which is this law that says people tend to overestimate the impact of new technologies in the short term, but underestimate them in the long term. And the example he gave was cell phones. And so we have cell phones that come online, and then there's this extra bandwidth, and people can start texting. And then texting kind of starts to become a whole way of communicating that's actually preferred from the original way of actually talking on the phone. Like, how many people talk on the phone these days? And so that's just one example, but not only that, like who would predict text messaging, but then who would predict that text messaging would sort of facilitate micro economies in Africa, right? So right now we're at that stage of virtuality where we can't make that leap from cell phones to micro economies in Africa being facilitated by cell phones without knowing about the text messages. And so We're kind of in this phase where we're adding more and more different dimensions of what's even possible in VR with input and all the technology. And then once those things click in place, then we're going to start to be able to paint the full picture of what's possible.
[00:28:00.653] Francesca Panetta: And lots of people are saying, oh, well, the technology has come before, you know, the storytelling and usually storytelling drives the technical advances. But actually, no, I think these things have to work in tandem. The technology will change as people build content and use the technology in different ways. The technology will respond to those needs. and the advances in technology are going to make people making content explore different possibilities. Is it a beautiful dance between the two? I'm a huge fan of Murakami and he talks about literally dancing, about how I was saying sensing. It's an interplay and a kind of dance between these two elements and it's about sensing and being really, really aware to potential all the time rather than going, this is where I see it in 10 years time and I'm now going to have my roadmap to there. I think that would be the most harmful thing that we could do.
[00:28:56.118] Kent Bye: Yeah, we really have to take rapid iterations and a more agile approach, but I would also add that it's not just the technology and the content, but it's also the users, because as people are using the technology, then that's the third prong of this, is that things are coming from the consumer demand, but also the content and the technology, and that we're at this place where we have to be in this unique situation where we have all three coming up at the same time, where We've had the consumer launch about to launch into the public, and we've sort of been going back and forth for the last couple of years from the technology and the content creators. And now, you know, within the next few months, it's going to be unleashed into the public at large. And that will, again, be another source of input to the evolution of the technology from my perspective.
[00:29:39.403] Francesca Panetta: Yeah, and it'd be really interesting to see what that does to it, because we've been working in a bubble for a while. Great.
[00:29:44.927] Kent Bye: Now, is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say?
[00:29:47.409] Francesca Panetta: I've said everything I have to say about virtual reality.
[00:29:51.682] Kent Bye: Okay, great, well thank you so much.
[00:29:52.924] Francesca Panetta: Okay, thanks, bye.
[00:29:54.966] Kent Bye: And thank you for listening. If you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash voices of VR.
