Samsung had a huge presence at Sundance this year as the mobile sponsor of the festival. They were evangelizing Gear VR to independent filmmakers with their Gear VR theater as well as collaborating with Sundance’s New Frontier program to provide Gear VR headsets for the mobile VR selection of cinematic VR experiences. I had a chance to catch up with Jim Wilson, who is the director of immersive products & VR for Samsung. He’s in charge of making sure the Milk VR has plenty of new 360-degree video experiences through various collaborations with professional and independent producers. Jim and I talked about the consumer launch of Gear VR, their plans for supporting cinematic VR experiences through their Indie Challenge Program, as well as the challenges of marketing VR through 2D mediums.
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Samsung premiered the first VR short from Funny or Die, which was called Interrogation. It’s a narrative sketch that stars comedians Rob Heubel and Paul Sheer. The experience puts you in the hot seat of a police investigation where you can “feel what it’s like to be the suspect of a horrible crime in the hot seat of an interrogation room, getting grilled by the worst detectives in the business.” They were also showing episodes of their interactive thriller on Milk VR called GONE. There were lines of people outside of the theater all week long waiting to get a glimpse of some of the latest narrative VR content.
Our friends at @SamsungMobileUS @Oculus bringing VR to the masses #galaxylife https://t.co/NWaQtalu56 – @milk
— Sundance Film Festival (@sundancefest) January 24, 2016
Jim also talks about Samsung’s Gear Indie program to provide an outlet for independent 360-video content. They also announced the first five winners of the Gear Indie Challenge at Sundance with each winner taking home $10,000.
One of the major applications of Gear VR within the VR space will be the non-interactive cinematic VR experiences, and their presence as a sponsor at Sundance and throughout the New Frontier spaces sent the clear message that storytelling within VR is something that is part of Samsung’s long-term strategy in VR moving forward. In fact, Samsung also announced that they’re opening up a VR Production studio in New York City saying that, “We love stories.” So I’d expect to see a strong Samsung presence at other independent film events, and within film circles in LA and NYC.
.@Samsung has a huge presence @sundancefest this year with tons of mobile #VR on their Gear VR
#EmojiAllAccess
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. I'm Jim Wilson, Director of Immersive Products and Virtual Reality with Samsung Electronics America. I lead business development for Samsung MilkVR, which is our premium virtual reality content service. Great. So tell me a bit about how you first got into virtual reality. When was the first time that it was introduced to you as something that you might be doing here at Samsung? Sure, it was just prior to the Galaxy Note 4 Unpacked event in September 2014. So it seems like quite some time ago we were showing off the first Gear VR Innovator Edition for the Galaxy Note 4. And it was just phenomenal. I mean, you know, the response we were getting from all the people seeing it at the Unpacked event, I mean, that was just the beginning. And then from there it was lots of events, you know, like the VRLAs and all these events that we attend to try to expose as many people as possible to Gear VR and virtual reality. That was sort of the genesis and it was just pretty amazing to just see the responses, you know from You know sort of ran the age gamut, right? I mean people from their 20s all the way to I think there was people in their 60s Probably that were there and everybody was amazed and then obviously I was amazed right and was continually amazed So that was sort of my entry into virtual reality Okay, so this is when the Gear VR had already been, you know, the collaboration had already started with Oculus and Samsung, and this was sort of like the first peak of that? Is that what that was then? Well, no, I mean the Samsung-Oculus relationship had been going on for, you know, quite some time. So I came in when Gear VR was actually going to be a real product and was, again, when we were launching the first, you know, Gear VR Innovator Edition for Galaxy Note 4. Great, so just back in like November 20th of 2015 you had the consumer launch which seems to be kind of like a big release of actually the first consumer VR headset that's out there, you know, looking at all the other headsets have just been development kits and so this was a consumer launch and so talk a bit about going from that first moment of knowing that you were going to work on this and leading up to this actually getting it launched. It's been a really, I'd say, wild and exciting ride, right? I mean, just building, so again, my focus is really on Samsung Milk VR, so just building up that content library and working with various content creators, you know, whether it was professional production companies, brands, you know, agencies, It's really been fantastic just to see the response that we've gotten, particularly from what we're calling, you know, indies, right? Because we actually formalized the Gear Indie program in August, you know, that's when we launched the channel officially in MilkVR. So it's just been phenomenal, I mean, to see the growth in our own library and also to see you know, just sort of the growth in the VR space period, right? I mean, Oculus Connect was such an exciting event, not only because, you know, that's where we announced the new Gear VR that was going to be $99, but also, you know, just the amount of content that was also going to be available, right? In terms of, you know, Netflix, Hulu, Twitch, Vimeo, you know, people could download or rent movies from Fox and Lionsgate, and then just all the fantastic gaming content that was going to be available. So it's been amazing to see from way back in 2014 to, you know, fast forward to now where we're here at Sundance and just to see the amazing response we've been getting and also just the, I'd say, the quality of the content. I mean, it's been phenomenal. Yeah, and what is this Gear VR Indie Program? Maybe you can talk a bit about what that is. So when we officially launched Samsung Milk VR at CES January 2015, we were getting an enormous amount of people signing up at MilkVR.com. for accounts and also just uploading content. And we were seeing quite a lot of, you know, really good content coming in and, you know, we decided to, it made sense to, you know, actually formalize a program so that we could recognize the quality of the content that was coming in. It's three different components. So there was the Gear Indie Channel that we launched on MilkVR so that that sort of enables a distribution area within MilkVR so that they know that that's where their content will live. We've got our mentors, so three of those are Jason Rubin, who's head of Worldwide Studios at Oculus, Nancy Bennett, Chief Creative Officer at Two-Bit Circus, and Anthony Batt, who's one of the founders of Weaver. And the third component is the gear indie challenges that we're doing. The first one just concluded. It was there in 60 seconds. And we announced the winners on Friday here at Sundance. So it was five winners. Each winner got $10,000. And we also just launched a indie winners channel on MilkVR that has the five winning videos. And the response that we got to the challenge and the response that we've been getting from the indie community has just been fantastic. And it's a program we're going to continue to really grow. Yeah, and it seems like this interesting split between Oculus and Samsung because any of the kind of interactive games is kind of mediated through Oculus Home, and they're kind of curating that, and they're kind of the gatekeepers to that, whereas for you, you have an app within the context of that Oculus Home for the Milk VR, and so... that is one of your areas of being able to actually have content. But there's also the Samsung Internet, and maybe you could talk a bit about other divisions other than MilkVR, because you do have the Internet. So I'm just trying to get a sense of the ecosystem and different divisions within Samsung as you are moving forward here. Well, I think a good way to answer that is, you know, we want to ensure that Gear VR users obviously have the best possible experience and, you know, internet capability. I mean, that's sort of something that people expect on any device they're on, right? And so having the ability to, you know, access the internet when you're in Gear VR, I think is sort of a Core component just to really again. It's sort of like you know when you're expanding the content ecosystem We just have to continue to have you know services that consumers expect again on just their mobile devices or Laptops, and it's just gonna continue to really grow there. I think their ability to enjoy gear VR Yeah, and I think from my own personal experience of being a virtual reality developer as well and doing demos, it's a lot easier to carry around a Gear VR in my backpack and throw a headset onto somebody and give them a pretty close approximation of an experience, even if it's not like the full fidelity of an Oculus Rift DK2 or, you know, CV1. So, to me it seems like it's democratized the ability to show the best mobile VR that's out there. And, you know, sort of leading on that, being here at Sundance, there seems to be different tiers of experiences. There's either the mobile VR, which, you know, all of them are essentially on the Gear VR, then we have the tethered VR with Oculus and Vive, and then we have these kind of art installations that can only be in a place. It seems like with the mobile VR, Samsung is clearly pushing that forward, but also because you're here at Sundance, it sort of sends a statement that you're really interested in these cinematic 360 video content and what you can do with that in terms of the different types of experiences that you hope to use. When people use the Gear VR, they're going to be sort of having not just a gaming experience, but this other ability to kind of go to any place and anywhere in the world. Yeah, I mean, and that's, you know, the transportative nature of virtual reality. I mean, that's sort of one of the things that people are so excited about. So you touched on a couple important points. So I think the portability, sort of accessibility of it too. I think those are two really key attributes of Samsung Gear VR. And I think it's been fantastic for us. It's sort of been a pretty large shift. I mean, I'm sure you go to a lot of the shows like VRLA and such. So, you know, a year ago, you'd see maybe only a handful of people demoing their content, whether it's games or 360 video. We're demoing it on Gear VR. And now, you know, at the last VRLA event I went to, I mean, it was probably 95% of people were doing it, right? Just for the reason you mentioned. I mean, you can Toss it in your bag, right? I mean, I literally have my Gear VR with me all the time. It's always in my bag. So that's one thing. And the other thing is, you know, in terms of the quality of the content, I think that we've seen some fantastic experiences here, obviously here at Sundance. You know, obviously Samsung is a sponsor this year. You know, we work closely with the team at New Frontier. This past Friday we launched a Sundance VR channel that has some select experiences from various New Frontier artists. So that's been very exciting for us. Also very exciting for Sundance, because not everybody has a chance to come to Park City and enjoy all the content at Sundance. And so it's really great to be able to broaden the distribution and allow people anywhere, really, to check out MilkVR, be able to check out the new Frontier content. Yeah, and I think probably one of the biggest challenges for Samsung and virtuality in general is how do you tell the story of VR in all the traditional 2D mediums? It's something like, it feels like VR is something that you kind of have to see it to really understand it and believe it. And as beautiful and well-crafted some of the commercials are, I kind of watch them and be like, I, yeah, but that's not even, the best things that I've seen is kind of just watching people come out of VR and be like, oh my God, my mind is blown. And so talk a bit about that in terms of like the challenge of being on the forefront of consumer VR. No, I mean, that's you raise a good point, right? It's how do you convey the virtual reality experience through a commercial? And you can't really do it, right? I mean, I think that the TV commercials that we did, I think were fantastic at trying to give people a sense of what it's like. But it is really one of those experiences. I mean, you literally have to see it to believe it, right? Because selling people that you're surrounded by content, I mean, what does that really mean, right? So, yeah, that's definitely been a challenge. I think that, you know, that's one of the reasons why at all the events where Samsung has a presence, you know, VR will always be a major component. Obviously, here at Sundance, we've got the, you know, Samsung VR theater. You know, the lines have been down the block. continuously because everybody wants to check it out. And the response is always great, right? People love to watch people trying VR. You know, we premiered the Funny or Die premiered their first VR experience, you know, here at the Samsung space on Friday. And, you know, it's about a seven minute piece. And, you know, we were all just standing there watching people laugh and enjoy it. And it's I've been demoing Gear VR for a year and a half now, or over a year and a half, and it really never gets old, right? Whether it's somebody seeing their first experience and having that sort of wow moment, or whether it's someone who's like a grizzled veteran like myself who sees something that's fantastic and just has a great visceral reaction to it, I mean, it's fantastic. And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable? Ooh, good question. Well, I don't know. I mean, the space is moving so quickly. And again, I'm sort of laser focused on the content. So I'm really interested in sort of seeing where the storytellers and the filmmakers are going to take things, right? We've definitely been trying to push the boundaries. We launched our episodic thriller Gone this past December. And that's when we introduced the concept of exploratory video, right? So I think it's going to be really interesting to see again where the storytellers are taking things, right? Because again, when you take the, there's no frame, right? I mean, it's sort of still, I don't know. I'm, I'm just, I'm very excited just to see sort of where the content is going to take us. Right. Cause I think we've seen a quantum leap from just when we launched, you know, Samsung Milk VR to today. I mean, the, you know, sort of breadth and quality of the content is, I mean, it's pretty amazing. So OK, great. Well, thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks for your time.
[00:12:17.121] Jim Wilson: 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.
