I interviewed Mobile Suit Gundam: Silver Phantom creators from Bandai Namco Filmworks including Naohiro Ogata, Kiichiro Inoue, Ken Iyadomi as well as Atlas V producers Arnaud Colinart and Julien Bercy, and technical art director Gaël Chaize at Venice Immersive 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.438] 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 structures and forms of immersive storytelling in the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So continuing my series of looking at different immersive storytelling projects from Venice Immersive 2024, today's episode is with a piece called Mobile Suit Gundam Silver Phantom. So the This is an anime and what they call a VR film. So it's more of a cinematic experience rather than a interactive game. Although there are some small interactions that shouldn't be thought of as a game because it's much more cinematic in its approach. It's more of like you're stepping into an anime from the IP of Mobile Suit Gundam, which is over 45 years old now. So I had a chance to talk to a number of different creators on this project and to unpack the process of how it all came about. And it's also going to be releasing at some time here soon. So you'll be able to check it out here for yourself. So becoming all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with the team behind Mobile Suit Gundam Silver Phantom happened on Thursday, August 29th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:21.011] Naohiro Ogata: My name is Naohiro Ogata, Gundam executive producer.
[00:01:27.314] Arnaud Colinart: Hello, my name is Arnaud Collinard, I'm co-founder of Atlas V and executive producer on Mobile Suit Gundam.
[00:01:34.698] Julien Bercy: Hello, I'm Julien Bercy, I'm the producer at Atlas V for this experience.
[00:01:41.401] Kiichiro Inoue: My name is Kiichiro Inoue, Bandai Namco film work producer.
[00:01:46.384] Ken Iyadomi: My name is Ken Iyadomi, producer for Silver Phantom.
[00:01:50.578] Gaël Chaize: My name is Gaël Chaise and I was the technical art director on this piece.
[00:01:54.759] Kent Bye: Great, and maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into working with virtual reality.
[00:02:03.061] Ken Iyadomi: Let me just translate it. The background of the VR industry, if you could introduce yourself one by one.
[00:02:14.901] Naohiro Ogata: I can speak Japanese. This is the first time for me to challenge a VR long film. Gundam has a history of 45 years. I think it was a very challenging challenge.
[00:02:44.065] Ken Iyadomi: Actually, it is our first challenge to produce a long-length VR animated film for the Gundam. Gundam IP had been around for over 45 years, which was our first time challenge to work on this project.
[00:03:00.026] Arnaud Colinart: And for me, I started my journey in VR with Not Some Lineness that I co-directed in 2016. That led me to start the Atlas V company and we produce mainly narrative immersive projects like Spheres or Battle Scar on Gloomy Eyes. Mobile Suit Civil Phantom is our first co-production with Japan and also it's probably the biggest and most exciting animation project we ever did in VR and that's really a milestone I think for our company and also personally for me to be able to work with this team.
[00:03:38.544] Julien Bercy: I began in VR in 2015 with a live-action movie, then I moved to 3D real-time a few years ago, and I started working on the project in 2022, so maybe two years and a half from this project that we finally deliver to the audience soon.
[00:03:59.051] Kiichiro Inoue: I started my career as a director of CG, and I've been doing CG for about 25 years. I started working on VR about 8 years ago, and at that time it was just our company, but this time I'm doing it with Atlas V and Albion, and I think I've achieved so many great things, so it's very inspiring.
[00:04:22.506] Ken Iyadomi: He had been working as a CG director for about 25 years. And so about eight years ago, he started working in some of the VR product. But this is his first time to work on long lengths. And also, before, everything was produced just by our company. So first time to co-produce and working with a foreign company, which was great.
[00:04:47.595] Kent Bye: How about your own background and journey into VR?
[00:04:51.067] Ken Iyadomi: Well, actually, which was my first experience. And then there was a guy whose name is Andy, Andy Frank, who is also executive producer on this show. I worked with him like over 30 years ago, you know, on a show called Ghost in a Shell. And he came to us and he wanted to introduce Atlus 5 and to see if we are interested in doing some VR project for Gundam. So that's how I started working on VR.
[00:05:21.705] Gaël Chaize: Well, it's a long story, but I did work for video game companies doing some licenses like Disney stuff, etc. Also some visual effects for TV and pre-rendered CGI stuff. So I guess it's kind of logical to blend everything and come to VR. And I've been working with Atlas V since Battlescar. And yeah, many projects. Empower last year and so forth.
[00:05:44.229] Kent Bye: Nice. And so, yeah, maybe you could elaborate on the early beginnings and discussion with iOS 5. You had mentioned a little bit, but yeah, just how did this VR project start?
[00:05:57.188] Ken Iyadomi: Maybe it's good, you know, Arnold is a good person to answer.
[00:06:01.191] Arnaud Colinart: How this project started? So we produced several narrative pieces around 2018 to 2020 and we saw that we needed probably strong brands to bring more audience in VR. Also if we wanted to chase funding from tech companies such as Meta. and we were in discussion with the media team at Meta who wanted to continue to explore narrative VR experience but based on IP that could be like global IP and it's how it lead us to work on Wallace and Gromit that Julien also produced and Gundam was the second IP we pitched through Andy Frayn that Ken mentioned and this is how we started the discussion with the Bandai Namco film and especially the Sunrise Studio to see if a collaboration around the Mobile Suit Gundam was possible. Because it's not only a co-production, it's also a co-fabrication between France and Japan.
[00:07:02.159] Kent Bye: And so where did you begin once you decided to do it? Where did things start to create a project like this?
[00:07:10.422] Ken Iyadomi: I think it was about three years ago when we started. I think you know at the beginning like a negotiation and contract took maybe three to six months something like that and then yeah we first need to know what exactly atlas 5 wants and what exactly meta wants so on and then we are kind of not sure the meaning of like a VR experience and like a long future you know animated VR experience so And then the director also, you know, he had directed many of the CGI films, but also which was his first time directing a VR film. So there are lots of challenges.
[00:07:53.966] Arnaud Colinart: Just to add on that, I think Sunrise is one of the best animation studios in the world. So, of course, we had discussion around what is the format of the project, what is creatively meaningful for Sunrise and then Bandai Namco film. to participate to this project. We had a lot of discussion with Kenichi Suzuki who is the director around his creative proposal for VR and also with Meta to balance the question around interactivity, duration, but what I think we managed to do together is something that is very aligned with the editorial project made by Bandai Namco Film and it's really also Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Gundam?
[00:09:01.107] Naohiro Ogata: Gundam is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, and a lot of works have been born in Gundam. For the 50th anniversary of 2029, it is very popular in Japan and Asia, but from now on, it will be more popular in North America and Europe. So this is the 45th anniversary for Gundam. And it's had been around for many years with so many series. We have so many more than... How many titles did we have?
[00:09:56.124] Ken Iyadomi: More than 30 TV series and many films. And whereas, you know, like, Gundam had been popular all over the world, particularly in Japan and also in Asia, but our mission is to, you know, make it more popular outside of Asia, including Europe and the US. So we hope, you know, like, working on a VR experience could help, you know, doing more business on the Gundam.
[00:10:23.761] Kent Bye: And is the characters that we're following in the story, have they have a long history and a part of the lore, or are they new characters?
[00:10:31.302] Ken Iyadomi: Is the story based on the story of the Gundam series? When will the story be released? The space century is already out, and so is the time cycle.
[00:10:50.749] Kiichiro Inoue: It's the most popular Gundam in the world. It's been around since 0096, so it's a story between a reverse car and a unicorn. It's a very eye-catching story.
[00:11:12.364] Ken Iyadomi: Yeah, it's based upon the Universal Century, which is the original Gundam series timeline. And then after the original series, there's a movie called Char's Counterattack, which takes place in 0093. And this VR film takes place in 0096, so it's close to Char's Counterattack and also to another series called the Gundam Unicorn. So it's very famous timeline for all the Gundam fans.
[00:11:44.504] Kent Bye: OK. And then so is this a new story, or is this a retelling of an existing story that already existed?
[00:11:50.772] Ken Iyadomi: New story.
[00:11:52.455] Kent Bye: And then so maybe talk about the process of developing the story, if it was like the narrative and the interaction and how much those two realms of how the VR parts and what would look good in VR. And maybe talk about this collaboration between the two companies in order to kind of
[00:12:12.261] Ken Iyadomi: While we were building the story, there was an interactive part in the middle. How did we develop the whole story?
[00:12:24.198] Kiichiro Inoue: How did you develop the story? Basically, the scriptwriter, or rather, the writer, Mr. Sekinichi and Director Suzuki, thought of the story. For the IA part, the interactive part, we narrowed down the number and made the main story more simple. In other words, we thought of the story without making it too difficult. In the process, we tried to increase the number of places where the audience can experience the game. There were various requests from Meta, so we built it up and increased it later.
[00:13:01.843] Ken Iyadomi: From BNF side, our side, you know, director and then writer, you know, Mr. Sekinishi, they came up with a basic, you know, storyline, and then we share with Atlas V, and then Atlas V share with Meta, and then there was a catch ball, and then we try to develop a story pretty simple, you know, for audience to understand. And also Mr. Suzuki, the director, discuss with Ferdinando at Atlas V what kind of interaction that we need to have within a story. And then Mr. Suzuki came up with lots of ideas about what if You experience universal century, what kind of thing you want to experience. Then we discuss and nail down what kind of interaction we shall have within the story. Then we complete the entire storyline. It was a very long process. And there are lots of, you know, like a deny or, you know, like from French team, you know, you cannot do that. Or, you know, from Marcel, that's too much interaction, so on. But that's how we developed.
[00:14:13.185] Arnaud Colinart: I'd love to hear from the Atlas V side what that process was like to... Yeah, I think what was new for us in this project is that most of the time we don't produce an experience that is so long in terms of pure narration. So we actually have a real script printed with hundreds of pages and that was super exciting to reconnect with the story development of a feature format. But it also created a lot of challenges in terms of how you create a beat in the experience with the interaction. So we had to respect this narrative intention that is really at the center of the anime culture and at the same time to find the right moment to introduce interactions that are meaningful for the story and also meaningful for the audience and to deliver something that is exciting and that is not a video game. Because one of the points was like, we want to do something narrative, something linear and augmented by the immersion and interaction, but we don't want to fall in something that is an arcade experience. And Gaël, sorry, on Albion side, because Gaël was one of the leader creative on the project at Albion, I think you also share much more discussion with the BNF team to find the right balance in terms of interaction technically and also creatively.
[00:15:40.367] Gaël Chaize: Well, indeed, technically it was a challenge. But creatively, the most important thing is like, who is your audience, basically? Because you want to, you are creating a movie, so you want to be appealing to a mass audience and be broad enough to not push away some very casual play up. viewers, but at the same time, you want to be enticing for those who are used to VR. So it's a fine mix to find. You also don't want to ruin the rhythm of the piece. So yeah, it was like many discussions. Also, you need to appeal to the die-hard fans of Gundam, because we know that they want. Spoiler alert, you want to be in the cockpit, sure, and you will be. And yes, it took time, but I hope that you will enjoy it.
[00:16:24.608] Kent Bye: Yeah, and usually with anime, there's a lot of expressivity that happens in the face. And when I see a lot of CGI, there's maybe something that's more performance capture. And so I'm wondering if you could talk through how you were able to do either the motion capture or the facial animations in this piece.
[00:16:46.255] Ken Iyadomi: Do you often use motion capture or facial capture for anime CG? What is it like this time?
[00:16:54.182] Kiichiro Inoue: I use motion capture for the characters, but I use my hands for the facial expressions. I also use my hands for the mechanics.
[00:17:11.732] Ken Iyadomi: We did motion capture for only four characters and all for the maker and also facial, everything was hand drawn.
[00:17:21.806] Kent Bye: Nice. And in 360 videos, you're put into a space and there's not a lot of edits that happen. But in this piece, there's been some other pieces that have had this as well, where you're really meant to be looking forward. And if you turn around, you may get actually penalized because there'll be an edit and you'll be looking the wrong way. So you're trained to look in one position and to have that sort of edits. And so I'm wondering, you know, this is kind of a language that still... developing and emerging and what that process was like to find that sweet spot of how to find the rhythm of the edits.
[00:17:57.541] Ken Iyadomi: In the case of 360 degrees, it is difficult to see what is happening from the viewer's point of view. If you look sideways, you won't be able to see it and you won't be able to understand it. How do you feel about it this time? Did you do that?
[00:18:22.944] Kiichiro Inoue: Director Suzuki is basically a container. In other words, if you prepare something that can be shown in various places, you will lose sight of it, so try to make it as far as possible. The direction of the production is as close as possible to the front. But what I really want you to see is the sound and the lines. I'm trying to draw attention or draw attention to it. I'm trying to get my eyes there. But that's really it. It's a small number, though.
[00:18:53.638] Ken Iyadomi: How many pages was that? The script. The script is six pages. Six pages. We did like a six-dimension storyboard, the director created, and then basically we wanted to focus what's happening, the scene, and then also adding sound and then dialogue, so the viewer's attention automatically goes there. And then, you know, if you look around, you see like stars and then ship, but pretty much like a drama is going on one place. That's how we designed.
[00:19:26.137] Julien Bercy: I can add something because One of the challenges on this experience was to find a good workflow between Bandai, which is a huge company, and Atlas V and Albion, which are small studios compared to Bandai. So it took us a long time to find the trust between each other. We had to wait until we traveled to Japan and meet them in real. So Ferdinand, which is the CTO of Albion and Atlas V, can meet in real Suzuki-san, our director, and then try to find a way to understand and to explain what is the grammar of the VR what should be the drama of the VR, what an audience can expect from a VR experience, but also to respect Suzuki-san's vision, what he wanted to do, and what anime brings to the audience, and respect also that in anime there is a lot of cuts, This is the way it works. It's for several reasons and we cannot tell him that we do not have cuts because we want to respect him. But we ask him to remove some cuts because at one point it was too much cuts. But we try to find a good balance between that.
[00:20:46.946] Gaël Chaize: Yeah, basically that's... I mean, it's a movie. It's an anime translated into VR. So the goal was not to do some kind of video game stuff or cinematic stuff or theater stuff, you know. It was really to find the look and feel of a traditional Gundam anime, which is sometimes a fast-action-based movie, and not only that. And yes, it was complicated to find, again, the right balance because you want to... be true to what is an anime and you know that sometimes in VR it could be a little bit stressful for the viewer to have crazy things happening basically we hope again that people will enjoy what we did in the end and yes and the 360 storyboard that we did and then the animatics and testing again again again including people who have easy motion sickness you know and just make sure that okay he's not throwing up so it means that should work basically
[00:21:40.518] Kent Bye: So normally when you design a story, you have a 2D storyboard where you're mapping out the story. But having a six-dimensional storyboard means that you're designing the space, but also the main action that's usually forward-facing. And so once you created these six-dimensional storyboards, then did you hand them over to Alice V or Albion? What happened from that point to then start to iterate and creating them?
[00:22:06.658] Ken Iyadomi: Basically, we share everything to Atlas V and Albion. And then, you know, we've created the previews, and then, you know, doing the catch-ball on opinions. And then Sunrise was in charge of narrative. And then Albion was in charge of adding effect. And then, like... Sorry, the integration and stuff. Integration and shading. Shading, like, optimization. Optimization, yeah. So it was a challenge because we worked in different systems. So Mr. Inoue worked on the Macs, making animation, and sent to Gale. And then Gale imported the Unity. And then adding effects, and that's how we worked.
[00:22:51.216] Gaël Chaize: To be more detailed, the thing is they started with the storyboard using several panels. So they knew what to do in 3ds Max. then the 3d was rendered as a spherical standard spherical video low quality video so that you can at least take a look at okay it should look like this without the depth of it and then it was critical to be as quick as possible um sorry doing an animatic basic block out and stuff that we could be visualizing inside unity inside the headset Then you could validate the space and the speed and the dynamics and stuff, and then they could start animating stuff the right way. And then again, we import into Unity, shade, light, effects, sound, post effects, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:23:38.490] Kent Bye: And in that animation phase, was that happening in 2D or 3D when you're animating it?
[00:23:43.211] Kiichiro Inoue: Both.
[00:23:44.252] Ken Iyadomi: Yeah. And actually, there's some hand-drawing animation also. But even for that, they first worked in CGI modeling first, then they animated. So there was lots of work.
[00:23:59.354] Julien Bercy: Most of the experience is 3D animation. And there is some sakuga scene, what we call sakuga scene, which are 2D animation, which are more flashbacks.
[00:24:11.687] Kent Bye: And so I'm wondering what you were working on and as this was developing and what the process of the story and the development was happening, then what type of things were you focusing in on?
[00:24:24.416] Ken Iyadomi: Ogata-san, question for him? How did you get involved in this project?
[00:24:34.736] Naohiro Ogata: My role is to produce the overall image of the Gundam. It's my job to decide whether or not I should do things like this within the Gundam world view.
[00:25:07.569] Ken Iyadomi: He's the head producer on the Gundam. So he validates everything. So we cannot do anything without his validation. So time to time, you know, he validates and also he positions this show where this show could, you know, go along with other Gundam series and so on.
[00:25:26.128] Kent Bye: I know it's going to be launching here soon, and I'm wondering if you've been able to show it to some folks here at Venice, but also if you've been able to get some early feedback and what some of the people who are either Gundam fans or not fans, what kind of feedback you've received so far.
[00:25:43.242] Ken Iyadomi: I think it's about time for it to be released, but I'd like to hear from the people who have seen it in Venice and the feedback from other people. We haven't shown much yet. I think Venice is the first time we are showing to the public. But we showed like a trailer and we had lots of good feedback from the fans.
[00:26:11.122] Naohiro Ogata: I think the fans are very interested in this event. I think the fans are very interested in this event. I think the fans are very interested in this event. I think the fans are very interested in this event.
[00:26:25.330] Ken Iyadomi: Good feedback from all the anime industry. And also, other than anime industry, it's the first time we are showing at Venice, so we are looking forward to see what kind of reaction do we get.
[00:26:37.717] Julien Bercy: Actually, you are one of our first testers, and it's not in your top ten, so if you can answer that, we will be happy to know that.
[00:26:48.939] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think I had some, I don't know if there were, like, bugs that I was playing. I didn't get a chance to play all the way through it yet, so I played through about half of it. But I think here at Venice, people are only able to see, like, half of it, so they're not able to see all of it. So the clock ran out of time for me to hop on a plane, so it was, like, one of the last things, so I was, like, wanting to see all of it. But, yeah, I'm... I'm coming from very much a VR perspective. And so I feel like it's actually getting into a new category of different audiences that are kind of beyond the XR industry and what's happening. So I feel like there's less technical innovations of VR but still kind of like new forms of storytelling that are expanding into new genres that I think is actually really quite important. And yeah, it was sort of my own personal list of stuff. And also I think part of the, when I recommend stuff to see, it's stuff that people won't be able to see elsewhere. So it's like, be sure to see this, otherwise you may not catch it type of thing. So yeah.
[00:27:51.641] Arnaud Colinart: I think you are mentioning something that is really a challenge for all the VR creators is that there is a huge difference between people who will discover the project at home and how it works in a festival. When you want to do a mainstream project with a budget of several million, you have to reach a duration that is meaningful for the audience in a VR game or in a linear VR project. But in a festival, you have the constraint of the host, you have the constraint of the time slot, etc. So we are always torn in terms of how to present the project. Let's imagine in Cannes, you are cutting the film after two hours because there is no enough film. So these kind of things show how we are still in the early days of VR. And as you mentioned, this project and some decisions we took are based on the fact that Gundam is a pretty old IP from the 70s. There is a strong community around it, and it's actually also this community the director wanted to honor. And we think there is some overlap with the VR community. But this project is above all a tribute from the Atlas V perspective. Also in France, we have been raised by 2D Japanese animation very early in the 80s. And yeah, it's a kind of tribute to the Mobile Suit Gundam universe and to Japanese animation. And we probably took some decision that we never took for some other project because it's not Japanese animation. For example, there is a lot of camera tilt And it's something that was very strong in Suzuki-san directing. And in some other projects, we probably said, no, you don't do that in VR. Yes, but you don't do that in VR, but you do that in an anime. And it's an VR anime, but above all, we wanted to explore what an anime can be in a VR format. And for me, that's the innovation and the most exciting part of the project.
[00:29:57.967] Gaël Chaize: but totally experimental actually. And that's what is cool because usually when you see VR PCs, it's like, oh, what can we do in VR? But this was like, what can we do in terms of movie and animation? And then try to put everything into the quest and make it as badass as possible, basically.
[00:30:15.723] Kent Bye: I know there's a 45 minute slot. So I played up to that point and I was like, well, this feels like it's going to keep going for a while. And so I'm trying to replicate that experience. And I feel like the more ideal situation would be like a theater full of people with all these headsets and people could sit and watch and experience the entire thing in a way that they could see the full arc of the story. But the constraints of space and limitation and logistics means that, you know, there ain't weren't able to do it in this context. But I think in the context of people seeing it at home, that it's going to work a lot better for them to go at their own pace and their own time to be able to see it. So yeah.
[00:30:52.057] Arnaud Colinart: Just regarding the setup you mentioned, Astrea, Bandai Namco film marketing team and Meta marketing team in Japan are working together to create setup that you described, which are like a kind of feature lens screening session of the experience, probably between 60 to 100 seats. So we will see how it goes, but you are totally right about the setup needed for this kind of experience.
[00:31:20.677] Kent Bye: Very cool. Well, as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear what each of you think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable.
[00:31:30.702] Ken Iyadomi: Well, I think it's going to be expand. Maybe not so quick, but slowly. I see the huge markets already in America. But in Japan, it's still very small. But I think people are taking a look at more closely to the industry now. I'd like to ask you about the VR market in the future. Can I call you Meta-san?
[00:31:57.622] Kiichiro Inoue: I'm happy to be able to work with you on the Meta Quest. With the introduction of Gundam and other popular IPs, the Japanese market, which used to be a bit slow, has been revitalized, and more IPs are being stored, and it will be easier to make the next work. I feel that the flow will change, and it will be brighter. That's it.
[00:32:31.261] Ken Iyadomi: First of all, he is very happy that he could work with the meta. In Japan, the market has been developed very slow. But since IPs such as Gundam and other Japanese anime started to develop in VR, I think the flow is going to be changed. And I think many more people will start working on VR projects, which will open the door in Japan.
[00:32:57.594] Naohiro Ogata: Not only VR, but there are a lot of immersive experiences in Japan and around the world. In Japan, there used to be a lot of places where you could play in a dome, like Planetarium. Recently, there are a lot of immersive theaters. I expect there will be more and more VR business opportunities around the world.
[00:33:30.612] Ken Iyadomi: He expects it's going to be more market, particularly not only in Japan, but also outside of Japan. Immersive experience is getting very popular. In Gundam, we used to have a 180-dome type of screen in a place. VR will be more popular throughout the world, and I think it's going to be very popular.
[00:33:56.940] Kent Bye: Where's this all going? What's the ultimate potential of it all? Future potential?
[00:34:00.323] Gaël Chaize: I don't know. VR is still young. And VR is still, it will keep getting better and better. So I just hope that more and more people will adopt this and be able to experience new ways of seeing things and consuming things and experiencing things and stuff like that, basically.
[00:34:18.597] Arnaud Colinart: You know, so I'm close to my 10 years in VR, which seems long, because when I started, people said, you know, in 10 years, everybody will have an headset. And 10 years after, people said, in 10 years, everybody will have an headset. So I think it's like trying to, it was maybe like, I don't know, maybe in the 60s to imagine what would be the future of computer. It became something very different from the beginning. On a personal level, what I'm really excited about and what we are trying to do is this kind of six DoF animation film or experience. But we know it will be a niche because VR is about presence, it's about interaction. But I really believe that at some point we will see Yes, 6DoF animation, so animation film or feature film even in live action where you will have this feeling of 3D not only like in a 3D film but with this capacity to have parallax effect and I think even that, even if it's a 180 experience and not 360, it's so strong in terms of immersion that I really believe it will become something for franchise, but also even for indie. And that's the thing I'm the more excited about, but maybe I'm the only one. And people are more excited about gaming. But for me, that's what I'm still really seeing as a strong potential. And we'll see also what a new headset brings in this area.
[00:35:44.740] Julien Bercy: Yes, I really hope so because I was really pleased to work on this project that was a big challenge but I'm really happy we managed to do it. I hope we can do another one and capitalize on what we learned from this project to do a better thing and to still tell story to audience.
[00:36:05.942] Kent Bye: One quick follow-up I have about Gundam, because I'm not familiar with the IP. I've never watched any movies, never read any books. And the only thing I've done is played a little bit of this experience, the first half of it. And so if there's other people out there like me who are not familiar with this world of Gundam, then do you have any recommendations for movies or books that people should check out?
[00:36:31.852] Ken Iyadomi: That's a very tough question, but I'd say the three original movie Gundam, first Gundam, and then Shah's Counter-Attack, and Unicorn, maybe. Latest work, latest work.
[00:36:57.370] Kent Bye: To watch the latest work, okay. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the immersive community?
[00:37:04.652] Arnaud Colinart: Yeah, something I would like to mention is we had the chance to work with Ryan Genji Thomas, who is a former DreamWorks producer who is now at Meta. And he was probably one of the best producers bringing his immersive experience expertise, but also his animation expertise. and we had been really free to deliver the creative vision of Suzuki-san and of the team around the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise and he had been a huge luck to do that with him and now we will see how the audience perceive this project of a new format which is it's not a short film it's not a game so we will see how it works and especially in japan because right now japan is probably the second most promising market after us for immersive japanese audience are used to technology to video game to movies to anime they have small apartments also but they go to arcade so there is a lot of things that match with the way vr is used and we really hope to have feedback from the community around this project, so please share it on the comments on the store. And even bugs, the good and the bad, and we'll be very happy to have feedback.
[00:38:17.273] Kent Bye: Yeah, I saw that it was called a VR film within the context of the trailer, so it's a film that happens to be in VR, I guess, yeah.
[00:38:25.867] Arnaud Colinart: Just to insist, it's not a 360 film and one of the reasons we mention VR film and not VR experience or VR game is that we don't want people to misjudge the project when they buy it and think it's a mobile suit Gundam game. So it's more than a film, it's different than a game, so people will decide what it actually is.
[00:38:50.526] Julien Bercy: And it comes with two mixed reality add-ons, which users can experience and they will probably enjoy. Also, these two experienced fans will quite enjoy that.
[00:39:03.820] Gaël Chaize: just like to add that um this is the way for fans to experience what is a mobile suit in the real life size and to be into the space battle with everything as big as it should be i guess no theaters or tv can bring you this kind of feeling i hope at least that they will feel that so that's what is cool about this piece any final thoughts
[00:39:28.402] Naohiro Ogata: I think many teams, including Japan and France, have made new challenges. I want people who are familiar with Gundam or not, I want you to experience this new experience watching this film. Thank you.
[00:40:13.174] Kent Bye: Awesome well thank you so much and looking forward to seeing how you know this finds a I think it's a new genre in some ways of kind of a blending of things that are new and different so I think the challenge will be for people who are very used to getting a game off of MetaQuest and having a certain amount of expectations but I think there's also a whole other set of people who are fans of the IP that maybe this will be their first VR experience that they've had so I think it's expanding out the market in new and exciting ways. And so very excited to see where this goes in the future. So thanks again for joining me here to help break it all down. So thank you.
[00:40:45.989] Gaël Chaize: Well, thank you.
[00:40:47.231] Kiichiro Inoue: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you soon. Thank you very much.
[00:40:52.964] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to these episodes from Venice Immersive 2024. And yeah, I am a crowdfunded independent journalist. And so if you enjoy this coverage and find it valuable, then please do consider joining my Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
