I interviewed Body of Mine director Cameron Kostopoulos at Venice Immersive 2024 about his impact campaign since winning a special jury prize at SXSW 2023 (see my first interview with him here.). He showed Body of Mine as a part of the competition at Venice Immersive 2023, and he was back on the Immersive Island this year pitching his latest project A Cure for Straightness at the Venice Production Bridge. See more context in the rough transcript below.
Here’s the launch trailer for Body of Mine:
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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 structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So on today's episode, I'm featuring one of the creators that's featured within the Venice Production Bridge this year at Venice Immersive. Venice Production Bridge is where they bring about a dozen different projects and they get up and give a pitch in front of everybody where you get a little bit of a sneak peek for projects that are in production. They're looking for finishing funds. And so there's this like whole part of the Venice Immersive Island where there's all these producers and funders and creators who are working on these different projects. And they're all getting together simultaneously. having these different meetings, looking for co-productions and trying to get all the finishing funds for their projects. And so Cameron Costopoulos is someone who did Body of Mine and reached out to me whenever they were launching Body of Mine on the Quest store. I had covered it when first launched at the world premiere back at South by Southwest in 2023. And then there's a whole long journey that Cameron went through in the context of his pitch at the Venice Production Bridge, where I followed up and said, yeah, I'm really just gonna do a little bit of a catch up for all the different things that Cameron's been up to over the last year plus, showing BodyMind these different places, having this whole like impact campaign that is going on, but also his next project that he was funding there of looking at how electroshock therapy is still being used with trying to convert people from being gay. So that's what we're covering on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Cameron happened on Monday, September 2nd, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:52.099] Cameron Kostopoulos: Hey, I'm Cameron. I am a creator of immersive experiences. Last year, I premiered my first VR experience, Body of Mind, at South by Southwest, where it won the Special Jury Prize. After that, it won the Producers Guild of America Innovation Award, a BAFTA Student Award, Best XR Games for Change, competed here at the Venice Biennale last year. Now I am working on my next experience, chapter one of a series titled A Cure for Straightness, which explores conversion therapy. Chapter one, which is still not quite done, almost there, uses haptics to tell the story of a survivor of electroshock conversion therapy and developing some other ideas as well.
[00:02:33.011] Kent Bye: Awesome. Yeah. And maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:02:38.669] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, my background, I didn't go to school for like game design or anything like that. I went to film school. I graduated film school with my undergrad like two years ago in 2022. And in school, I was always leaning more into experimental cinema. which always kind of put me head to head with the faculty at USC because USC is a very Hollywood school, very traditional cinema, you know, it's funded by Spielberg and George Lucas. So that is their kind of approach. But I was always more on the experimental side and kind of through that, that naturally led to learning VR because VR really is the most experimental cinema. So it kind of, I kind of fell into it.
[00:03:21.314] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, I know that the last time I had a chance to sit down with you was just after you had picked up the Special Joy Prize at South by Southwest for Body of Mine. And so you're fresh out of presenting your project to the public, really, for the first time. And I had a chance to see the festival version and talk to you about it. And then we're here at Venice Immersive, and you were giving a pitch for your latest project, which we'll probably talk a little bit at the end, but kind of save it for whenever it's done. We'll dive into it more once it's on the festival circuit. You gave a little bit of a recap of your journey with Body and Mind because it then went on to win all these awards, but then it went on to also launch onto the Quest Store, the first LGBTQ plus experience that was on the main Quest Store. And so, yeah, maybe you can catch me up to like after South by Southwest, then you started on a big, long journey. Where did you go after that in terms of the story of how this has continued to develop?
[00:04:15.362] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, I think starting from South by Southwest, that was such an intense journey because, as you probably remember, everything almost fell apart. We were just a hair away from not even being able to present at all because the trackers wouldn't connect, we had Bluetooth issues, just anything that could have gone wrong went wrong. They moved you into another room. We broke into another room. They didn't let us go in there. They almost kicked us out. And then they saw me crying. And I was like, we're not leaving. And they let us stay. I thought Blake was going to hate me. But we ended up coming through at the end. So it was just this absolute roller coaster. And it was my first ever big film festival, first time presenting a VR experience, which is infinitely harder than just a regular film as well so it's just like and you know having just graduated and scraped every penny brought like my friends no one was getting paid to be there the project was made at that point for like two thousand dollars like it was just like really like the indie filmmaking approach to doing it and then then i think like part of what helped us like get so much momentum after that is people really like saw that they like kind of felt that like, hand-crafted, like, bespoke quality to the project. They saw, like, the passion that me and my friends brought to it. I wouldn't have been able to do it without my friends. They were there every step of the way, even when everything was going wrong. And I think people really saw that, and they, like, wanted to help. And so, really, like, that was kind of the launching point for everything else and all the other blessings. It's where I got to meet you, got to meet everyone, and before, and then, you know, then... One thing led to another, one festival led to another, we started winning awards. Yeah, and then it was kind of a question of we had this very immersive embodied experience, but the trade-off was that it was impossible to show if I myself was not physically there setting it up, putting people in trackers, calibrating them, T-posing, you know, it was... It was an installation, but there's so much homophobia and transphobia out in the world and VR can be such a powerful tool for change. So we wanted to have a version of it that was much more accessible. So that is when I started talking to Alex Colombe and his team Agile Lens. They're just the most incredible. production studio, and we were able to secure a grant from the Rockefeller Family Fund. Massive thanks to Amy Seidenworm and Chip Geller for making that happen. And that allowed us to work with Agile Lens and adapt it for the Quest. Obviously, a trackered PC VR installation versus a mobile Quest version. There are certain trade-offs and differences between the two, but we were able to take this and repackage it into a Quest version. And another major thanks to Amy Seidhorn and Ryan Genji Thomas for really pushing it forward and getting us that spot on the Quest, so we'll be able to release it in June for Pride Month. And since then, it's just really allowed us to go beyond just a festival circuit. We were able to do a big event at LA Pride, where we were there putting people, often for the first time in VR, into headsets. Right after Venice, I'm going to DC, where the Human Rights Campaign has their equality convention. They're doing a big 12 headset activation of Body of Mine right in the heart of where America's laws are being made and so now we're distributing 75 headsets to LGBT centers around North America thanks to a contribution from Meta and from Games for Change and so it's really just enabled us to mobilize this experience and I'm super grateful and super excited to see it make a difference.
[00:07:44.778] Kent Bye: What's been the reception of it in terms of the Quest store? Because I know there's been issues with some folks like Nani de la Peña putting some of her documentary focused pieces on like a game store and people can have a variety of different reactions and having different comments. And so obviously this is an issue that is a bit of like it's at the center of a culture war right now. And so what's been the reaction?
[00:08:08.829] Cameron Kostopoulos: to the piece it is yeah and um you know kudos to meta for opening up the store I don't know exactly when but you know they are getting rid of app lab and everything is just becoming the Horizon store so that's super exciting for like all creators here on the island but you know still the store is focused on games on things that have an over two hour run time that is kind of what a lot of the expectations are from the audience as well, because that is such like a core focus. So, you know, that obviously presented a challenge on getting into the store. Thankfully, because we're kind of like an interactive piece, we were able to kind of swing it. But the reaction so far has been really, really positive. We had some TikToks that went really viral and For me, as a creator, it was just really emotional to see how many people were reaching out or saying, oh, I'm going to show my parents this. Or, oh, I got to show my aunt this. Or, oh, this is making me feel better. Getting to see this body or hear these stories in a profound way. I've had people DM me and say that stories that they heard in the experience were theirs. And hearing that back was such an affirmation and so validating. And then on the other side of the coin, there's also a lot of hate. Every day I get hate comments on Instagram, people saying like, oh, this is sick, this is twisted. These people are, you know, I won't get super into it, but there's definitely both sides of the coin. And part of our approach to minimize that on the store was to, at least for the first year of it being there, have it as a paid experience just so that way people going into it know what they're getting into. A lot of these apps that get released on the store for free that are not like a two-hour game just get tamed because people just see them, they free download it, and they're like, oh, this isn't a game. Why can't I fly around? Why can't I shoot things? And so the plan is to make it free after a year, but at least for the introduction of Body of Mind to the world, at least allowing people who really need it to know what they're getting.
[00:10:18.956] Kent Bye: Yeah, I understand that you were having some relationship to Games for Change. At least you were there on a prize and potentially working with Michaela Tarnaski-Holland to be an impact producer. So maybe talk about the strategy of how you are taking a piece like Body and Mind and touring it around and trying to show it and then bring about some change and what that theory of change looks like and what's been happening with that. Yeah.
[00:10:44.313] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, big thanks to Games4Change for being our partner in this and being our sponsor and allowing us to do this. And again, to Michaela Holland for bringing all her infinite wisdom into mobilizing experiences. Our impact campaign for Body of Mind is a multi-pronged approach. There's the research. We have been able to collaborate with the University in Germany, the University of Tübingen's Department of Psychology, to do a research on body appreciation and body of mind to measure how body of mind is impacting people and their sense of self. And what was really interesting, those results are now, they just passed peer review. They're going to be published formally this fall. And what's really interesting is that we took these instruments that have been like validated and studied and we gave them to people before and after. And people's sense of body dissatisfaction went down and body acceptance went up significantly. People are coming out feeling much better. about their body, feeling much more aligned in the body, feeling more euphoric about their body. But not only that, what was really interesting and unexpected to me was that people were coming out reporting that they felt better about their weight, that they felt more attractive, like these things that weren't necessarily addressed in body of mind. People were still coming out with just this sense of euphoria and it actually made them feel better about their body. And so that has really significant implications for possibly the ability of VR to treat something like gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia. So hopefully that leads to more research in those areas specifically, but getting that kind of research out the door is kind of our first step there.
[00:12:23.520] Kent Bye: Another problem of our- Can I just ask a quick question? When you say treat the body dysmorphia and treat the gender dysphoria, that your next project is sort of like addressing this, and I'm wondering if you could kind of connect the dots there, because it sort of implies that there's a resolution to, so yeah, just maybe elaborate on that, if you know what I mean.
[00:12:42.915] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, not in the sense of like a resolution of like, oh, VR is going to cure your gender dysphoria, but even before Body of Mind, there's been lots of research showing how digital avatars, even in like 2D flat gaming, can temporarily alleviate the symptoms of gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia by allowing people to have a euphoric sense of body ownership and see themselves reflected in a way that they want to see. And that alleviation It can have lasting effects on individuals long after the game ends, specifically with gender dysphoria, the ability to kind of explore gender or see yourself reflected as the gender you want to be seen as in a digital avatar. And again, this isn't even exclusive to VR. This is in flat gaming as well. can help consolidate identity and can help individuals come to terms with their own gender before the coming out process and that consolidation of identity can really help with the coming out process and then when you add on these other elements of embodiment that goes up profoundly and then And when you go into spaces like VRChat and you also get these kind of social spaces where then on top of that, you also get these supportive communities. You start to see how VR really can be used as the supportive tool, not to cure gender dysphoria, but to help and to alleviate some of those symptoms and to help people live better lives.
[00:14:06.459] Kent Bye: Okay. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying that. Just wanted to be clear that you didn't mean that they were going to no longer identify as being trans.
[00:14:14.503] Cameron Kostopoulos: No, no, no. Quite the opposite. Like when I say like alleviate symptoms of gender dysphoria, I mean like leading them closer to gender euphoria, which is like the alignment with like the gender that they know that they are.
[00:14:24.149] Kent Bye: Okay. So to go back to some of the other research that you were about to go into as well.
[00:14:30.535] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah. So that's kind of like with our impact campaign, there's different approaches. First was like the research. There's also the accessibility and mobilization of it. So that was like getting it on Quest. We're on Quest 3, Quest Pro and Quest 2, which allows households to access it. And it also allows us to distribute the piece to centers beyond just households with VR. So a big question is like, how can we broaden the accessibility of VR to people who don't have it? And so, again, thanks to a very generous contribution from Meta of 75 Quest Pros, we're able to load up those Quest Pros with Body of Mind, and right now we are sending those to LGBT centers who are going to be using it as a tool for community, for creating safer home environments for queer youth by allowing queer youth to bring their parents into an LGBT center, experience Body of Mind together, and have a constructive conversation around gender and around identity. and as well as a tool for supporting mental health for queer people, like we had just discussed with all the research, but also some of the centers we're sending it to are like sobriety centers, like queer-focused recovery centers from addiction, places that are focused on uplifting the mental health of queer and trans and gender nonconforming people so that people who are going to these centers or people who discover body and mind but don't have access to VR can still benefit from it.
[00:15:56.146] Kent Bye: Okay. And I know that just recently I did a whole deep dive into some of the trans culture within VRChat through the Raindance Immersive Festival, which had quite a number of trans artists that were being featured there. And so around half of my interviews that I just did in my 17-episode series were with trans women who were Some of them talking more explicitly around their journey of identity through virtual reality. And one of the things that Ru had told me was that she's seen so many people in VRChat who have had their kind of metaphorical egg cracked realizing that they were actually trans. I'm wondering if you, through the process of traveling around with Body of Mind, if you had any of those types of experiences where people were starting to really discover their own identity. And I imagine it must have been quite a powerful journey over the last year or two for when you were presenting it and having a chance to show it to lots of different people from around the world. So yeah, I'm just curious to hear some of the either stories or anecdotes of what you were able to see by showing this to folks.
[00:17:00.494] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, there's a lot of really amazing moments in the whole journey, and everything that you're saying is so correct about consolidating identity, this self-discovery through VR can be such a powerful tool and experience for people navigating their gender journeys. I personally, in my time showing, I think that's a very personal process, and that egg-crack moment is something that really is internal, so that's not something that... I've never had someone come at us and be like, oh my gosh, I just realized that I'm trans. I think it's a lot more subtle and it works. Everything builds on top of one another. But on the other side, I have had lots of really profound moments with family members of trans kids getting to experience it. One really powerful moment that I remember very vividly was in Oklahoma. Last June, we went to Oklahoma City for the Dead Center Film Festival. We really wanted to be there for Pride Month. because, obviously, Oklahoma is a state that is, like, grappling with a lot of this, like, anti-trans legislation. And I was able to show lots of, like, queer trans kids who were really moved by it. There was one teenage girl in particular. She approached me, and she said, you know, hey, you know, I'm trans. My mom is here with me. My mom won't accept that. Use the wrong pronouns. Use the wrong names. Like, she, like... Like, I really want her to see this piece. Can I please show her? And I was like, of course. I was like, you know, we're going to skip the line. Let's make sure she sees this is like what the piece is for. But we were afraid that if she knew what it was about, she wouldn't want to watch it. So I didn't tell her what it was about. I was just like, oh, look, we've got this cool, like fun, full body thing. Like, come over here. I'm going to put all these trackers on you. You're going to really like it. And she was like, oh, OK, cool. So I trackered it up, put her in the experience, calibrated her. And she was very bubbly, very talkative, very like, ooh, there's a heart. And then over the course of the 15-minute experience, you kind of see her just get quieter and much more reflective. And I was afraid she would take it off when she kind of realized what it was about. But when you have such a heightened sense of embodiment in a piece and you're kind of detached from your phone, it's a lot harder than just closing a tab or scrolling a TikTok or hitting pause on a podcast. You're much more likely to stay engaged, especially when you've got literal trackers strapped to you. You're much more likely to just finish the piece. So she finished it. And coming out, you could just see the demeanor shift in her. Whereas she was very talkative and bubbly before, all of a sudden she was just very quiet. not angry, just she was in her head and she didn't say much. I was trying to ask like, what do you think? But you could tell she was just thinking and and then they ended up leaving. So who knows what they talked about on the way home? Who knows what conversation they had when they got back home? But getting someone to think is like step number one. And often with art, you know, there's never going to be one thing that's going to change anyone's mind. But what we can do is like make people think and allow people to have conversations and create experiences that are just like one more tool in doing that i've also had people with just really unexpected reactions i showed one woman who had a scar a big scar on her leg from a car accident she was in and she was explaining to me that this was a scar that she always didn't really you know she was insecure about she was was um i think ashamed is too strong a word but you know this was not something that she really liked about her body and then she went into body of mine this was actually at venice last year she went through body of mine and then coming out on the other side she was saying that when she was in the experience she looked down at her leg and the scar wasn't there and all of a sudden she missed it and she was like oh this part of my body that i identify with is suddenly gone and I don't feel like I'm coming back out of the experience. She felt this new sense of connection to this part of her body and this kind of new sense of like acceptance and like embracing of herself and feeling much more confident about this. I showed a woman who for most of her life was wearing a burka and was, you know, always taught to cover herself and conceal herself. And the sense of liberation that she had in getting to experience being in 10, 15 bodies They're just in underwear. And you see that skin with such a sense of euphoria. So all these edge cases that I would have never really intended for, you just never really know how your piece will actually affect people.
[00:21:19.853] Kent Bye: Yeah. And I remember your trip out to Venice and also whether or not you were going to even be able to make the trip. Because I remember at South by Southwest, we were talking in that, scrap this thing together, like you said, like a $2,000 budget. You had all your friends there. There was kind of a nightmare of tech glitches that you were trying to deal with. And It was kind of a touch and go situation. And then on top of that, you have this whole big installation that you had built there. And so then coming out to Venice is also not easy to do for independent artists and creators. And so maybe talk about some of the other things that you've been able to figure out one way or another to still make it out to Venice last year.
[00:22:01.214] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, the good news and the happy story is that the fundraising has gotten easier over the year and a half. Getting to Venice was still a challenge at the time, like a year ago. We did a GoFundMe. We also received a mega grant from Epic Games because the experience was created in Unreal, so Epic Games gave us a good chunk of money to come out here. One of my mentors and friends, Mark Bernstein, he got our team the Airbnb, which is not cheap. We had to be there the whole time. I feel like a three-week Airbnb in Venice is not cheap. So he's able to get that. And then we GoFundMe'd a lot of it as well. and just had lots of support and people chipping in. Again, I think people really just saw the passion, even down to the installation we had at South By, and here at Venice. We literally hot glued it together, strung these lights through it, created this very handcrafted thing. I think people really just saw how much we cared about this project, and they really just wanted to help. And so many people who I met at South Bayou who liked the project were then chipping in to our GoFundMe, giving us $20, $100, whatever, to get out here to showcase. And so it really does take a village. And the happy ending, not the ending because it's just the beginning of everything, but is that now I've been able to actually get larger grants to fund work. And the next time we premiere it, It shouldn't be as, unless something goes wrong, it shouldn't be as big a hurdle. But I think those kind of humble beginnings really just make me every day just so grateful for where it all led. It all feels like it was worth it.
[00:23:33.416] Kent Bye: Yeah, and then to win a Producers Guild Award as well must have been quite a thrill. Maybe you could elaborate on that.
[00:23:39.682] Cameron Kostopoulos: That was one of the most insane moments. At the ceremony, I was wearing this blue dress that these stylists dressed me up in. And Margot Robbie came up to me and told me that I was the best dressed of the night. So that was like, forget all the awards. My outfit is Barbie approved. I can quit now. And just being there and seeing my favorite. Guillermo del Toro is my favorite film. I love him. Seeing him in the crowd applauding me was just such a surreal moment and looking around in this room Which you know right before I accepted my award Martin Scorsese was giving the keynote and around the room was like Ryan Coogler Emma Stone you know all these people that you look up to are clapping for you, and you're standing there, and it was just like such a Yeah, I just, you know, being 25, I'm just so, like, grateful for that moment. And also just very grateful for the Producers Guild to have, like, an award like that, because not all the major festivals or, like, award ceremonies have or recognize experimental, innovative new media stuff. So, you know, I'm very grateful for places like Venice, places like Cannes now, places like the Producers Guild, who do recognize that and are kind of like inviting us into that Hollywood world.
[00:25:01.380] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, we're here at Venice, and I saw you gave your pitch during the Venice Production Bridge, and you really knocked it out of the park in terms of the overall pitch. But at the beginning, you gave a little bit of a recap of everything that's happened with Body of Mind since that moment from South by Southwest when I first saw it and first met you. And I was like, oh, my God, there's so much to this journey that has happened after that. But one of the things you also talked about was the fact that you are from Texas and your own background. personal experiences with coming out and not being accepted by your family. And so, yeah, maybe that's a good segue to talk a little bit about your experience. And we'll save the full breakdown after I get a chance to see it when it's on the circuit. But here in the context of the production bridge, you gave such an amazing pitch that I just want to give you an opportunity to talk a bit about it. And yeah, we can also talk a bit about what's happening in the larger political context of these issues that are really at the forefront of creating a wedge politically in the context of the United States and how much these topics that you're diving into are sorely needed. But yeah, maybe you could just dive into a little bit of the pitch that you're giving here.
[00:26:14.935] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah. So I, yeah, I come from Texas. I grew up in Fort Worth. My suburb, like, voted blue for the first time for Beto O'Rourke, like, you know, in, like, 26 to 2018 or whatever. So very, like, 50-50. And to, you know... kind of just give like a general approach without getting into too much details. Not everyone in my family is accepting of the fact that I'm not straight. There's just, unfortunately, the Baptist church that I grew up in, you know, I remember I was in high school when gay marriage was legalized across the country. And I remember going to church that Sunday and our pastor just saying how much of a tragedy this is how like organizing a march down to Austin to protest this and my dad agreeing with that the last time that I saw him I got the door closed in my face I'm just not accepted and so that has fueled kind of my passion for this work because Because VR can offer such a more profound sense of understanding than any other medium, I am like approaching the work that I'm doing right now from like, how can I create an experience that can make even the most rigid minds like some of my family members happy? How can I create experiences that make them reconsider what it means to love somebody, love who you want to love, or to care about someone that's supposed to be your kid? And so that was the inspiration that led to Body of Mine. I was creating it alone in the pandemic. the isolation that we were all experiencing of the pandemic, but then also the isolation of not receiving a happy birthday from your own parent, not receiving an invitation home for the holidays. And so just feeling that kind of overwhelming self-isolation and wanting to do something about it and wanting to pour that into something, that's what ended up beating the body of mine. And then seeing the overwhelming reaction of body of mind seeing all these personal testimonies seeing the research that validates that really was like oh there's something here that is really like tapping into people's hearts and so kind of like some of the work that i'm following body of mine up with like the pitch i gave here the venice production was kind of an extension of that and that's kind of what led to the talk of conversion therapy which is still practiced all around the world like if this is what this medium can do let's use it to tackle these ongoing issues
[00:28:46.719] Kent Bye: And using haptics to kind of help tell that story.
[00:28:50.481] Cameron Kostopoulos: Exactly. Like for me, the most exciting part about this, you know, immersive is so broad. And for me, I always get so excited when there's real synergy between the story you're telling and the technology. So with Body of Mine, it was like... body tracking and also some of the kind of uncanniness of body tracking and then gender dysphoria and the proprioceptive drift and the misalignment and and all these kind of synergetic metaphors with this new piece in chapter one it's like yeah the haptics and also the ability of haptics to but you feel someone's heart, their heartbeat, and obviously electroshock conversion therapy. And so I'm always kind of looking for that synergy of where we're able to connect to someone in a much more profound way.
[00:29:42.830] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I'm curious if you could share a little bit about your experience of being here at the Production Bridge, because it's kind of a parallel track that happens in the middle. I'm more focused of inside looking at the experiences and talking to creators, but what's happening out in the Production Bridge is kind of like the next cycle or next generation of pieces that are still in development, finding finishing funds, but also... Yeah, just kind of pitching off a broader, like multi episode series. There's, I think, 12 or 16 folks that are presenting their pitches during the pitch session, which is one of which that you presented. And then there's College Bay and Alley folks that are also there who are working on their projects. But yeah, what sort of happens at the production bridge? And how's it been going?
[00:30:23.550] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, this is my first market ever. First time in the Venice Production Bridge. First time kind of like doing this. The body of mine was just kind of like a bedroom project. And so this next one is like, OK, let's actually get support and find funding. So it's my first time doing the market. And it's been awesome. It's actually like it was even like cooler and better than I had hoped for or expected. I think this community is just really awesome and really like... not that it's a small community, but it's a very intimate and friendly and warm and welcoming community where people will remember you and you see familiar faces and also those faces are so welcoming to newcomers as well. So the production bridge happens in the courtyard adjacent to the main courtyard and It's where you have meetings all throughout the weekend, which was very intimidating to me at first. And then I realized, oh, it's just like a conversation you'd have if you're just sitting down at a festival. And so it's not as scary. But especially coming from the US, finding funds can be so hard. The work that we see at these festivals comes from countries' funds. And they come from public funds. And that's so awesome. And unfortunately, the US just doesn't really do that like other countries like Taiwan or France or a lot of European countries do. which is just an extra hurdle to finding those funds. So that's kind of like where I started working with Floreal based in France, which is awesome. But at the production bridge, you're able to kind of explore those co-productions of like, where can we find funds like that? We're also talking to people like Unity for Humanity or Meta or Apple who are interested in exploring innovative work. as well as it's just been great to be able to present a work-in-progress piece without the pressure of a premiere, to be able to be like, oh, here, it's a 15-minute experience, but it's not done. It might not work. I showed someone once, the haptics didn't turn on. I was like, oh, sorry. These things you kind of figure out. You kind of get a sense of, it is really what you make it, but it's just been, I've had a really, really, really positive experience.
[00:32:29.321] Kent Bye: And also able to get some constructive feedback on the experience itself from some of the most well-trained folks in the industry who know story, who know experiential design, and yeah, just to give some notes as well, right?
[00:32:41.502] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, exactly. It's awesome to have that because it's often so hard to... It's not like a film where you can just send someone a YouTube link or Vimeo link and get some notes. Especially when it's haptics, it's even harder because no one has the whole gloves and sleeves and vest. So getting to actually bring that and show people and not have the pressure of a premiere and be able to get those feedback and... them not having the pressure of hurting my feelings, because it's acknowledged, it's a work in progress, has been like, I'm very grateful for that opportunity. I think it'll make the piece stronger. Great.
[00:33:17.352] Kent Bye: So what's next for both Body of Mine, but also this project that you're pitching here?
[00:33:22.406] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yes, so Body of Mine is really in its impact stage. We're continuing to get these out to LGBT centers to support those centers and just to kind of continue that. And then the eventual goal with this next series is to just continue that, to put those experiences on those headsets that are already there, possibly get more headsets, continue this program that we're building of just using VR to kind of advocate for these queer real life experiences. And so right now it's like finishing up chapter one. We're in development for chapter two. And, you know, I'm also like as an artist, also without saying too much, also exploring and developing things that are beyond like the queer VR stuff. There's a lot of really interesting AI projects character driven experiences that are still on the prototype stage. But I'm, you know, also like a lover of like sci fi, of magical realism. There's lots of things that I'm kind of exploring. So yeah, so so kind of continuing this impact queer LGBT VR line of work, but also kind of exploring after a couple like heavy pieces, I'm itching to do something fun. So so soon you'll you'll be seeing something more fun coming from me. Awesome.
[00:34:39.025] Kent Bye: Great. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential for virtual reality and these types of immersive stories might be and what they might be able to enable?
[00:34:48.928] Cameron Kostopoulos: Yeah, that's a really broad question. I mean, I think that like, you know, obviously we all know that like VR has the potential to make us a more understanding and empathetic society. Like, you know, this has been talked about a lot. But I think VR also has a potential to really reshape the way that we view and think about identity. Identity, traditionally, I mean, even just the etymology of the word comes from this kind of sense of body. You identify... off in earlier in history identification really was just tied to what do you look like and you know we're starting to branch away from that and as we enter digital spaces and identity is increasingly coming through digital avatars and and also and fluid and as we're starting to accept more the idea that identity can be fluid gender can be fluid identity can be modified as that kind of continues and as we more and more and more embrace digital spaces, I think that it will have a really profound impact on the way that we consider identity less and less as a rigid thing and more and more as a fluid, ever-evolving, shifting sense of self.
[00:36:02.429] Kent Bye: Great. And is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community? Any final thoughts?
[00:36:11.017] Cameron Kostopoulos: No, not really. Other than just the past year and a half of getting really deeper into this community has just been really invigorating. Coming from experimental cinema, I'm just happy to be surrounded by such good company of people who love experimental stuff. I think this community is so great because everything is inherently experimental and therefore people really embrace that and not just embrace that but really encourage that and push for that and want more of that I think that like this community you know we are all doing so different things but we all kind of have this shared vision of this medium growing and I think that keeps this community just very like supportive unlike other industries even like Hollywood which can be very like I want to get in at the expense of others this whole community just has this kind of like feeling of like oh we're all working towards the shared thing of getting this medium bigger and bigger and bigger so i'm just like yeah very grateful for the immersive community grateful for like you know boys of er and and all the work that you're doing everyone on this island is doing and yeah just super grateful for the journey so far and excited for more
[00:37:18.362] Kent Bye: Yeah, I just want to do a callback to when I first stepped into the opening of South by Southwest and went to the installation, tried to get in, oh, it's moved over here, and then went in. And yeah, just kind of all the friction around all the, you know, I think I might even have to come back. It was kind of like a... I was living with you, wanting to see the piece, and you trying to present the piece. And then by the end of the festival, where you had actually picked up a special jury award, and then being here at Venice Immersive to hear all of the other things that have happened since then. It's been quite a journey that you've been on since we had the last time to really sit down and chat on the podcast. And so, yeah, it's just really inspiring to hear more about your story and more about you know where body mind started and where it's at now where it's going and then all the future stuff that you're working on it's just uh and and all the ai stuff and all the fun stuff too but yeah i i'm a documentary nerd at heart so i really appreciate the you know for me that is the the stuff that like it may not be fun but it's like It just feels essential, feels vital. So, like, for me, it's just as powerful and meaningful. So, anyway, yeah, just wanted to say that. And, yeah, and thank you again for joining me here on the podcast to help, you know, share a little bit more about your journey and your story. And, yeah, just give us a little bit of a peek for the type of work that you're doing and the impact that it's having. It's really inspiring. So, thank you.
[00:38:57.947] Cameron Kostopoulos: Thank you so much and yeah just like one final note on that is like often it feels like you can't get started on a project until you raise you know like a hundred thousand dollars or like oh like you know you see the scale of some of these projects and often feels like oh like how do I get there how do I raise the money and I guess like you know My advice for anyone listening who feels at a disadvantage because they don't have that money is like, you know, I feel so blessed now. But like that was literally me last year. It's like you don't need to wait for a grant. You don't need to wait for like $50,000 to come to the door. You don't need to wait for $10,000 to come to the door. Like we are blessed to be kind of in this era where ChatGPT can write your code, where you can watch YouTube tutorials, where you can... open up Unreal Engine and make something that looks really pretty. Just a few clicks, these tools are right there. And I think that's really exciting. And I just encourage, and I hope we see more, and I'm sure we will, more and more and more people just getting their hands dirty and making things without feeling at a disadvantage because they don't have the resources that someone else might. It's very punk rock. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:12.101] Kent Bye: Punk rock, indie film, yeah, all that sort of, you know, shoe leather, just, you know, make it happen. So, yeah, certainly you've been on that track, and it's great to see you here again this year and up on stage giving your pitch and, yeah, just to see where you're going to take it all in the future. So, yeah, thanks again.
[00:40:29.998] Cameron Kostopoulos: Thank you. Yeah, if I can do it, anyone can do it. Yeah, thank you.
[00:40:34.775] 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.
