Mária Rakušanová got her start in the VR industry in 2014 when she was a product marketer for the Gear VR at Samsung. Her job meant that she would watch a lot of immersive content that she would use to market this stand-alone, mobile VR headset. In 2016, she started curating immersive work for the Raindance Immersive section of the Raindance Film Festival, which has always had a distinctly independent selection. The 2020 edition of Raindance Immersive marks her fifth year of curating the best-of works from the year, and it features over 50 hours of content.
Raindance Immersive gives out 10 different awards that include best experience for narrative experience, documentary experience, animation experience, multi-player experience, immersive game, immersive world, and Discovery World for Best debut. There are also outstanding achievement awards in audio, art, and design. The immersive world award category is new this year, which features a number of different VRChat worlds.
I had a chance to catch up with Rakušanová on October 19th in order to get a sneak peak of the Raindance program, the opening night party on November 2nd in a custom-built VRChat world that will serve as the Raindance Immersive hub, different master class workshops, as well as a sneak peak of the live performances that start during the second week.
If you want to catch up from a lot of good independent VR games, stories, and experiences from 2020, then this should be a great opportunity to see what you may have missed. In terms of how to access the Raindance Immersive 2020 experiences, there isn’t an accreditation fee, but you may need to either purchase some of the games from Steam/Viveport, or use the free two-week Viveport trial in order to get access to the full selection. There’s also six live performances during the second week that will require advanced booking.
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Music: Fatality
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.452] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. So the interesting side effect of having a global pandemic is that there's all these festivals and conferences that you can start to go to that you normally wouldn't get a chance to go to. So there's been a lot of regional film festivals that have had immersive selections that have been made available online. Everything from Virtual Hamburg to the Vancouver International Film Festival, the ConXR to the London International Film Festival, the 5Rs 360 Film Festival has been happening now until November 2nd. They have a lot of great experimental 360 videos. And there's also the Rain Dance Immersive that's going to be happening from Wednesday, October 28th until Saturday, November 7th. So, Raindance has been an independent film festival for the last 28 years, and they've been focusing on films, but they've also, since 2016, had an immersive selection that has been curated by Maria Rakushanova. And so, Maria, this year, has been really looking at the global pandemic and the different types of immersive worlds and experiences that people have been created, the different immersive performances. So usually when there's a beginning of a virtual conference, it's like, what's the story? What should we know? Why do we want to go see whatever's happening during this? And if I feel like if I don't have a clear sense of that story, and if I don't try to like, start and see things right away, then sometimes I wait to the very last minute until I try to watch everything before it goes away because these are like ephemeral festivals. But some of what Raindance is doing this year is actually featuring stuff that's already available so you can take a look at it afterwards. But there's also things that are immersive performances and things that you do actually have to catch during this time period and things that are ephemeral in the sense that they're not going to be widely available after Raindance. So there's going to be a window here of, you know, from October 28th until November 7th, where it's actually three weekends where they're going to be showing a number of different immersive experiences. So Maria asked me to be a judge and a juror on a number of different categories. And so there's over 50 hours worth of content that I'm going to be watching over the next 10 days. And so this podcast, this is a launch to kind of say, Hey, this is happening. Let's all individually watch this content. And there's actually a VR chat world that rain dance has created, that's going to allow people to come together and start to talk about some of these different experiences. So that's already coming on today's episode of the voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Maria happened on Monday, October 19 2020. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:38.055] Maria Rakusanova: Yeah, thank you for having me, Ken. So my name is Maria Rakusanova, and I'm the curator and executive producer of Raindance Immersive, which is part of the Raindance Film Festival in London. And it's the festival's immersive strand. The festival itself has been around actually for 28 years. And this is our fifth year that we are showcasing and championing VR and amazingly talented creators and game developers.
[00:03:07.857] Kent Bye: Nice. And maybe you could give me a bit more context as to your background and your journey into VR.
[00:03:13.441] Maria Rakusanova: Yeah, sure. So my journey started back in early 2014. I was actually headhunted to join Samsung at the time based on kind of background both in software development and also experience with creating hardware products. Obviously, these were the kind of super, super early days of VR, where Samsung at the time worked with Oculus, even before the Facebook acquisition. And I still remember that magical moment when I tried the dev kit of the Gear VR for the first time. And I was actually expecting something completely different. I got actually a white box on my desk that day and I was actually expecting AR glasses, but it was VR with actually also a PDF that kind of outlined that this will be a collaboration between Samsung and Oculus. And when I held the prototype in my hands, I was a little underwhelmed because it was plastic and you had to put a phone in. But when I tried it, I kind of never looked back and that was kind of my down the rabbit hole moment, kind of feeling no latency and just being completely in a different world. And obviously that kind of instantly painted a picture of where this medium can go both for consumer entertainment, as well as for very important enterprise use cases or medical use cases. And yeah, ever since I kind of haven't looked back and then I started my journey with the festival actually back in 2016. I left the company and joined Indie Gaming Studio and at the same time I also became the curator of Raindance Immersive. There's a kind of bit of a funny story to it because actually the festival itself started as an experiment where Elliot Grove, who's the founder 28 years ago, he was actually a sculptor and he asked himself a question. Can I be a filmmaker without any formal film education and without any budget? And him and his friends, they borrowed some kit, they wrote the script, they put together a little crew, and they started to shoot short films in Soho in London. And then they actually, yeah, proved themselves that, yeah, with the right kind of attitude and willingness to dream big and work hard, you can absolutely do that. And then a year later, FilmSchool was born. And then a year later, the Film Festival was born. So when Elliot approached me to become the curator, I was a bit hesitant at first because, you know, at the time I had 10 years in technology background, not much creative background, let alone knowing much about film. But basically he argued that at the time, who else had tried more VR experiences than someone like me? So that was kind of like, okay, yeah, let's give it a go. And I was very captivated by the ethos of the festival, which has since day one been all about championing indie creators, especially the ones who create magical films, magical experiences, magical art without much financial support and who dare to experiment. And that was very relatable and still is very relatable to VR creators and to the VR industry. And yeah, so that's kind of where my journey began. And here I am five years later. I'm still doing it. I'm still loving it. And every year the festival curation gets more ambitious. But at the same time, my goal is to always to look at the industry, what's happening out there, both in terms of creators pushing the boundaries of the tech, but at the same time, pushing the boundaries creatively. And what are the key emerging themes each year? Now, this year has been quite a wonderful journey into the exploration of what are the key themes exploding this year. So, I mean, when we look at the beginning of the year, some very, very significant AAA games have dropped. Half-Life Alyx and also the Walking Dead Saints and Sinners that hugely propelled the VR industry, especially gamers, and helped also the explosion of headset sales. But equally, lockdown happened, so a lot of people kind of found refuge in not only games, but also various virtual events and virtual worlds. So I started exploring various virtual platforms. And funnily enough, actually, that kind of goes back to 2017, where we launched our award ceremony with 10 awards categories. And little did I know that other festivals don't necessarily do 10 award categories for VR. felt like doing what's the right thing and what are the kind of key emerging genres in VR. And at the same time, kind of looking at the film section of the festival and aligning my VR curation and awards categories each year with also the film section. So the festival feels cohesive as a whole. And back in 2017, we had a launch event in London where a friend of mine at the time, she used to work at Old Space VR. And she came to the venue where we were holding the event and helped me to become a partially mo-cap avatar. So my upper body was mo-capped. And I had the motion capture suit underneath my clothes. And I was speaking live to a real audience in London, to 200 people, and then 800 people at the same time in Allspace VR. And it was pretty amazing, obviously, especially doing the Q&A simultaneously where someone in the London audience asked something then I repeated the question back to the virtual audience and then Debbie was reading out the questions from the virtual audience. So that was very interesting and 2020 is kind of almost going back to that moment because Yeah, throughout February, March, April, I've explored probably hundreds of worlds across various platforms, old space, to VR chat, to Rec Room, to Neos, to Somnium space, you name it, a museum of other realities. And I'm most fascinated by what's right now creatively happening actually inside VRChat and how, on one hand, there is a lot of new users who have joined the platform to not feel isolated and to connect with other people, whether it's strangers. In my case, I mostly connect with people I know, the friends that I miss. Even friends from London I can't meet. And what's really, really fun is setting up full body tracking. And I even have friends who modded VRChat and set up with eye tracking. So there is a very interesting modding community there, but even more so, it's fairly easy and quick to build VRChat worlds, even if you have limited knowledge of Unity. There's a community called Prefabs where you can get access to assets. But at the same time, VRChat World Creators are incredibly kind of helpful and very open. And every Sunday, there's actually a community meetup where people come and they present their worlds and work in progress. And everyone kind of tests each other's worlds and encourages each other. So that has been a pretty interesting learning curve. And because obviously, actually second lockdown here in the UK we for sure are not going to have a festival in real life and we can't have it so we are moving it to a virtual world inside VRChat that actually I teamed up with three friends and we are building it as we speak with not much resources but lots of enthusiasm and we are learning very very quickly and we will be using it as a networking hub and a space to on one hand learn about the festival and the selection and see some 3D characters from the various games that have been selected turn into three-dimensional art and avatars but also it will be a space to meet with actual creators who have worked in the selection and let them meet one another and anyone who's kind of interested in speaking to them they can join us in our virtual world, and currently we are referring to a virtual world, the Embassy, the Raindows Embassy, inside VRChat, even though it is a fully fledged nightclub, even with a hidden speakeasy, and a video and a music player, and lots of little hidden easter eggs, so it kind of little bit plays like a game, and one thing that we all love in VRChat is jumping. So you can jump up and down stairs and balconies and have fun. It's a lovely kind of fantasy world that first puts you into London, which is very much the spawn point is very obvious where you are. And then as you go in, it then becomes more of a fantasy world and a fantasy nightclub.
[00:11:52.413] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, let's, uh, I want to take a step back to your time at Samsung because you said that you were responsible for watching a lot of these experiences or what was your job there that had you consuming and watching all this stuff?
[00:12:06.243] Maria Rakusanova: I mean, I was in the product marketing capacity and I had to launch the hardware into 40 markets in Europe. And hardware is great, but it's all about the experiences and what this magical first consumer headset could do at the time. So I remember, you know, the early Felix and Paul works and, and the early games, the likes of Land's End. So it was working with the team at Oculus at the time, and then marketing the experiences so that we were able to push Gear VR as the very first consumer headset at the time.
[00:12:45.415] Kent Bye: Yeah. And I know just recently a lot of the initiatives at Samsung have pretty much been shuttered. I know I went to their developer conference back in 2017 and the Odyssey had been announced and it wasn't even there. And so over time, the relationship between Samsung and Oculus started to dissipate. So at what point, I don't know if you left way before everything pretty much got shut down.
[00:13:08.186] Maria Rakusanova: Yeah, yeah, yeah. End of 2016.
[00:13:10.927] Kent Bye: But what happened to the VR stuff there at Samsung?
[00:13:15.330] Maria Rakusanova: In all fairness, I'm not quite sure because it's been many, many years I had left. And at the time when I had left, there was something like 7 million Gear VRs sold. And I felt like, OK, you know, it's the market will grow from here. There will be new categories out there. So I felt like I will be better positioned working with content creators. So that's why I joined the Anita Gaming Studio and then the festival. And then actually in July 2018, I joined HTC Vive's Viveport team as well. So now I'm on the platform team working with lots of game developers and content creators, helping them to bring their games and experiences on our platform. and help them grow and monetize.
[00:14:01.139] Kent Bye: As someone who's been traveling to a number of the different conferences, especially the film festivals, in addition to all the other VR-specific gatherings, there was a bit of a rhythm and a cadence where in January there was Sundance, and then South by Southwest in March, and then April or May it was Tribeca. and then Venice Film Festival in September. And then by that time, by the end of the year, I had way too much content from that year that I still am sort of working through. And then the new cycle begins. But Rain Dance is kind of at that end of that year. And so I guess there's a kind of a rhythm that happens with people showing different stuff, but being at the end of the year, in some ways that allows you to take a retrospective of and curate maybe the best stuff that you've seen. And so maybe just talk about that, that orientation of where you're at in that larger cycle and how you see Raindance kind of fits into the larger ecosystem of the other festivals that are out there.
[00:14:55.634] Maria Rakusanova: I mean, Raindance is definitely the kind of most indie festival of all of them. And that's been like that since day one. And that's the kind of very core purpose and the core ethos of the festival. And in my curation, I definitely focus on championing indie talent, which, you know, in some cases can be one person who created an indie game or an indie interactive narrative. Or this year, actually, a very good example is a young indie filmmaker. His name is Joe Hunting. And he is doing something very, very interesting. He's experimenting with virtual production and filmmaking inside virtual worlds. And he actually created a short 10-15 minute documentary called A Blinder Screen, which documented life inside VRChat. And then on the back of that he got actually commissioned by an online VOD platform called Discover Film here in the UK to create an 11 part documentary about people finding refuge inside VR chat and how is it that they perceive the world under lockdown and what are their hopes and dreams and desires sometimes. So it's a really kind of charming documentary and I selected it despite the output itself is 11 short flat films. However, what's really interesting is the production techniques. that Joe has been using. And Joe is actually right now working on a pitch for his feature-length documentary and going into VRChat, continuing his world scouting and casting and recording interviews. And he will be around at the festival as well, actually doing some recordings of the festival. And he's also shooting a little making of of our VRChat world, a little documentary. And good example is actually one of our award categories called Discovery Award Best Debut, which champions first-time creators. This year, actually, the six that are competing in this category, they all tend to be indie game developers, and all of them are actually games. But very interesting and very different with their own way, whether it's using some sort of physics mechanic or whether it's interesting use of story or just captivating use of the medium where you're dipped into a really fun ride and fun adventure that just makes you feel good and helps you forget about the current status of the world. So yeah, this is very much what I love about the festival, championing the kind of super indie creators. And then, on another hand, this year, in addition to championing game developers and VR narrative creators and documentary storytellers as well, For the first time, I created an award category called Best Immersive World, which actually recognizes five VR chat worlds and a multiplayer open adventure theme park called Morango. which is not inside VRChat, but it's a multiplayer experience for several people to come together and go around this beautiful virtual park together. And you can climb structures, you can swim, you can teleport around and have fun. And then from those five VRChat worlds, each of them are very different. Some of them are smaller where you come and drink tea. and enjoy a beautiful garden. One example is Shelter in Place, or you go around a kind of fantasy world that kind of makes you feel like you're in the Shire from The Lord of the Rings called Skin of Earth. Or another example is a world called Pandora Night, which has been inspired by Jurassic World and the film Avatar by a very talented creator called Vince, who's actually dropping a new world soon. And then there's also one really great example. It's a fully fledged five to six hour horror game called The Devouring for up to four players to go in together. And that's actually another very interesting theme that's been kind of recurring this year is this explosion of multiplayer games. There is another one in the horror genre actually called Phasmophobia that's also very much exploding these days, just before Halloween. However, The Devouring has been built by four friends, La Cruza, Fiona, Cyan Laser and Legends, who had never built a game before. So this is their first kind of venture into gaming and they come from like environmental art background or different programming background, but they had never done a game before. And it dropped in mid-August, and it was met with huge raving success with the VRChat community. But even people from outside the VRChat community, especially gamers, came in and played the game, because at the end of the day, it is a really, really good game. And I, myself, and a friend, we spent nine hours there, kind of like the day after it dropped. just because we're incredibly captivated by the world building, the very cinematic opening of the game that felt like a film, a very, very rich narrative. So you're going around this haunted house, you find these journals and that kind of uncovers a story of a family. And then there is these lurkers and monsters that are behind every corner and there's danger behind every corner. So you have to be very quick and nimble, but also very smart in terms of solving puzzles and unlocking new pathways and new sections of this haunted manner. There's a lot of references to old school video games like Resident Evil and Amnesia. And people who play those games, they definitely feel it in the environment and the storytelling and very much appreciate it. And the sound design is also incredible. So we spent nine hours there because we loved the world building, we loved the story, we loved kind of the danger as well in many ways. The first half an hour we were screaming, but then after that we were not. It just became a very, very interesting puzzle game. And then what was really special and this kind of what makes VRChat unique is we had at times various friends joining us. So we had friends from the UK joining us. As we progressed through those nine hours, some friends from the US and here and there we spent playing a level with a different person. But the grand finale we enjoyed together. Actually, we had to stop because it was almost midnight. So we slept in the morning. We had the instance running overnight, praying not that, you know, the instance kind of breaks, but luckily it didn't. And then in the morning, we did the ground finale and got a lovely screenshot, which says, congratulations, you have survived the devouring. And that's something that, you know, you tweet or you send via Discord to Lacusa, who's one of the creators, and then he puts you, well, not everyone, but if you were one of those early players of the game, he puts you into the hall of the fame of the game. So the four creators, they even created an extra world called Hall of Fame for The Devouring, where you can see the various times and achievements of other players, and even a separate launch party world, like a ballroom, beautiful world where they have the opening party. which is really interesting and very unique. Maybe game developers could get a bit inspired by how you can launch a game with an actual party in a virtual world, which has proven to be successful. They had lots of people streaming on Twitch just the opening event, which was really exciting. I'm also super excited this year, obviously going, just talking about this multiplayer nature of VR and that becoming a really growing category. So we also have a category for best multiplayer or multi-person experience, which is seven experiences that are either live theatrical performances or live dance performances or multiplayer escape room style games with a live host. So maybe a couple highlights or maybe I guess all seven are a highlight to me personally because they're very different and very unique. So Scarecrow is an experience that actually had its world premiere at Sundance as a physical setup in real life where you walked into a physical room, there was a motion-captured actor, you put on a headset and then you interacted with the actor. And I love it and I love the story and I loved everything about it. So I contacted the director and I said, look, there is no way we would be able to have this as a location-based installation, but can I show you the art chat? And potentially you could adapt the play and bring it in there. So we did like a three-hour world hop and Song Mo, the director, he enjoyed himself and what the platform offers. And that's exactly what's happening for Raindance. So he adapted it. It will become a multiplayer experience for two people to go in together, plus the live actor. And the story has been also ever so slightly adapted to this new format. And it's just a beautiful example of how a group of incredible creators have adapted to COVID and we can't have performances in real physical space, but you can have them now in virtual spaces. Then we also have The Tempest by Tender Claws, one of the favourite studios of mine. They actually won an award for virtual virtual reality back at Raindance in 2017. So it's always lovely to welcome alumni back. and they will run a special couple of days performances of Tempest, which is based on obviously the Shakespearean story with a live actor or actress and up to six players to enjoy together. What's really interesting that you don't speak here, you mimic here and you use various hand gestures, yet it's still incredibly immersive and you're still being guided around this Shakespearean story world, which is really exciting. And then we also have Dr. Crump's School for Disobedient Pets, a super lovely game, escape room puzzle game with a live host, very talented host, at least when I tried it. He played two characters. One was your guide, who's kind of like help you set up before you get into your pet costume. So you go in there with three other friends, you select a pet avatar, and then you have a mighty kind of superpower. And then it's about a 45-minute experience, and you have to work together as a team to solve various puzzles. And then the same actor also does the voice and the acting for the mad scientist, who's probably like the cutest mad scientist ever. And the experience has been created by Adventure Lab, which is a brand new company by Max Planck, who used to be at Oculus Story Studios before. He used to be on the team who created Dear Angelica, who actually back in 2017 won an award at Raindance as well. So nice to have him back as a kind of alumni. A brand new performance this year will be a live flamenco dance performance with a live full body tracked professional flamenco dancer and also a singer and a guitar player. And this will take place in VRChat. The production has been created by VR room, who are these incredible world builders. They also built the VR chat world for Venice Film Festival, for example, or New Images Festival. And earlier this year, they were the creators of Alone Together, which was this incredible live music performance that featured Jean-Michel Jarre. actually one of the best live music performances I've experienced this year. So I'm super excited for Flame and it will be for up to 40 people to stand around a circular stage and having the dancer in the middle of the stage and then there will be some interactive visual elements and VFX that audience members can trigger. And that will be a 20 minute live dance performance. But I'm very excited for the full body tracking dancing because that's something incredibly meaningful when it comes to flamenco dancing. And then one another great highlight is also a brand new group called Lila or Lila Live. And it's a company that was founded by one of the directors behind Vader Immortal. Colin McKee, and this is a very interesting approach to multiplayer gaming. So the experience that we'll have at Raindance is called The Forest with Barack Obama. Now what this is, is basically the game, the horror game Forest, which you can play in co-op mode. However, there is a impersonator, Barack Obama. So a wonderful actor who can make the voice and personality of Barack Obama very well. So without giving away too many things, you will crash an airplane and then you find yourself in this forest and Barack tells you that he's been well, building a fortress in the forest and we need to save democracy and you need to fight some zombies. And it's actually not scary. And it kind of almost proves the point that horror games are better when they're cool. And they can be incredibly fun. So yeah, this is a brand new kind of experience. And they are just starting to run these performances kind of last week. So they're still kind of like in concept testing, but it's super promising. And I had a great time playing with five other friends. And then last but not least, there is also Visitors, which is an immersive audio experience for up to two people. And it's not in VR. It's actually, you need an iPhone or an Android phone and a pair of headphones. And it's a narrative experience through the power of binaural sound and spatial sound. And it's about a dead couple who are unhappy about their state without giving away too many spoilers. So yeah, I'm super, super excited for these multiplayer performances and experiences. And actually, one more game that I would also like to highlight is Space Team VR, which is more of a casual game or family game even for up to six players. Each session is fairly short, about 15 minutes, and you need to team up with your friends, carry out various tasks, the gaming mechanics are similar to Job Simulator, and make sure that you don't crash your spaceship. So teamwork is really key.
[00:29:41.866] Kent Bye: Yeah, so that's a great overview of some of the stuff that folks can go check out. What are the dates that this is running again?
[00:29:48.629] Maria Rakusanova: So the festival itself is 28th of October to the 15th of November. So over two weeks, and that's by design and very much intentionally, because if you actually would like to experience the whole selection, it's well above 50 hours. And there are 20 experiences that are for PC VR and they're hosted on Viveport. So until you just download some of these experiences, that takes a bit of preparation time. Then some of the live performances are available both on PC VR as well as Quest. And then five experiences are also available on Quest. And then additionally, there are the five VR chat worlds, and then the two VR chat live performances. So the kind of core platforms are Viveport, VR chat, and then if you have a Quest. You can also use that. And then Joe's film is on an online BOD platform called Discover Film. And then Visitors by The Immersive Performance, Audio Performance by Darkfoot Radio. For that you need an iOS phone or an Android phone. So yeah, quite a few platforms to juggle, but obviously you can pick and choose your favorite, choose your poison wisely. And obviously for all of the information on how to access the selection and the full program, just go on to raindanceinversive.com and it's all there.
[00:31:17.125] Kent Bye: Yeah, that's great. And just as a full disclosure, you asked me to be on the jury.
[00:31:21.386] Maria Rakusanova: Yes. I'm very much looking forward to having you on the jury. And I think it's going to be quite a ride, judging especially these multiplayer experiences and virtual worlds.
[00:31:34.091] Kent Bye: Well, it's a great opportunity for me because, you know, there's been a lot of different stuff that I've been covering this year and there's stuff that I haven't had a chance to see.
[00:31:40.933] Maria Rakusanova: And still stuff to uncover, even though Raindance is towards the end of the year.
[00:31:47.281] Kent Bye: Well, I think the thing that I see, I tend to think of this concept of how the medium unfolds and how this feedback audience and that there's like these four major pillars of the technology that develops that allows the creators to do new and different things. The creators come in and they start to experiment with what the affordances of the technology provide, and they try to explore what the bounds of that are. And then there's the distribution aspect, which Within the gaming world, there used to be like Oculus Share to kind of share prototype ideas. Now there's Oculus Home, which is the main part. There's SteamVR, then there's Viveport, there's itch.io. There's other platforms.
[00:32:26.107] Maria Rakusanova: SideQuest. There's many. There's a lot of choices.
[00:32:30.895] Kent Bye: But in terms of like narratives, that's typically been the film festival scene, like the Sundance and South by Rebecca Venice and all these other regional festivals, rain dance, Vancouver International Film Festival, a lot of these that I had missed because I can't travel to all of them. Virtual Reality Hamburg and the Vancouver International Film Festival, New Images Festival. There was a London Film Festival, the Five Arts Festival that usually happens in Toronto. So all these other regional festivals are also like distribution platforms for these that are more ephemeral. That's an ephemeral context where a lot of times these pieces will only appear on that festival circuit and they won't ever get into those other more persistent distribution platforms.
[00:33:13.782] Maria Rakusanova: Although that's changing, I think creators do realize the importance of distribution as well.
[00:33:19.927] Kent Bye: Yeah, the last pillar I'd just say is the audience. So the audience needs to have access to that, either through those more persistent distribution platforms, or I guess that's something worth exploring here, because 50 hours of content, you would normally program that on a co-located conference, but now that everybody has their own headsets, then you're kind of having this blend of using some of those established distribution platforms, stuff that has already been released, but just taking that film festival curation style and saying, here's a selection that we're saying we're going to be awarding award for one of these different experiences, but making it available for people to actually see, which I think is
[00:33:55.631] Maria Rakusanova: And you're actually opening a great point, because I should mention that as a festival we made a decision to not charge for accreditation fee. You can buy an industry pass if you would like to come and experience masterclasses via Zoom calls, so that you can interact with the speaker. However, some of the creators that are publishing temporarily on these platforms game demos or experience demos, so those will be free. However, there are games such as Paper Beast or Down the Rabbit Hole that are way on their distribution cycle. So we are absolutely encouraging people to either buy these games at full price and support these creators, because, hey, you're not paying Festival Pass, or you can join Liveport's Infinity subscription program where there is a free two-week trial that you can sign up to which kind of lasts for the duration of the festival. So in that case it's kind of free and you know obviously if you want to continue being a subscriber then wonderful we will have access to a great library But what's even more important that during the period of the festival, creators will get revenue share from the Infinity Subscription, or if someone purchases their game at full price. And that's something that we definitely want to encourage everyone so that, you know, Raindance is all about supporting independent creators, independent film, and this is definitely our share to do it. And then on the note of the industry accreditation or the pass for these masterclasses, we'll have actually some very exciting speakers and the Raindance Industry Immersive Forum is going to be happening during November 4th and 6th. The program is also on raindownsimmersive.com. So we will have the legendary French game designer, Eric Chahi, sharing his journey, developing some of his very iconic games, but focusing on Paper Beast, which is a beautiful open adventure exploration game, which even has a sandbox mode. And it started off in VR and now about two weeks ago, they even created a flat version, which is interesting. Then we'll have also Samantha Gorman, who is the writer and director of Tempest, sharing her journey writing. And it kind of came out of nowhere and they produced it in something like six weeks, which is a remarkably short period of time. And they worked with lots of performers and it's been a great success. Then we'll have also Kim Adams, who's the producer of Dr. Crumb's School of Disobedient Pets and also one of their performer will be joining as well to share obviously what it is to be a performer in these kind of virtual life experiences and performances and what it is to interact with people in headsets, very different to when you're on stage. Then we'll also have Johanting talking about his virtual production inside VRChat. And actually, he will be in a headset while on a Zoom call, sharing his perspective and showing his tools and techniques. I'm super actually really excited for that one. It's always fun to watch him when he's filming inside VRChat. and interviewing people. Then we will also have Louis Caciotolo, who is the founder of Room and a kind of mastermind behind Flame, the live flamenco dance performance, and also the music performance with Jean-Michel Jarre. So he's an incredible creator who's built many, many virtual worlds and actually even produced lots of live performances inside them. So there's a wealth of experience that he will be sharing. And actually, what we would like to do is after he wraps up his masterclass, I will stay live on the Zoom call with a headset on, and I will be broadcasting this live performance to those people who don't have a headset to be able to watch from my perspective. So I will have to, I will make sure I'm a good cameraman. Maybe not as good as Joe, but I'll do my best. Yeah, I think that's kind of it from these masterclasses. And then, obviously, there will be lots of events happening virtually in our VR chat world. We will host our award ceremonies there. And because we have 10 award categories, we'll actually have to split them into three different instances where we would allow something like 50 people to come in. So award category 1, 2, 3 will be one award ceremony, then 4, 5, 6 another one, and 7, 8, 9, 10 another one. So kind of group them together. So that will be a very exciting moment for the festival team and me especially. I only hosted award ceremonies in real life, but I'm ready for it. I'm ready to be an avatar.
[00:38:42.360] Kent Bye: Well, there was this experience of the Museum of Other Realities with the Arhan Festival and then following that with the XR Con with both the Tribeca and selections from XR Con and a couple of other curators had done other selections of 360 degrees there. But the latest iteration, the Vancouver International Film Festival, which I didn't watch everything up front. I waited to the very last day. went in and sort of binge-watched. That's usually my style is to kind of do a binge-watch, like I do at the beginning. But I went in and I had just an amazing experience going into one virtual world that's persistent, hopping into an experience, hopping out. I was able to see all of the pieces and like all the technology was working. And it was like such an amazing experience to start to recreate that feeling of going to the film festival and seeing all the different content, but not having to wait in line and just being able to watch it. You know, there's downloads and other stuff that you have to do. Yeah.
[00:39:36.633] Maria Rakusanova: There are definitely advantages and disadvantages as well, but it's a new format. Everyone's experimenting and learning on the fly. I've been incredibly impressed by every single festival, super quickly adapted. Especially the team at the Museum of Other Realities, who, obviously, being an art platform, they were one of the first ones to host film festivals on their platform and events, and help these festivals to happen.
[00:40:06.153] Kent Bye: Yeah, there's also the London Film Festival, which was also on Viveport.
[00:40:11.358] Maria Rakusanova: Which was a great one. Actually, yeah, it was just finished yesterday. Yeah. So that's an interesting kind of approach as well, where Ulrich and his team created an app from scratch, basically. A multiplayer app, which worked across, I think, even desktop and Android and various platforms. You could go in to watch 360 films or these interactive works and talk to other people. And yeah, in relatively very short timeframe, they put something together, which was not the Museum of Other Realities or it wasn't VRChat, but an actual app built from scratch. So it's very impressive.
[00:40:49.593] Kent Bye: Yeah, I was able to actually do that last night. Again, the download it last second to get that download. That one, I had trouble coming back into the world. And so I had to like keep restarting it in order to go into new experiences.
[00:41:01.960] Maria Rakusanova: The back button was a bit funky, but if once you got used to it, I think it was the B key that you had to press.
[00:41:09.284] Kent Bye: Oh, okay. Yeah. Well,
[00:41:11.339] Maria Rakusanova: But still, look, version one, I'm sure it will be better next year. And it's incredible what they pulled off just out of nowhere. They created a multiplayer app from scratch.
[00:41:23.120] Kent Bye: I guess the part of where I was going with that is that you used to have just a very specific like film festival where you would do that. And up to this point, it's kind of happening. But what I think is interesting about the world that you're creating is it's a VR chat world and you're creating at the end of the corridor portals into the other VR chat worlds. And so in some sense, Anybody who can create a VRChat world to create portals to these other worlds can start to, in some sense, at least within the context of VRChat, start to do something very similar to what you're doing, which is starting to curate and starting to create worlds that are... Worlds within VRChat, yeah. The intention is to sort of help to edit and filter and guide people to other experiences. think are worthwhile. So there's like, there's installations that usually would happen within a film festival circuit. So it would allow you to enter into like this magic circle before you entered into that world. But that installation concept, you can start to do essentially what all these other film festivals have been doing, which is that anybody could start to create their own worlds that then serve as portals into these other experiences.
[00:42:23.758] Maria Rakusanova: Yeah, that's very exciting about VRChat itself. And actually, it took quite a while to concept what that experience and that user journey should be. I mean, we could have gone for something very fantastical that would not even resemble London at all. I mean, they are very kind of London, central London indie festival. And when you come to the festival every year, you kind of feel that vibe. So recreating that in VRChat was important. hence the spawn point. There is some references to a famous English street artist as well at the spawn point and we've now dropped an update since last time I brought you in for a little tour so we've progressed definitely. And then you come into this beautiful entrance hall, and then you go through this hallway, which essentially serves like a gallery of the experiences that are selected, that you can see their posters. And then the next section is the avatar gallery, which a lot of the game creators and other VRChat world builders, they are giving us their characters as rigged avatars that you can wear. I mean, we're still experimenting. Some of them work better than others, so we'll see. But expect a combination of maybe some beautiful looking 3D statues from the various games and VR experiences that are selected that kind of almost look like beautiful sculptures and wearable avatars. And then after that, you obviously have the red carpet with photo taking opportunities. And then you end up in the nightclub, which actually has been very much modelled based on a real-life nightclub in London called Café de Paris, which is where the festival kicks off each year. And then because it's VR, we're like, well, you know, we can create some hidden corridors here and there. Little Easter eggs for people to find. So there is a hidden speakeasy and also a hidden corridor, kind of like stairway up to three different corridors where you will be able to see the portals to these VR chat worlds that have been selected. And that's kind of like your exit experience that once you checked out the VR experiences that have been selected and learned where to go to download them and so on. You experimented with a few avatars, took pictures and had some virtual drinks and met creators and had another one in the speakeasy. Then you obviously exit our world through by entering these other VR chat worlds. And we'll also do some world hops with the creators of these VR chat worlds. Because just like every VRChat world creator I know, especially these amazing ones whose work we selected, they don't stop with one. The Devouring team, they're probably on their next one, and there is Spookality Festival coming inside VRChat, so there's definitely people working on some spooky worlds as well. And luckily our festival is actually during Halloween, so we'll do a little Halloween world hop as well to see the same artists' other creations.
[00:45:35.047] Kent Bye: Well, when I go to film festivals, I usually am there at the beginning of the day before it opens. The class has early access and there's like a kickoff that happens with events. And I think that's probably one of the harder things to do in VR, which is like the collective gathering to get everybody in the same instance as possible. That's part of the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with you, because just to get excited about the experiences, I'm going to be diving into it. But also I noticed that unless I have that anticipation and dive in right at the beginning, I'm either like trying to catch things at the very end on the last day before it goes away, or I just miss it altogether. Like some of the other like new images.
[00:46:16.539] Maria Rakusanova: Well, hopefully, you know, two and a half weeks will be enough time. And I mean, you know, the kickoff is typically an opening party, but I will be doing a lot of also kind of like curators guided tours, and then we'll do this virtual meet the creators meetups and virtual world hops, because that is the beauty of VR chat that You always bump into someone who's building something and then they take you to a new world that you never even knew existed, never even anticipated. And there's just this incredible kind of knowledge sharing inside that community, or you just meet some very interesting people in these various worlds and various world hops.
[00:46:57.316] Kent Bye: Yeah, well, most festivals I've seen are anywhere from like six to 17 hours or so. And that's usually like 10 days that they have. So this would be 50 hours in two and a half weeks.
[00:47:07.620] Maria Rakusanova: So yeah. I don't expect you to play every game to the end though.
[00:47:16.202] Kent Bye: Yeah. Well, yeah, just I'm excited just to start to dive in and see all this stuff. And, you know, I think that the other challenging thing that I just point out there is that a lot of times because there has been so much content in a little time, and then there's usually a cadence of having gatherings to have the filmmakers come in. I think one of the things I've noticed at least is that when you are at the festival, you can actually have more space to see stuff and then go listen to them talk because I just got a lot more out of listening to the creator talk after I've seen it because I just have like a deeper context for what they're even talking about. And then I'll forget the different insights. And so to actually have time to see the content and then have those different gatherings. There's also a pattern that I've seen that is tricky because you want to have people have something that's a live event that motivates them to show up, but you also want them to kind of do their homework by watching the experiences so you can actually get more out of those different types of conversations.
[00:48:12.578] Maria Rakusanova: We actually, so my advice is to start off with the PC VR and the quest experiences that are solo, because actually every single performance will be kicking off in the second week. And that's kind of by design because on one hand, you know, they have a certain limited day run, but I think the first day or two people will be just realizing like, okay, there is rain dance. What do I need to do? What headset do I need? Where do I go? What do I need to download? So you will need a good day or two to figure things out. and start downloading. I'm very happy that we're actually hitting three weekends, which typically people have more time during weekends. And then the other live performances are towards the kind of second half of the festival. And then also the masterclasses will run on November 4th. 5th and 6th, kind of in the middle of the festival as well. So yeah, that will be, hopefully, I don't know, it's an experiment. We'll see how that goes and we'll see what we can learn for next year. But in all fairness, I'm enjoying this virtual festival production. It's super, super different to producing an event in real life. And, you know, both have their opportunities and challenges. But I think we're going to keep our VRChat world, obviously, after the festival, it will be there for the VRChat community to enjoy. But yeah, it will be great to have it back again next year, pandemic or not.
[00:49:38.149] Kent Bye: Great. And, and finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of Virtual Reality might be and what it might be able to enable?
[00:49:46.100] Maria Rakusanova: Well, interesting. I mean, back in like 2014, 15, even 16, people were all asking the question like, oh, what's the killer app of VR? What's the killer app of VR? And I would say it's not like a single app per se. I definitely believe it's social VR experiences and multiplayer VR experiences and social VR platforms. And there is many of them. And there's definitely room for several of them because people are different. Some people like more freedom, freedom to be who they are, who they want to be. Some people enjoy anonymity, some people enjoy flexibility, creating world. And some people are maybe not these kind of like techies or people who are into building worlds or modding platforms or being enthusiasts. So I think there is several and there is room for everyone to find what they like. But I genuinely believe VR is definitely better when it's social, whether it's experiencing a game or whether it's experiencing even a festival or whether just, you know, having a casual, spontaneous conversation in a beautiful virtual world. That's for me, the game changer.
[00:51:01.987] Kent Bye: Great. Is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader Immersive community?
[00:51:06.050] Maria Rakusanova: Yeah, I'll just repeat, raindanceimmersive.com. Visit our website. You can also follow us on Twitter. My Twitter handle is Maria Raindance, so I will be actually live tweeting about the events and actually also we'll be recording some of these events and dropping little fun clips after each day about what has been happening inside our VR chat world and with the creator community. to share that joy with the world.
[00:51:34.150] Kent Bye: Great. Well, Maria, I look forward to diving into all this content and catching up on experiences that I haven't been able to catch and to exploring all these different VR chat worlds and to look at all these different categories that you have. And like I said, it's your curating and filtering. I think in the future, we're going to have a lot more of that of other people that aren't even in the festival, but I think it's a huge part of helping to go out and search and discover and point people towards experiences that are worth having. So I really look forward to it.
[00:52:01.893] Maria Rakusanova: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Kent. And yeah, I'm looking forward to having you at the festival and experiencing some of these multiplayer experiences with you diving in. Thank you.
[00:52:17.074] Kent Bye: So that was Maria Rakushanova. She's the curator and executive producer of Raindance Immersive. So I have a number of different takeaways about this interview is that first of all, Well, there have been a lot of different film festivals and rain dance has been happening for a number of different years, but it's usually at the end of the year. And I just don't have the resources to fly to London to be able to see the selections there in person. But also at this time in the year, it's like the near the end of the year and things start to kind of wind down a little bit. So I'm more just trying to go through the content that I had already captured through the course of the year. And that's still true today in terms of just always having more content that I'm recording than I have the opportunity to put out there. So I'm still trying to get lots of different coverage and even from like the Venice Film Festival or Burning Man or other issues around privacy and what's happening with Facebook and everything like that. But what I'm excited about this is that there's different categories and different selections. And so you can kind of like watch everything in the category and then potentially, you know, see which one wins or be able to have discussions with other people about what you liked, what you didn't like, because there's lots of stuff that comes out and things get lost in the shuffle a lot of times. And so it's really nice to have someone like Maria go back and curate stuff that may be available or maybe you just miss or maybe this is a context under which that you set some time aside to go experience some of this content. And that is especially true for me because I'm covering stuff as it's happening and it's like, what do I cover? And I hear a lot of buzz about different experiences, but I just haven't had a chance to always check out stuff. And so this is a moment for me to pause and to go back and look at all these different experiences and to like, Dedicate like five hours going through like a VR chat world like the devouring So, you know, this is a window of opportunity for you to sort of look at this content That's already out there to maybe schedule some of the performances that are gonna be happening during the second week and so that'll be something that would only happening at a specific time that you kind of have to like schedule and get access to and there's gonna be other events that are happening and gatherings and and There's an award ceremony, but there's a VRChat world that launches on November 2nd. And so there'll be an opportunity to kind of like have this opening night party and you know, just to start to meet other creators. So you have some time to actually watch some of the content before you start to gather together with other folks. That's been another thing, which is a lot of times these film festivals, when you actually go there and there's co-located conference and there's different talks, you usually have a chance to see stuff and then you can listen to the creators as they're talking about it. But with these virtual conferences, you kind of have to like go and watch all the content so that by the time that you do meet with these other creators, then you get a lot more out of those discussions. If you go and meet with people without seeing the experiences, then it just makes it harder to really connect on a deeper level because you don't have any like immediate shared experiences that you need to unpack with each other. And I think that's the key thing that I'm not sure if anybody's really figured that out yet when it comes to virtual conferences, especially when it comes to like the film festivals. And you would think that the film festivals would be the one area where this would be like a bit of a no brainer of just like having everybody have a shared experience and then getting together at some time to be able to talk about it. But for whatever reason, it's hard to like dedicate the time to go watch the experiences, even if they're freely available. and in the Raindance immersive there's going to be things that you may have to go buy on viveport or get a subscription to the viveport that will give you access to some of these things for free over the course of this festival so you can do a two-week trial to see all the viveport experiences so like maria said there's 50 hours of content which is way above and beyond any other immersive virtual festival that i've seen at least it's usually somewhere between 7 and 14 maybe up to 18 or 20 hours but 50 hours is quite a lot of content to get through. And so even though there's more time, there's like a lot more content. Now, some of those are games where you may not want to play through the entire game and you just get a sense of what they're trying to get at by playing, you know, a half hour, hour of it. It may not have to be a completionist and play everything. But over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be diving into a lot of these different experiences. And so I just encourage the broader immersive community to also dive in. There's a lot of good stuff that's happening here at Rain Dance Immersive. Also, the 5Rs 360 festival is happening until November 2nd. So that's another opportunity to see what Karim Leakey-Sanchez and James Bakanayo have been able to create with creating a WebXR based virtual conference where there's lots of 360 videos, kind of avant-garde experimental. There's a lot of really interesting stuff there that I actually don't see curated in a lot of other film festivals and so 360 video as a medium is kind of neglected and not really paid attention to. There's not a 360 video selection here in Raindance this year and there's an expansion to other areas like immersive worlds and VRChat. So yeah, definitely check out what's happening with 5Rs before November 2nd. And then now Raindance is also available. So there's lots of different content material. And yeah, I just really trust that in the future, we're going to see a lot more of this type of thing. You know, the world that Maria built for Raindance, at the end of it, she has these portals into the competition worlds for VRChat. And so it's a VRChat world that links off to other VRChat experiences that she's curating. So I expect to see this a lot more in the future where you're building worlds to be these portals into these other worlds. And you start to have world builders be these curators to these worlds where you don't necessarily have to have a timed festival. But I do think there's value in having this model where it's like, OK, from this time period, we're going to be having these experiences that are available. And it's the film festivals that have that exclusive ephemeral nature to them that makes it an event that we have to be there and you have to see it. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to see it. And so in this case, there's going to be certain performances that you may not ever get to see again, just because their existing run has either come to an end or they don't get an extended run or there's no other context for them to be shown. So a lot of really interesting experiments that are happening within these festival contexts. And so just put it on your radar that some of this is happening over the next couple of weeks, lots of experiences to go check out and, you know, check out some of the different categories and see if you are interested in any of them. There's going to be content on the Oculus Quest on the Vive port and other places as well. I'm gonna be a juror looking at different stuff, so I'll just have access to a lot of this stuff, I'll be watching it, and maybe even doing some interviews with folks as well, because there's just a lot of really interesting stuff that's available. One of the challenges that I find with covering film festivals is that an experience is only available for that small amount of time, and it's kind of like a performance, a theater performance, that other people won't get a chance to see. And so it becomes a challenge to cover, because as a listener, you won't have the opportunity to have your own direct embodied experience of those things that I'm covering. It breaks this loop where if it is available, then you can go experience it and then compare and unpack it. And I think it just makes these different types of conversations more valuable. But sometimes the conversations that I have with these creators is the only artifact for that performance. And I think it's still important to get out there. Yeah, I think it's preferable, for me at least, for people who are listening to be able to have their own experiences with these things. So anyway, the Braindance Immersive is happening now. It's starting on Wednesday, October 28th until Saturday, November 7th. So check out the lineup and then start diving in and maybe I'll see you there in the VRChat world here in the next couple of weeks. So, that's all that I have for today, and I just wanted to thank you for listening to the Voices of VR podcast, and if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a listener-supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring you this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
