Y Combinator Startup Podcast - #90 - Jessica Brillhart

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

Jessica Brillhart is the founder of Vrai Pictures. They’re an independent immersive content studio.Before founding Vrai, Jessica was the Principal Filmmaker for VR at Google.The YC Podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.***Questions 00:23 - Starting VRAI10:23 - Story in film vs. VR12:38 - Gaming19:53 - Conditions at Omaha - The Weather Channel in VR22:38 - Jessica's upcoming projects27:48 - Andrew Peterman asks - How long until we'll be able to create 3D 360° video from cell phone hardware+amazing software?30:13 - Matt asks - Where do you see VR in 10 years?30:28 - Michael Hodapp asks - Does VR still have long term mass adoption potential, or will the market shift to AR?32:23 - Will people be in VR for a significant percentage of their time in the future?40:58 - Virginia Pigato asks - How can a traditional storyteller adapt to vr?50:13 - Can Olcer asks - What key but non-obvious thing is missing for VR to become mainstream?52:08 - Matt MacVey asks - What are some of the most exciting or scariest parts of social VR and what is the storytelling potential of social VR?55:38 - Tony Cassara asks - What kind of dog do you have?

Hey, how's it going? This is Craig Cannon and you're listening to Y Combinators podcast. Today's episode is with Jessica Brillhart. Jessica is the founder of Vry Pictures and they're an independent immersive content studio in New York. Before founding Vry, Jessica was the principal filmmaker for VR at Google. You can see your work at VRAI.Pictures. All right, here we go.

So you started your company this year and why? Great question. So I this actually ties into my past actually. So I was at Google for eight years. I started as their first filmmaker with the Creative Lab. I moved on five years later into the Google VR on the Google VR team, which is now the Google AR VR team. I don't know.

They might be different now. I don't know. But the, so I became the principal filmmaker for VR at Google, which again, talk about titles. It's like the fanciest of titles. It was very cool. So I helped develop some jump, which was their VR live action kind of capture ecosystem for live action, VR footage.

And I was making stuff and working with the engineers. And the more that I was working there, I think I found it was very, very tough to be reactive. In the beginning, it was super easy because it wasn't like VR was still pretty new and no one really knew what we should be doing with it yet. And then once it started to solidify, it was much harder to turn the big ship. towards the things that I thought were important. Namely, you know, I thought that there was something, some really interesting parallels between the machine learning team

and the Google Brain team and also what was happening on the VR team. And just in the terms of the mediums, how similar they were both in how they've become more present in our lives, how they both kind of were like, everyone was really excited and then, oh, no, it doesn't work. And then it was like, wait, we found this weird thing that actually makes it work great. So like for VR it was like cell phone technology. Actually we have it in our pocket. We can make this stuff work.

And with machine learning, I was like, right, logic is wrong. Like it's actually preventing us from doing the right thing. And then teaching these systems how to learn. And so suddenly they both are on this trajectory. And from a creative standpoint, you could see some really interesting stuff coming from both teams. And I felt that there was a lot of ways that we could work together on stuff. I also felt that there were lots of interesting pockets of, artistic pockets where we could create content.

It wasn't going to be like, you know, with the big studios. It wasn't going to be like the big IPs. It was really going to be in these places that needed it probably more than Hollywood. And, you know, like thinking about ways that it could be functional and helpful for people. Yeah. But also be artistic. Like it didn't have to be boring. It's not just functional.

Yeah, precisely. Like function is actually good because like films actually serve a function serves of purpose, you know? And so VR could also do it. Any sort of immersive content can. So I felt it was all, and I had before also worked with, I had worked on some stuff kind of envisioning what the future would be like when glass was around.

Yeah. And it clearly worked because everyone now is wearing glass, so we're great. But the, so for me it was like I'm really interested in this other layer of immersive stuff. But I also believe that it's not one technology or another technology. I believe it's all kind of going towards something. They're all going to work together. So a combination of that belief. and wanting to be more reactive and honestly just working on the stuff that I felt was important to me to work on.

Once that all sort of became more clear, I felt that once I had left Google, the best course of action for me was to actually create my own company. And so Vray Pictures is the company, Vray for short, and has all the letters in it. Yeah, meaning V-R-A-I. V-R-A-I. So I didn't want all the letters in my name because I always thought that that was a little weird for me. I mean, it exists in the ecosystem. And some people wear it really nicely.

For me and my company, I was like, I don't know. I don't know if I want that. And then I was in Paris with my partner and he had said, I had asked him, you know, what's the word for true? And he had known I was looking for a name. So he immediately was like, hold on. and he took a pen and he wrote it down. He goes, that's what it is. And the word for true in French is VRA.

So V-R-A-I means true and actually means real, depending on how you use it. So at that point, you're like, okay, well, I can't not. And so, you know, this makes absolute sense. And so I started the company in January, and it really does, in a very odd, eerie, but wonderful way, reflect the stuff that I care about, which is how all these letters, all these, you know, you can pick it apart even and think, you know, it's, it's visual arts, it's mixed reality,

it's all this, all these various things that we, we talk about will all come together, work together in really wonderful ways and actually lead to whatever this new immersive environment will be. And I think, you know, right now we're seeing each as like these separate paths and I think it's really not going to matter. I think you see the same thing happens in science. It's happening right now where like, you know, physicists and mathematicians and CS people are all learning Python. Yeah.

And like it's converging into one thing. Right. Just through computers. Right. So like it may be your deep deep dream project is like the most like clear example. I think it is. Yeah. I mean, that was really funny because that's sort of so in Seattle, so the jump team I think is

still in Seattle. I don't know. But they, so the engineers that are working on the, like, the computer vision people that are working on the Google, like, live action VR rigs, are planted in Seattle at the same office. And it used to be on the same floor as, as the, um, uh, Google machine learning team that was, uh, literally adjacent, like next to each other. Never really, not intentionally, uh, kind of, well, they're both computer vision teams. Okay. So I think that was the whole, that was the reasoning behind. I don't know. But, I would visit the Seattle team, and then I was fortunate enough to make friends with this particular machine learning team, AI team. I was run by this guy, Blaze Aguirre, E. Arquez, who's amazing.

So him and some friends of mine who were working on this team were literally sitting two feet away from us. And I had gotten an email from Clay, actually, on the Google VR team saying, ARVR team or whatever, had emailed me and put me in touch with them saying, you know, they're actually, they're announcing deep dream. They really need a video person to help them out. And so, you know, they're asking me what I had. I originally just showed them stills of the stuff that I actually filmed in VR. And we started having this conversation around, well, I was trying to push on them the idea that, well, if you're able to dream up on top of my, the stills of these VR. clips, then surely you could do it in such a way that we can actually experience it in VR. Yep. And it was a bit of a back and forth being like, well, the fidelity might not be that great.

It'll be low res. I don't know if it's going to be interesting. And then finally, they, they, uh, Doug Fritz, who was working on the team at the time. And he, he actually gave it a shot, um, worked his magic. And we were like, oh, this is actually kind of compelling. Yeah. Um, we don't know what it is. I mean, we're just like dreaming up on stuff.

And it was really fun because I think there was no expectation. It didn't fit on a roadmap. It was literally just us working together to see what we can come up with. And we actually worked with Ross Goodwin on having his system, which was trained on Faulkner and Vonnegut separately, to actually write prose about what it saw. And then it would recite it on using this voice, Myra, which is an Irish-speaking.

Irish dialect speaking Apple voice, Apple, you know, MacOS voice, which made it really just unbearable because it was like, and we both sort of like, this is kind of interesting, but it's like it sort of calls to mind like less is more in a VR space. Yeah. It's like once everything's like kind of acid trippy, like hearing this like Irish American speaking fabricated lady speaking Vonnegut interpretations to you, just doesn't, isn't ideal.

Right. It's kind of hell on earth. So we, we sort of used it with caution. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it makes sense when you like change out every variable, it just completely throws you for a loop.

Yeah. Because it's all kind of close, but sort of nonsensical. It is. I mean, I think what's great about what Ross does is that it actually does, it is very poetic, but it gets dark very quickly.

Oh. Because, well, Vonnegut, Vonnegut's a little bit more upbeat, but Faulkner is like, You know, like, so I consider her as she because I hear Myra all the time. Yeah. But it's she sort of says these phrases that are like sometimes kind of like normal, normalized about like the world.

Like, you know, a man with a hat on a hilltop. You know, why is he there? What is, you know, she'll go off on that. And then she'll be like, the darkness. It looms. It looms for me or something. We're all just like, this is weird. Again, it's like us interpret.

I mean, what's interesting is that there's, it's all pretty surface stuff. And the depth is stuff that we bring to it, which I really thought. I think that part to me is very fascinating. Like how we interpret it is really where the story, where the emotional, like, foundation comes from. So this is actually like a big topic I wanted to jump into, which is like framing, right? So in cinema, obviously it's a director or cinematographer. working together to create the picture that transmits a story to you. Sure.

But in VR, like, obviously you have a certain amount of control. But how do you think about that, like the framing in the storytelling? Oh, so I don't think it's storytelling. And I think that's the main problem is that people think, you know, I think story is extremely important to the medium. I think storytelling is kind of like, it's sort of like you want to get to something that's important. So you take a pill.

to make you feel that way. Like, say like a sleeping, I need to go to sleep, I need something to help me to sleep, somebody take a sleeping pill. I don't have to recommend that. I'm not saying that's something you should do. It's just something that some people do. I think storytelling is the act of taking that pill.

So it's like, yeah, you may take that pill. You might exercise before you go to bed. It's a means to an end, but it itself is not the end. And so for film, storytelling was the way that you got to story. And a lot of mediums, the telling part was actually really important because you couldn't actually take those people and put them where you were thinking.

And now you're in a medium where you can. So telling doesn't really work anymore. You don't need that. It's like if you think of it as, you know, kinetic versus potential story, right? So kinetic is storytelling. It's the idea that actively I am trying to take you and put you over there. So it's this kind of active thing that's occurring. For VR, the way that I've been looking at it is it's more potential story.

It's, I'm crafting worlds that you, where you, when you go there, the story is something that you can decode. Right. So it's like how do these worlds transmit the story or represent the story? Right. So that no matter how you interact with that world, you're able to sort of decipher or get to the core values of what that story is trying to transmit. Okay. It's a bit in the same line as in like an Aesop fable in a way. It's like slow and steady wins the race.

If that's what you're going for, it's not about the turtle or the bunny. It could be anything. It's about that's the core value of the story. That's what we want the takeaway to be. And so in my mind in VR or any immersive content, if you can get that piece, that truth transmitted to that person, it doesn't matter what kind of experience they have. They walk away with what was most important to you in the first place.

And how do you think about that in the context of video games? Do you think that is just a transition to immersive content? Do you think it's there for certain games already? I think certain games provide, what's interesting about games for me, is this idea of flow, which is, it's very musical in nature. The best games are where they give you the capacity to explore at your leisure.

You know, some of my favorite games have been like something like Mist. You know, I actually love Red Dead Red Dead redemption a lot because, you know, yeah, okay, it's really stressful. This like, this like rail that we're pointing you on. Maybe you just want to take a break and train some horses over there. And that's fine. And then you can duck back into the story when you want to. to this idea that you can be in a completely explorable place. You can do all sorts of things that you want.

But then there is this rail that you could go on and duck in and out of. I think that to me is very compelling. Mist had that same sort of rail as well. It is definitely a different kind of game if it's like, okay, you do have this and that's all you can do and you can't move forward until you do that. Like a Super Mario Brothers is a great example. Any of the earlier games. Literally.

Literally. Side-scroller. Sure. And I mean, I think that's something that we need to be aware of as creators in the space, too. When we talk about games, we don't meet, it's not a catch-all. Like, different games serve different purposes. Pong's different than Super Mario Brothers, which is different than Mist, which is different in some ways, or a lot of ways, from Red Dead Redemption, too. Like, Red Dead Redemption, at least, gives you, you know, elements that are used to dealing with.

Like, it works sort of similarly the way the world works. Like, okay, that's a gun. that's an evil person. It's easy to kind of decipher it. In mist, the whole point was that you had no idea what you were doing. You're pulling lever. The first thing you do is there's a book on the ground and then you go and then there's a lever and you don't know what the lever freaking does. You pull it and nothing happens. And you're like, is this going to be the rest of the game? Yeah. And it is. I don't really know what these things do. And many of those games like pre-internet were so hard. Now you just go on YouTube and it takes two minutes to figure out what you're doing.

Yeah, I know. I know. Actually, one of my, there was an old game from the 90s called Amber Journeys Beyond, which is actually, it's been an inspiration on a recent project. And it's really great because there's some, well, it was just a really great game. It was sort of a missed-ish copy made by two guys. I don't think they made anything after that.

But they ended up, well, you can't play it anymore, unless they have an emulator and a piece of hardware that will help you run it. but there's a bunch of play-throughs on YouTube and I actually sat there with a glass of wine and literally watched my like, I remember, it was such a beautiful experience actually

where I'm like, okay, I actually love watching other people play these games and the commentary is really beautiful too. I think one of my recent, one of my recent favorite games is from Davy Reed and The Beginners Guide. It's wonderful because it literally sets it up and says this is a 45-minute game. Because most of these games, you're like,

I don't know if it's going to take up my life. But it's basically you're on rails, but it's him, and he kind of gives you, he voiceovers in. It's about this other game creator who's created kind of these weird psychological, like very basic games. So like, it's weird.

It's like he builds this character that you never see, and this character is someone you explore through the pieces of games as his character has made. And Davy is taking you through it as if he knows this person. But then you start to question whether or not this narrator actually knows this person or not, or if this person gave Davy the permission to showcase his games like this. So suddenly you start to question everything as you're going through this kind of game play. I think it's really brilliant.

I think any game that kind of takes the format and then through the interactive, through the interactivity, through your agency, kind of makes you feel these different things. I think that's a huge win for games, especially, and I think that is where immersive needs to go. Florence, which I think just won the Apple Design Award for best designed game. This guy, Ken Wong, who was the designer on Monument Valley as well,

started his own company in Melbourne. He's an amazing creator, and he, this game, Florence, is all about using, you use your phone the way that you would normally use, your phone. But the story, you feel for the story based upon the way that you would feel for conversations and interactions with your phone. So moments of frustration is like, you know, not hearing back from the person for like three minutes. Yep. Like that kind of thing. Like latency, all those things. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Like how fast you, like how you reveal things. Like the whole idea of swiping. It's just very smart. And I think that's the thing. It's not, we try to shove

a lot of this stuff through preconceived notions and conventions where embracing how technology works now and using those limitations as a means of telling a story in some capacity or understanding a story in some capacity. I think that to me is really fascinating. Have you played the game? This is really embarrassing because I met the creator. I think it's called like Black Box or something, the iPhone game, where it's all the puzzles. So for instance, like one of the puzzles, you have to put your phone in a freezer and the temperature has to hit a certain amount. And then you unlock it. That's brilliant.

Yeah. I mean, it's stuff like that where I'm like, that's just so, because it makes you question your, like, relationship with a device. Totally. You know, and I think that's an interesting thing because that the, the, that story is potentially as good as some of the films that you've seen. Of course. You know, and it, again, it's like, it's not one to one, but it still gets you to the same place mentally and emotionally. Yeah. So, so, okay.

So when you left Google, did you have a. project in mind or were you just going to client stuff? I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I just knew that I needed to go. I think that what I ended up doing first was I kind of got a lay of a land, sort of explored what other people were doing, talked to some folks, thought about the things that I wanted to do.

I think for me, I needed a little bit of time to sort of get a sense of what was out there. It's difficult because when you work for a company for that long. You're like, oh, okay, like my problem was water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink, kind of, where it's like, oh, I have all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. But I can't do anything with it. And then one of my limitations was like, beyond that was, you know, I had seen where interactivity was going. I had a lot of ideas for that.

I could see where augmented reality in VR could talk to each other, where machine learning techniques and VR could talk to each other. I couldn't do any of that other other than the stuff that I could kind of sneak through. I think in frustration I made what I believe to be sort of like a VR gift type thing, which was the Weather Channel project that I did. That was my favorite one. I don't need to be down on you

because I know there are really ambitious ones, but that was my favorite. Yeah, it's most people's favorites because they get it. It's like immediately apparent. And it's also like it's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of the things that people are always asking was,

well, how do we make comedy in VR? And they try to bring comedians in. And I'm like, it's not, It doesn't have to be a literal thing. You know, it does not have to be like slap sticky or like here's, you know, freaking like Jerry Seinfeld telling you a joke. Like it's literally just like what what is the human condition? Like what have we created for ourselves in light of spaces and experiences that are just inherently funny?

Yeah. And the Weather Channel just happens to be like watching the Weather Channel is one of those things. Oh, totally. It was very adult swim. It's like, that's a little infomercials. Yeah, it was really great. And I think that to me, and I made that in a day. Yeah, that's not surprising.

Yeah, no. But I mean, but considering how long it usually takes to make VR, it's insane. And I can show it to anyone on my phone. I don't care if they watch it on YouTube in low res or high res. Like, it's one of those things that you could just show anyone. And I love that stuff. And I still think that that stuff is very important as well. So it was all that stuff and just this idea that I felt that I felt that I,

I yeah again being reactive seeing how everything works together creating a wide variety of stuff I think I did want to but I also really wanted to create like I had to work in a three-d-off environment or like a 360 stereo environment

which for me was actually really great because it forced me to understand how something like just looking around was still very interactive. It wasn't, because I think that

and how we actually experience a space and how those spaces engage with us, that is an important part of this medium. I don't know if I wouldn't necessarily come to that conclusion if I had immediately like volumetric and sixth off and you can, you know, you can speak whale. So for me, I think that was, it was important to have those limitations

so that I could see within, or I could explore within the medium, just some of the basic building blocks of what made it so special. But that said, I really wanted to make volumetricistic stuff, whale calling VR experiences. I just wanted to do more. And I wanted to work with different technologies and different VR companies and really expand what I was doing. And I felt as someone who was in the space early enough and who had the fortune of sort of being around the medium and its sort of second resurgence, I felt that I had the opportunity at that. moment to actually do some good. Yeah.

So what's coming out next? So I can't, yeah, I was thinking about what I could talk about. And I can't, I feel like I, I've been told I need to be patient and probably not talk about anything yet. But I think I can say that one of the things that has been really amazing is, um, uh, the response to me going solo is, was really, was pretty good. I mean, it was like, I got so many people coming up wanting to work with me and, you know, pretty like big names and IPs and so on.

So the projects that I have, I can say that there are four projects. One is with a pretty big IP, which is a series, which we're in development with right now. I'm still working out how that will work, but we're excited about it. And I feel like that's really interesting because that's both, it's something that explores the biopic and how we reimagine that sort of experience in VR in a way that that feels like a journey. It feels like you're going somewhere special. So that that's sort of the crux of the series. That would be awesome because biopics are so bad usually. The music ones are so disappointing every time. Well, the first one out of the gate will be a music one. Great. So that should be

that should be fun. Hopefully you blow the doors off of it. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. No, I think, But it's difficult because I think music has a, I mean, has a capacity to transcend and be emotionally valuable as well. And so I think that for me was an important part. Plus this particular person is a very epic cultural icon. So it's a wonderful, it's been a very interesting experience getting to know who this person is on a deeper level, many levels. The second project's with an architect who's pretty well known. And it's sort of a combination of, it's more exploratory kind of figuring. out what we should be doing with his work. Third is a game, a fringe game,

probably more in the weather channel sphere, which I'm very excited about because it's ridiculous. And I think, but I feel like there would need to be a game that was more like what kind of helped do what Pong did for folks, where, you know, I wanted to have a game that was simple enough that people could all understand and play. And would be also sort of an introduction to like what immersive stuff was. Is that not Pokemon Go?

Pokemon Go to me is still a bit complex for folks. Like I feel like it's, it's, I think it totally helped people get the hang of things. I'm thinking about like what can be uniquely VR. Like, you know, like not taking an original IP like a, like a Pokemon. Sure, yep. It's more like, can we create something that is from the ground up, something that would, was built for this space. Okay.

Based upon, like, thinking about the way the defaults are built. Thinking, like, thinking more in that, like, kind of retrograde, like, basic geometry world. Oh, all right. Yeah. And not, not, like, complex character world. Yeah. But complexity comes with it.

Longer conversation. So, and I think the fourth, what is the fourth one? That one. Sorry, I'm trying to think. It's really hard to keep them straight. Oh, that's okay. And the fourth one, the fourth one is actually an immersive audio project. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, right.

Next question. But I also, but real quickly, I think that immersive audio is great. I think we've talked about this before. I feel that there's, you know, as the visual fidelity changes all the time. And as someone who creates in the space, it's annoying because like every time a headset comes out, you have to react support. Like specifically for live action. I think it's probably a little bit easier.

Yeah. For probably, I'm going to hear back from people being in Ketanadi's here in volumetric or sixth off. But the, but the audio guys are like, we good. You know, like just like lean back.

Like, yeah, I'll re-export it as whatever kind of like, you need a 5.1 here. You need like, you know, like what kind of ambasonic, what kind of spatialized like file format.

And it's very, I'm not, this is not to, they are extremely talented. Like the right, the people who are talented are amazing. Of course. The people who know how to do it are incredible.

Yeah. Um, it just feels like that stuff is so important in terms of selling you being in a space. And it's, again, people were trying to think of it second. So I want to be part of the, I want to help lead the charge and like it's first for me. Yeah. I totally agree with you. Like that's, uh, people don't realize that you could shoot this podcast on a motorola razor from 10 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. And then use these mics and that would be good enough. Yeah. Audio is so much more important than HD anything. It's F absolutely is. Yeah. And no one gives it any love.

No. I mean, like I'm thinking about the weather channel piece again. It's like Kenny G really hit it out of the park. Oh, of course. I understood that in one second. I was like, yeah, I get it.

Sold. Understood. Yeah. All right, let's go into all the Twitter questions. Sure. So first question. Sure. Andrew Peterman asks,

how long until we'll be able to create 3D, 360 video from. from cell phone hardware and some kind of software, ballpark guesstimate. Oh, I mean, you can kind of do that now. Yeah. I think it's pretty good already. Yeah. It's a storytelling challenge or not, whatever.

What's the word you want to use? No, storytelling. I mean, I can speak to what is the, what's the question? No, I mean, the question is like, rather than storytelling, what would you prefer to say? Oh, oh, God. I don't know. World building. That's the one that I can think of.

It's weird. Again, it's like the director question. We don't really know what to call it. So we just, it can be anything. Close enough. Okay, cool. Story crafting. Narrative is good.

You know, creating a narrative. I'm trying to think back to all the decks I've made in the past couple months. And I think there are a few where I've definitely used narrative, story, crafting story, crafting experience, making experiences. I think time will tell. Yeah. Yeah. Not the most important thing. No, it's all semantics.

It's like you just make stuff that's meaningful. Oh, no, totally. It's like the hardest part is any creative person. You're like, dude, I know you want to put me in a box. So here's the box, but I'm going to do it. Yeah, that's been, I actually created this is, I love this because I haven't used this phrase in a while, but I came up with, in my earlier, my earlier days of working, I was trying to explain how I edited World Tour together.

And the thing that I had called it was probabilistic experiential editing, which the acronym is P. And I remember when I was putting this together for a presentation, I noticed it and I was like, either I can pretend like that's not the acronym or I have to call that shit out. And so I basically called it out. It was like, I know.

But in the beginning of every medium, you know, people are going to say some weird shit and it may not last, but here you go. And, yeah, people, actually the response was very positive. Because I think sometimes people are so serious, like, well, this is what this is called. Totally. And it's like, well, it doesn't have to be, it can be called anything.

We can call it cheeseburgers and it'd be like, of course. Yeah. And if you have the confidence and you make cool stuff, no one's going to be like, oh, that's not wrong. Like, Jessica's wrong. Yeah. Dude, I make the cool stuff. Another VR future question, Matt asks, where do you see VR in 10 years? I don't see it being called VR.

Okay. Sure. Like, I just don't see it. I think that it's all going to go to a different kind of place. I think, yeah, I think it'll be called something else. Related, Michael Hodap asks, does VR or whatever you want to call it, still have long-term mass adoption potential or will the market shift to AR, you know, so Magic Leap, Apple Glasses, stuff like that? No, I think, I mean, that's already happened in a lot of ways. Like, I think you can see that just in the shift of Google's, like the team's name.

It's like it was Google, it was cardboard than Google VR and then Google VR air and then Google AR VR. So it's like, you know, they don't relieve. It's like people are still, they're trying to be like, okay, what's going to be the most, what's going to be the easiest thing for people to grok? There's part of, there's an AR project that I'm working on, or we'll hopefully be working on, that is similar where it's, you know, everyone has phones in their pockets. Everyone can download apps. So there are these two things that are like easy enough for people to grok where it's like,

okay, I get it. Totally. It's not like I have a new piece of hardware. that I have to learn. I think that I still have a hard time finding compelling content in the AR sphere as well. So I think similarly to like where VR is going to be in 10 years, I think that a lot of these technologies, which are by themselves, have weaknesses, weak spots will when together kind of fulfill each other's gaps, fill each other's gaps.

So like you can imagine, okay, AR is great because it's the most accessible thing. Yeah. You build a relationship with a particular app that leads you into the VR space because now you actually, because with VR, it's like you kind of need people to care enough to want to do it. So if you have an AR experience that is compelling enough, that does speak to you on some emotional level and the fact that a VR experience can be there to help like expand upon that. Like that's a simple like off the top of my head way that those two could work together. Yeah.

Is it compelling to you the notion that in pick a number of years people will be in. VR for a significant percentage of their day. I mean, people kind of are, aren't they? I mean, with computers and cell phones. Like, we spend so much time on the internet. I mean, if you really wanted to, you could probably go to that level of like, well, we do, we spend so much time not here as it is. Yeah.

So it's like, I mean, we've seen the effects of that in some way. It hasn't destroyed us, but it has sort of, it's had ramifications to the way that we work, live, have relationships and so. Right. So I think I had a, I think I told you that story about the hedgehogs and the, like the plasma screens. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I went to the lounge at Heathrow, and I saw these plasma screens with these hedgehogs on them for some sort of AI system advertisement. And I'm thinking like Blade Runner called this in a very, you know, kind of semi-dispopic way.

Like look at it's just everywhere and it's all over the place. And I'm like, it still is. It just has hedgehogs on it. So it's probably not going to be anything that's good. to just, it's not, it's probably not, we destroy humanity. Like, we do a great job doing that. Oh, yeah, we're on track. I think the technology itself is something that challenges the way that we exist and will

provide us with, with ways to, to have conversation around that. I don't think it itself will be the cause of any sort of insane thing. I, I, I'm actually not, like, I'm not negative about it. I think people are just interested in altering their perception. And, like, you mean, you see it when people, like, watch folks. on Twitch. I think you see it with like, you know, deprivation tanks. Yeah. Yeah.

Really awesome. They are amazing. I mean, that, to me, that's what's so great about, like, with people are like, oh, when you go into VR and you do a billion things, I'm like, no, you don't do anything. Yeah. I mean, like, sometimes people just want to hang out. Oh, for sure. And just like, chill for a second.

And that's the thing. I think that's very valuable for, you know, for VR right now, at least, is the idea that you can focus. Yeah. And it does have that meditative quality. That's really great. I also think the potential for having it at hospitals, having it at places where people are there sitting anyway, and it's awful. Like, the idea that you can have someone in a VR experience and not feel so bad is a great idea.

My dad, I gave my dad an Oculus go recently. He loves it. My mom's been taking photos of him using it. He fell asleep in one, which was really pretty entertaining. And to me, that's how I know it's going to be fine. Because, I mean, it's just, it's just, it looks, he's fine. Like, it's just him being like, yeah, I was watching this thing and I fell asleep. I don't know what he was watching.

I didn't ask. It was just in case it was my project. But I think that there's something really, there's something really sweet about that where it's like, it's, it's just another thing for us to experience the world. Yeah, just falling asleep in front of your TV. Yeah, I don't think. A book or whatever. Yeah, I don't, like precisely. Like, I do think that there's, for example, I actually realize I, I need.

needed glasses when I was starting to make VR because I couldn't rectify the, I couldn't, the stereo disparity. No, no, stereo disparities. So I couldn't actually, it took me a while for me to see my left and right eye for close up, like text, wouldn't match. So they'd still seem like they weren't working. And I sent it to an engineer and I said, you know, is my text right? Because it doesn't seem to look right.

And he looked at, apparently looked at it and said, oh, you know, you're like, well, you know, the font's kind of weird. And I was like, what do you mean the font? Does it work or does it? And he's like, oh, yeah, no, it looks great. He's like, are you sure your eyes are okay? And I went to an eye doctor and sure enough, I had like a stigma thing. So now I'm funny.

Yeah, it's weird. So, I mean, even that kind of, like I feel like there's some interesting ways of how, there's the, there are all sorts of things that will come to the surface from once people start to like actually adopt and experience. this stuff more. I do think from a VR standpoint, like right now people are sitting there with their VR headsets doing this kind of thing.

Just like watching. But, you know, all the headsets are going towards volumetric, like, you know, position wireless. So I imagine there being, you know,

a much more interactive, much more engaging. Like you're not going to sit there. You're going to actually move around. Have you been to that? I think it's in like Utah or Las Vegas. It's like some laser tag type thing where you have a VR headset on?

Oh, it's the, it's, oh my God, why am I blanking on it? Yeah, they have a Star Wars experience, too. I'm going to get reamed for this. I don't remember the name of this company, but it's, yeah, they basically do, like, kind of location-based entertainment. They have a Gus Busters thing also that was here in the city. I don't know. Okay.

They, yeah, they do, I really feel bad about this. I want to say Valve, but that's not true at all. It's like all the game talk. I feel like they actually, yeah, I think that stuff's really cool. I think it fits within, again, it's like it's a different genre of VR for me, where I feel like that's a very, what they've figured out. You have to dedicate like a space for that kind of thing because what you're doing is you're letting people seemingly move through a whole experience.

And I do believe that taking that first step in a VR space for a lot of people is really, it's a powerful, it's a powerful thing to feel. We were running some very, very basic, like, if we took the 360, like, World Tour film that I made, if we put it in a space and, like, kind of created, like, even if it was like a rudimentary, like, box with, like, what the floor would look like and gave you space to move. I mean, I did that, and I almost, like, I was very emotional for me

because I remembered what it was like to be there on a level that, seeing it couldn't do anymore. Like you would see it and be like, yeah, I was there. And then you move, you're like, no, but I was really there. And that's where it's like, holy shit. Like when we're able to actually capture our own personal moments like that where we can relive them, that to me is like kind of... Terrible?

Perhaps, yeah. I mean, I've said it before where it's like, okay, you know, part of the human experience is that we forget. Of course. So when you can't forget anymore, what happens? when you can't like where you're because I don't I believe in the sanctity of experience and the human experience that's my own opinion on it I don't think that we should have all of the world's experiences accessible to people all the time I think that's a that's a terrible idea and I don't

like the way that that's been marketed as such like I think that there are there are things that are poetic to forget and should be forgotten in some way and I worry that that my worry of this is that it goes in the opposite direction where everyone's like, remember everything, like experience everything. Of course. Access to everything.

Yeah, once we index all of our memories, it would be perfect. Totally. Completely discreet. There's like a romance to the feeling. For me, as long as there's hedgehogs on a plasma screen

saying AI systems and it's an, like I, as long as those exist in that kind of way, I think there's hope. Yeah. Because it's like, that actually brings it to a place where it's like this stuff is being adopted,

but in a way that's like essentially harmless. It's like once you start thinking, once you start getting to the bare bones of like why people are trying to do this, like what the end goal is for some of this stuff, that stuff gets a little weird. But like I think right now we're in a really nice, we're in a reasonably nice place with some of this.

Well, I think it's like VR AI, whatever you, or not VRAR. So it's bringing people. joy at this point. So I don't think it's really seeded fear in ways that other technologies have. I think, you know, you, it's, we were talking about this. Like, it's, it's, it's only AI until it's cleaning your floors and then it's a Roomba. Yeah. And there was just like my, my friends. You know, it's like, we have so much, like, AI intelligence systems around us now. Um, I speak to Google Home every day. I would, you know, I speak to Siri occasionally. Like, it doesn't, it's fine.

It doesn't even doesn't phase me at all to do that. But ask me five years ago if I would talk to a little speaker in my kitchen and ask it to set the timer for me for grilling, it would be like, I wouldn't really understand what I was talking about. It would be like, that's weird.

Yeah. Let's go into the craft. So Virginia Pagato asks, how can a traditional storyteller adapt to VR? And actually, I don't know this about you either. Were you making films before? Yeah. So I was a filmmaker.

So a quick background on my life was that I, I was a film. I studied film at NYU. Oh, okay. And at the same time, I was running across the street to the Kron Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Oh, okay. So you know Karrant. So I was there and I got a minor in computer applications.

not computer science because I got to Pearl and I hated it so I was like no way in hell am I going to like spend my time doing this. It knows me so much. The languages

like turn people off. I can't stand it but I so I would go back and forth between these two schools. I didn't know about ITP. Never heard of it. Me neither. And if I had I would have totally gone there.

So it was this kind of so I went to both schools did that. I had a short, I worked at Apple for a little bit. I worked at a place code UV factory has their lead editor for a bit

And then I ended up at Google. And Google was, it was always like that back and forth, like science, art, science, art. And then technology film, I guess, were the two. And then Google had a position open for a filmmaker or film. It was like film editor at first, but then it turned into filmmaker when I got there. So I started working there with the creative lab, which at the time was like 10 people. The one in Chelsea? Yeah, exactly.

And now has become like a huge and very, it's a very important part of Google. actually. They create magical things about the brand and like they they kind of tell Google's story about their products. And I was part of that, you know, how do we use films? How do we, how do be artful about these films? So it's not talking heads and engineers that look really nervous. So I ended up working with them for five years before I went to VR. And actually the VR team, the people that were working on the camera, I think, found that it would be better if they just tried to look internally to see if someone could use the rig so they wouldn't have to relax. on external stuff would be more cost effective to try to find me than, you know.

So, and I remember they had emailed me. I actually kept the email because it was a huge turning point. Because I was actually feeling kind of bored, to be honest. Making film? Yeah, because it was a bit, like, again, it's that idea that I wanted to do more and I felt like I could do more. And then when the VR, I wasn't really interested in VR at all, to be honest. I just wasn't, I didn't think it was for me.

I didn't really think about it at all. But then a bunch of my friends started working in it, like Aaron Koblin, Chris Milk, started with Verse at the time, which is now within. Sashka Unseld, went to Oculus and started the story studio. So there are all these people that I had known who were starting to get more involved with VR, but again, I wasn't thinking about it.

And then, sure enough, I got invited to see this rig and experience the footage. And there was one clip that it was a test footage, a clip that the engineers had filmed of just themselves hanging out in Seattle. And it was brilliant. Like,

it was wonderful. Because I'm, I'm making films about these engineers and it's really hard, you know, I feel like I was mostly successful in doing it, but it was hard to get engineers to be... Just relax.

Yeah. Or just talk about what they love about this stuff. Because when they do, it totally makes sense. But I think they're used to like, well, I have to talk like this and I'm not, you know. So I had to like,

I have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah. No, I don't imagine you what. Yeah. But then I think seeing that, I was like, right, this is actually, this is the truth. Yeah. Of that. So to really quickly answer the question.

Yeah. How do traditional storytellers adapt to VR? Right. You abandon the telling. Yeah. As hard as that is. You think about what I do actually is I draw two X's. And in brackets, I write down what I want to, what, what the story that I want to tell.

Okay. And I use a whiteboard. I love whiteboards. I don't know if it's the Google thing, but I love whiteboards because it's like, it's non-precious. You can just like write and then erase it and it doesn't exist. So I, I write down, even if it's long-winded and crazy, I'll write down what I believe the story is.

And then I'll look at it and start to, uh, to hack away at it until I get to that truth statement. So I'll like it'll be some like if it was a tortoise in the hair, it's like the entirety of that narrative. And then it's like, you know, slow and steady runs the race might be the end, you know, result, you know. So I reduce. I kind of feel you're sort of sculpting at that point. You're sort of like, here's my, the story, the story I would tell is this big block of clay. Within that block of clay is the actual meaningful bit. Yeah. I mean, that's like the Michelangelo quote, right? It's like I see it in the marble and then I like bring it out.

Yeah, yeah. That's literally what you're saying. Okay. Well, then I think that's aim for that. And I also thinking about you know, as a, once you get to that truth, then it's really about holding. It's like your North Star. And it's about

for me after that, once you get to that, you have to also think about the flow of the experience. Thinking about the cadence, how people come into spaces, how they relate to other objects. to other people, thinking about the various elements that you want to bring into it. So it's layered thing. Thinking about the tech as well.

It's not film in the sense that, okay, you edit it in Final Cut or premiere or whatever, you export it, you put it on FTP and you send it to somebody, right? It's like the process is very much in flux. So a lot of the things you have to consider, who's my audience, where is this going to go, which headset, what kind of limitations? are there for the headset. Are they creative limitations? Are they annoying limitations?

And then you really have to understand how those limitations play into the truth that you're trying to transfer over. And again, thinking, how is that truth constantly represented in this experience? How do I make sure that regardless of where someone is engaged with, either what I believe is front, back, wherever? Like how is it, even at its worst,

still able to transfer that over to somebody? So yeah, it's a lot of like really the preemptive stuff. It's like kind of figuring out, you know, what are, what are the things I call it? Like what is, what is the, what is the superpower for the person in the experience? Like in a game. Oh, man. Okay. You know what I mean?

Like in a game, you're like, okay, I can jump. I can like throw a fireball if I have one. I can go this way, but not that way. So being, giving people the time to understand that first and foremost is also important. but understanding what those things are and how that evolves over time is part of the narrative too. And could like, I don't know if you, it's like the companion cube in Portal where you're given an object that's meant to help you and does help you. But then it's incinerated like three layers in because the computer like wants you to feel awful. And you do.

And it works. And so it's that kind of like when you're given this gift to do something incredible and then, you know, halfway through your, it's taken away from you. you. I don't know what. I don't want to spoil Red Dead Red Dead Redemption, but like, so sorry. Maybe it's pretty old at this point, right? Okay, so there's no, there's the second one coming out. So it's right.

But, you know, you're playing this character, John Marsacen, and you get to the end, and you realize that you can farm, like, you get your wife back and your kid back, and, you know, you've been trying to help the FBI as this outlaw for the entire game. You beat your kind of enemy, former colleague, and then they let you go. And you get your wife back and your kid back. You can farm. And then the FBI comes back in a rampage and kills you. And you can't win.

There's no like, and you're just like, holy shit. Like what happened? And then you die. That's it. And that's life. And that's life. And there's nothing you can do about it. And then for the last little bit, you play your son.

Oh, okay. And you play the son. And then your son is now taking revenge on his father's death. And it turns out, in a way, the whole Red Dead redemption is about the son. Reding. Not redeeming his father. Not the father redeeming whatever else, which is always a little bit, you know, like, I guess, like getting back to, at his gang for having abandoned him. I don't know.

But the real redemptions with the son. And that's when you're like, wow. Okay. That's when you're like, because you're suddenly like terrified. You're like, I did everything that I could and you did. Yeah. And you still failed. You still failed.

Right. Because life, that's sometimes life. And that's how you set up a second game. That's how you set up a second game. All right, let's go rapid fire through these questions. So Ken Ulster asks, what key but non-obvious thing is missing from VR to become mainstream? People not just focusing on entertainment in games.

I think that a lot of what I've been doing has, I mean, granted, one of the pieces I'm making is entertainment, but thinking about education, thinking about various other professions that could use it, infrastructure, architecture, like the other project I'm working on, thinking about, I don't know, where this stuff could actually be useful,

but then doing those things artfully. And I think that we kind of just try to focus on doing this one thing, and it forgets, like, but, you know, we could just find, be inspired by other places where, like, I've gotten, I've had people come up to me saying, like is VR important to us? And sometimes I'm like, I actually help them. I work through the stuff with them and I say, actually, no.

It's not useful. It might be useful in the future. But I think right now it's, it would be weird if you did it. Yeah. Well, I think this is a, you know, as technologies expand in popularity so quickly now, they just become hammers and people are looking for nails. Like blockchain. Yeah.

It's like, oh, we have a blockchain. Why? Why do you have that? No, it's for sure. It's like, this was driven by a. You're like, I don't think, A, I don't think it was. And be like, why would you do that? There's no reason.

Yeah, it's like kind of, you know, I think that that's, it's more figuring out where I, where you can have, where that stuff, that technology, myself included, where we could have, like, the most impact and still be creative and still explore. And I think people who really do want this from other sectors are also really open-minded, at least the people I've been working with, to explore those, how it could. be really interesting and wonderful for people. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

All right. Next question. Matt McAvey asks, what are some of the most exciting or scariest parts of social VR? And what is the storytelling potential of social VR? Also, what is social VR? Social VR is, well, it means a lot of different things. That's another kind of group thing.

Well, okay, so it's social could mean like, it's a way for your friends or followers to, basically it's about the idea of like sharing the experience with another person. That's ultimately what it means. So it could be like either you're represented by avatars in the space or it's multiple people being able to do the same experience at the same time. It could mean all those things at the same time too. I did alt VR.

I think that's what it's. Alt spaces. Sorry, alt space VR. And for the first time like I think a month ago, I just was curious. I just hadn't been able to do it for a while. And so I did it using the Oculus Go. And I was changing my avatar, like, because you're a robot.

And then you can be like three or four other things. And meanwhile, this couple comes along and they start talking to me. And I am looking over at them as they're talking to me and I'm still changing my avatar. And I kind of like give them a look and then I look away. And I, for me, because, you. You know, you're thinking, okay, it's a game, and it's not going to have. But then you realize there are actual people behind that. And I just probably look like someone who just gave them the cold shoulder, like, oh, it's you.

And just like, look, because I was like, I don't even know how to talk. I'm still a freaking robot. Like, I don't know how to do this. And I look in the distance and there's another robot and that robot's looking at a fire and it's hearting the fire because you can basically throw like emoticons at things. So it's like heart, heart, heart, heart. And like someone's throwing a stick. And all I could think of was.

this is beautiful. This is a beautiful thing. Because everyone's just like, I'm just going to try out a bunch of stuff. Of course. But this is probably where chat rooms were for like AOL back in the day where you're like, this is great.

We're all like one big happy family learning from each other. But then there's also like, then the creeper comes through and it destroys everything for everyone. So I think that the fear is that people, there are creepers out there. There are, you know,

there's been a lot of talk about, um, uh, you know, women being, in being mistreated in that space as well. I think the same patterns of what we've experienced before in digital space is probably going to be the same problems we would potentially deal with.

Yeah. Now. And again, it's more affecting because it's like it's trying to emulate real life to some extent. So these experiences are a bit more, they stick to you. It's kind of visceral. Yeah. Yeah. So we have to be very careful about that sort of thing.

I mean, it's one of the reasons why I think games with guns, guns are, I mean, it's hard because I think that VR experiences should not be following in the same footsteps of games in that regard. Because holding a gun to someone's head is very different than holding a controller so that that character can hold a gun to someone's. It's like, once you actually put a gun in the hands of a kid in a space, it starts to get, like, there's heavy responsibility there. And I think that's where we do. We need to be very careful and very responsive and how we create these things. Well, let's end on a happy note.

Yeah, please. So Tony Casara asks probably the most pertinent question. What kind of dog do you have? This is from your Twitter bio, I think. Right? You have a mention of dog, yeah. I have a German Shepherd mix. I adopted him when he was five months.

His name is Fisher. Right on. He's great. I actually, he hates VR. You put it on him? No. When I'm in VR, he gets very upset. He's just like, where'd you go?

Like, he's kind of like, but what about me? And I think for him, it's like, he's sort of used to it, but he does this whole, like, how to, he'll lay down in the middle of the floor near where I'm doing it and kind of huff. Like, I'm here. Yeah. But, yeah, he's cool. One of my favorite, talking about memories and so on like that. Like, I've actually, the benefit of having been able to work with the jump rig so early on was that I was able to take a lot of the prototypes. And I took one home.

Oh, cool. Yeah. And I filmed my family and my house kind of where, where I grew up, or actually where our parents moved after various other stints, other places. And there's a shot of me playing with my dog. And like just us like running around. And, you know, right now it's like, yeah, whatever. that's silly, that's dumb. But I imagine myself, you know, years from now, you know,

looking back and being very happy seeing that. And it's happened to me, too, you know, I've had, you know, one of my producers passed away. Actually, the person who worked on World Tour with me passed away, like a few years ago. And one of the things that I had to grapple with was, like, do I give his parents this VR footage? Is that okay?

And his, you know, we figured out a way to do that where there, He had a friend of his actually was working at John, and so his John friend was also there, kind of made sure they saw it. But it's that question, too, where it's like, it's so wonderful to have these experiences, like to be able to remember some of the things that matter to us a lot. And I think, you know, even though it's, you know,

what I'm trying to do is trying to combine these three different technologies or more. It's also about what's the conversation all this stuff will have with reality and how we live our lives. So I think I'm really excited to kind of keep exploring that stuff too. Me too. Well, thanks for making time. Yeah, thanks for having me on this podcast. Yeah, cool.

And thanks for the questions too. It was really good. Yeah, totally. The dog one too. One of the best. One of the best questions. All right. Thanks for listening.

So as always, you can find the transcript and the video at blog. combinator.com. and if you have a second, it would be awesome to give us a rating and review wherever you find your podcast. See you next time.