00:00:20:21 - 00:00:58:00 Jason Welcome to Frame Forward. I'm Jason Steele. Today we're going to be speaking with Michael Richard, who's going to talk to us a little bit about virtual reality and a little bit of Web 3 and what that looks like for filmmakers as we move forward into the future of filmmaking. So join me on this journey into virtual reality as we move one frame forward So I have with me today Michael Richard. 00:00:58:10 - 00:01:24:05 Jason He is the president of our local arts council. But he is also really steeped in things like virtual reality, crypto currency and a lot of really futuristic things. We might dive into a couple of those things. Just briefly tell us a little bit about yourself, Michael what what are you up to so that we get a sense of who you are first before we get into this? 00:01:24:08 - 00:01:46:15 Michael So I'm an actor. That was my background when I was a kid, although I've been extremely interested in 3D animation over the years watching films, but also just personal interest. I love video games and the whole technology was just so fascinating to me. As a kid. I was very passionate about building a video game when I was in middle school, but the technology just wasn't quite there yet. 00:01:47:06 - 00:02:01:06 Michael When it was coming out, it was getting more affordable, but it was still very expensive. Thousands of dollars for the software equipment also out of my price range. But I had a dream and over time, new things become available. 00:02:01:20 - 00:02:16:13 Jason Right. So tell me a little bit about. So video games as part of your journey what sorts of things have you seen in that realm of things as you've moved forward as a content creator? 00:02:17:09 - 00:02:40:09 Michael Well, as technology's improved, computer chips have improved, and so more and more capabilities are able to be built into video games that weren't when when they first were coming out. You know, Atari games were very simple. You know, even the Nintendo 64 was only 64 bits. You actually had to use an expansion pack to expand the memory of the Nintendo 64 just so you could play certain games. 00:02:40:17 - 00:03:09:15 Michael So that was pushing the limits of what was possible at the time. But the leap from 2D to 3D was such a pivotal moment for video games that it changed everything. And now just to make a simple 2D game is a is a style choice more than just that's all it is. You know, 3D games are becoming more immersive, more realistic, and creators can define whether they want to go that route, whether they want to go for realism or if they want to go for their artistic style. 00:03:09:22 - 00:03:21:00 Michael And video games have really become a lot like movies in a way, with the cinematic cut sequences and even the in-depth plots that are just so, so detailed and well-thought out. 00:03:21:17 - 00:03:43:08 Jason I remember the early days of when they began to integrate movies into video games. I remember your Sherlock Holmes game where it was it was video, and you would go through and you click a thing and it would go forward Or things like Dragon's Lair, where it was, You're watching this movie, this cartoon, and you would click left, right up, down, and it would change the direction. 00:03:44:05 - 00:04:09:16 Jason And so you were the movie was a game at the same time, and there was some really cool stuff there talking about going into more immersive stuff Virtual reality is kind of where we're we seem to be going towards right now. I maybe can you take us back a little bit through some of the history of virtual reality, some of the early things and where we're at right now and where you think we might be going? 00:04:09:17 - 00:04:10:19 Jason Let's see. 00:04:11:13 - 00:04:53:17 Michael Virtual reality isn't new. It's been written about for decades. It's been worked on for years. It was a very expensive in the beginning and it was very low quality. But virtual reality really took great strides forward being used in flight simulators and military type applications. It was the government that had this in the beginning. And as it was improved, you know, more commercial applications, things like Toy Story ended up doing really big things in 3D animation and movies like Jurassic Park, you know, really took it to the next level using a combination of the puppetry, animatronics, as well as the post-production VFX. 00:04:54:03 - 00:05:23:23 Michael So we've seen this simultaneous development of both film and video games, utilizing the technology that is getting better and better and better now that we have powerful gaming cards, the processors that run the games. That is what makes virtual reality possible because you have to render full 3D scenes in this immersive experience and you're putting the audience right in the middle of that. 00:05:24:08 - 00:05:32:10 Michael And so now that we have the technology to render such complicated virtual scenes, it's becoming even easier to apply it. 00:05:33:02 - 00:05:58:13 Jason Cool. So when we're looking at the way movies are created right now, we're creating movies that are from a camera perspective. We might do shots from different angles, but we've got a perspective and we can't deviate out of that. You know, it's there's no it's not like you can point a camera film that thing and then put it into a headset and now turn over here and see that because we didn't film that direction. 00:05:58:14 - 00:06:19:07 Michael Right. And so film making in virtual reality is a lot about creating everything. You know, you create the entire world. You see everything that's in the shot and out of the shot. Every light position matters, every angle the focus of the camera's think all these things have to be taken into into consideration when you're when you're building your scenes. 00:06:19:22 - 00:06:47:00 Jason So in the in I've heard it said that a photographer they set up and they create the story out of one picture, one shot. They have one angle, one shot, and it's perfect and it tells the story. And if you take a photographer and put them into cinematography, now you've got somebody who knows how to use light, who knows how to use angles and things to create a story that can move to progress. 00:06:47:09 - 00:07:10:05 Jason But now we're talking about lights and cameras and directions everywhere. 360 up, down everywhere. So that when you're sitting in these immersive environments, you can look around and be in the movie Do you think that we're going to be starting to see filmmakers create movies that people actually are in somehow? Is that a thing. 00:07:10:07 - 00:07:34:09 Michael I think so. I think that we're going to have more immersive experiences. And like I had said about video games being like films with all the cinematic cut sequences I can see more films taking the audience through their story in that way and maybe give them choices while they're playing the game so that they can feel like they're more involved in the story. 00:07:34:19 - 00:07:47:02 Jason Wow. So imagining a movie where at certain points I'm the lead character, I can communicate, and I guess this is getting into gaming now. We're talking. 00:07:47:15 - 00:07:48:05 Michael That we're. 00:07:48:05 - 00:08:04:09 Jason Really blending the lines between gaming and film at this point. What are some do you have some examples of of of VR or games or things that are starting to do that in a realistic way? Is are where are we looking at? 00:08:04:10 - 00:08:28:05 Michael Well, I don't have any names that I could throw out specifically, but there are new games coming out all the time. And what's really neat is that over the past few years, now that we have more virtual reality places, there's more demand for games like that. VR was a niche you know, a very small group of people had access to the type of equipment, but now you can get, you know, a $30 headset you can put your phone into. 00:08:28:11 - 00:08:39:20 Michael Or if you want to spend a little bit more, a couple hundred dollars, you can buy an Oculus headset and you get access to the catalog of all the games that are being developed. And new titles are coming out all the time. Cool. 00:08:40:23 - 00:09:07:19 Jason So going from VR in content creation and film and games some other things are changing right now. When it comes to VR, we're starting to look at Web three. This is just a different way to access the Internet. I'm seeing people using VR as an access tool as opposed to just sitting on a computer screen or a phone screen, two dimensional screen. 00:09:07:19 - 00:09:26:21 Jason Now, we're looking at how can we create a three dimensional experience of the Web? And this is a very different thing. But maybe do you have any insight on how that might fit into film? Are we going to start to be able to watch movies in a virtual space? So how how about this? 00:09:27:05 - 00:09:52:01 Michael So you can you can definitely use software like ALT Space VR, which is free on on the Windows Computer. You can download it without even a headset and you can go into different rooms and there are different conferences taking place. People are getting together and meeting. Sometimes they have a slideshow presentation behind them. So absolutely, you could do movie screenings in VR as well, and people can watch remotely from wherever they are. 00:09:53:02 - 00:10:34:19 Jason I've begun to hear of that. So where, you know, especially as we're we're coming through a pandemic, we just we're still kind of in a weird space in that. But as we come through that, we've begun to use more virtual communication as opposed to sitting side by side. So people watching movies, if a couple of people want to watch a movie together instead of going to the same place, they're putting on headsets now, going into a virtual theater and being able to still chat because their voice is being transmitted to the other person so they can still I like to comment B movies and say, Oh, they would never do that, you know, and stuff 00:10:34:19 - 00:10:44:22 Jason like that. But yeah, to be able to sit together and watch a movie together, but actually sitting in different places, it's kind of a different thing. 00:10:44:22 - 00:11:13:06 Michael Well, this is like telepresence this is sort of what I was talking about, how this virtual reality has been around for 30 years. It just hasn't really caught on yet. And the technology is improving to the point where it'll be common sense. You know, somebody will call, they'll appear as a hologram in your living room if you want them to, and you'll have a chat just face to face like you would normally what I like about all of these things is that we have choices now, and it's not one solution fits all. 00:11:13:13 - 00:11:33:08 Michael You know, some people still want to get together in real life. People still want to meet and be in the same physical space, but sometimes it's not convenient. Sometimes doing a video call is a much easier way to get together with people without having to physically travel. There are positives and negatives to everything, so we need to weigh the consequences. 00:11:33:18 - 00:12:10:08 Jason Mm hmm. I recently spoke to a nurse who was given a VR headset by her workplace and was told, this is how we're going to do conference calls from now on how our meetings and this is also how we're going to be doing virtual training. So rather than sitting on their phone or on a screen, they're going to be in a headset and asked, why on earth would you spend the money to get these headsets when you could sit on a computer and do these things with with Zoom or some technology like that to do a conference call or whatnot? 00:12:10:21 - 00:12:27:23 Jason And the reason that she said is that because people can easily get distracted so when you've got a headset on, you can't look away. You can't look down at your phone. There's just there's no option. Right? And so if you're doing a virtual training, you're you're in that space I mean, you could pause it and take it off in a virtual training. 00:12:28:16 - 00:12:55:14 Jason But if you're at a VR conference, as soon as you take that off, you can't see it and hear it anymore. So you're going to pretty much have to stay in there. You can't get distracted. I thought that was interesting. I wonder if there's a lot of a lot of cost savings or maybe in her field being a nurse, if it's a risk to be able to if they don't take their training seriously and maybe skip some things. 00:12:56:13 - 00:13:19:05 Jason So when it comes to creating a piece of content like a training simulator, right. What are what can you imagine seeing from where we are with virtual stuff to the next phase? What is going to be out there for technologies that either are in the works or that you're seeing coming up that will help with a virtual training. 00:13:19:07 - 00:13:31:11 Jason For example, a nurse might have to do some hands on stuff and with little joysticks or whatever, it may not be quite as hands on. Is there anything coming up that you think will give us even more interaction. 00:13:31:22 - 00:14:09:20 Michael Well, I would say that since we've seen so many tutorials on YouTube and YouTube has become a wealth of resource for learning about things, that's probably where virtual reality will go. More learning programs will be written. And like you said, training programs, and we see more companies using virtual reality tools there are a lot of cost savings that come as a result of using virtual reality in a way with regards to putting on the headset and staying focused during a meeting. 00:14:10:08 - 00:14:36:07 Michael They say that thousands and thousands of dollars are lost every year due to people using their phones at work. So that's one thing to consider. The virtual reality experience is immersive. And so when the audience or the player puts on the virtual reality headset, they're going to go in and have whatever customized experience the filmmaker or the designer creates. 00:14:36:19 - 00:14:59:13 Michael So right from the time they walk in the door, you're giving them an experience. And so as a filmmaker, if you're thinking about using virtual reality, you have to put yourself into that real imagining. The person walking into the room and although it's maybe virtual, it's going to feel real and that's where this technology is going to go. 00:14:59:20 - 00:15:23:01 Michael We're going to have the clunky headsets are going to go away. We're going to have Ray-Ban sunglasses like my Facebook has been investing in, and we're going to have all of these things be intuitive. You're not even going to notice that we have this second layer of virtual reality alongside of us, and people who are wearing glasses will be able to see the augmented reality. 00:15:23:05 - 00:15:42:00 Michael They'll be able to see the digital overlays and might see your profile. And, you know, some statistics about you like we see in movies, because the movies were demonstrating the possibilities. And as the technology catches up, we watch these old movies and say, well, that's kind of what has happened, and we're going to keep seeing that. 00:15:43:02 - 00:16:05:23 Jason So that sounds pretty wild to think about watching for example, watching a movie, you know, with a headset on or with glasses on and being able to actually as you're going see that augmented reality layer over top, maybe just describe what is augmented reality. That's a good question that I know the answer, but let's say. 00:16:06:08 - 00:16:26:17 Michael So augmented reality is a type of virtual reality. But it specifically refers to when you use a camera and you pointed at the desk and you see some other digital overlay on top often there's a QR code that has a specific program on it. And when you scan it, it registers it and it will display a virtual object or something like that. 00:16:27:14 - 00:16:49:19 Jason And I think we're seeing more. I think augmented reality is going towards geolocation as well, right? So as you're walking down a street, your headset knows that, oh, you're at this, you know, location, that building there that is normally just a normal office building. Augmented reality can visually turn that building for you into Dragons Lair or something right there. 00:16:50:09 - 00:17:01:03 Jason And it's there isn't a QR code at all. It's just reading the environment knows the space and maybe is picking up the shape of the building and saying, yes, that's the one, that's the Dragons Lair, for example. 00:17:01:04 - 00:17:22:17 Michael Since we're talking about this subject, I'll just paint a picture for you imagine that here in this studio we have a virtual art gallery set up. And on just some pillars that we have set up, we have QR codes. When you walk into the building, you don't see anything except the white pillars and the QR codes. It just looks like a boring room. 00:17:23:00 - 00:17:34:14 Michael But when you put your augmented reality glasses on, you'll be able to see the artwork appear. That is how augmented reality could be applied to a virtual or a physical art gallery. Cool. 00:17:35:05 - 00:18:00:20 Jason So that's really neat. Now take me through a virtual art gallery because now we're starting to see this when we're looking in web three, we're getting into NFT's and things like that, and we'll dig a little deeper into NFT's and this sort of thing in a future thing. But just the concept of virtual art in a virtual art gallery, how is virtual reality going to be a different way to explore? 00:18:00:23 - 00:18:21:07 Michael Sure. So when you walk into my virtual studio, you can look around and you can see the paintings in the room, you can walk down the hallway and take a look in each of the rooms. It gives you the feeling of actually being there and so when you create your digital gallery, you can put in the artwork that you want, you can resize it, you can shrink it or stretch it. 00:18:21:16 - 00:18:43:13 Michael The dimensions of the physical space don't matter. You could put a hundred pictures on a pillar and a user could enlarge them and shrink them. They could move them around. It gives them this whole incredible experience of being part of your gallery. And I think that's the most interesting aspect is that artists will be trying to tell a story with their with their artwork. 00:18:43:13 - 00:19:11:01 Michael You know, if they have a collection, they put it on display, they're trying to tell the story that they've been working so hard on and with a virtual studio. Firstly, if they're not able to come to your physical gallery, it gives them access to a wider audience. Secondly, when they get there, you know, you can have a whole customized virtual experience from the music to the lighting in the room to ambient sounds, even interactive experiences. 00:19:11:01 - 00:19:18:00 Michael Maybe you have a painting of something but when they interact with it, something else happens. These are things that are possible in virtual reality. 00:19:18:12 - 00:19:38:04 Jason Cool. I've seen virtual concerts starting to pop up and be a thing where, you know, the musician can change the size of themselves on stage and the audience members can interact in different ways. And it's funky cool wild, wild space, lots of cool things that we could do in virtual reality. 00:19:40:23 - 00:19:52:09 Jason So is there anything else? So we've only got a couple of minutes left. Is there anything else that you would like to share on the topic of VR especially around film virtual reality? 00:19:52:09 - 00:20:11:21 Michael Technology is extremely interesting, but it's also extremely technical and it's difficult for one person to do it all so there are different aspects of virtual reality that you can learn about. And if you can find something that you're interested in and get really good at that specific thing, then teams of people can get together and do incredible work. 00:20:12:01 - 00:20:39:03 Michael If you look at, for example, a game like Grand Theft Auto, it took a huge team to build the textures to build the materials, to build the character models, to build every aspect of it. And it is easier than ever for one person to do it, but if one person tackles it all by themselves, they're going to get frustrated and it will be a lengthy process, something that creative people do all the time. 00:20:39:11 - 00:20:51:11 Michael But, you know, the more collaboration that artists can do together, you know, from somebody who's really good at one aspect, really good at another aspect. And when people work together, that's how incredible productions are made. 00:20:52:02 - 00:21:18:10 Jason Awesome. Thank you. This has been a fantastic interview and I'd probably like to bring you back at some point and maybe we'll talk about cryptocurrencies, things like that that may talk about the finance of film and so look forward to that in a future episode as we're going to talk more about film finance and what the future of that may look like and what does distribution potentially look at? 00:21:18:16 - 00:21:40:13 Jason Because we're looking now at distribution from this episode, distribution in virtual reality spaces, and that could be a very interesting topic for the future. So if you want to hear more about that, make sure to comment and share and let us know that that's a topic of interest and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you very much, Michael. 00:21:40:13 - 00:22:11:17 Jason It's been a pleasure so as I think about the interview we just had with Michael, I'd like to take a look a few frames forward and see what is the final frame. Where are we going with virtual reality technologies and its impact on movie creation and the movie industry? So looking at the current state of virtual reality, it's being heavily used for video games, and I think that technology's going to continue to drive us forward. 00:22:11:17 - 00:22:36:09 Jason I think it is going to be a very interactive technology, unlike a TV screen, which there's no interaction or a tablet or a touch screen where we can have limited interaction by actually touching the screen. Virtual reality allows us to have more interaction within the space where we have a controller that we can move around within the space and and touch things and pick things up. 00:22:37:08 - 00:23:08:01 Jason However, as we look a step forward that technology, that interaction is going to get stronger. Right. As we look at haptic response technology, haptic response is where say, see, there's a virtual cup in the middle of this virtual space and I want to pick it up right now. I use a controller and I kind of move my hand with the controller in it and I push a button and my hand will go around it and I pick up the cup and now I have a cup in my hand and I push a button and I drop the cup or however that works. 00:23:08:08 - 00:23:27:14 Jason But with haptic response, I would have a glove and that glove, when I wrap it around the virtual cup, my glove will freeze and get solid as though I've just come across a solid object and it will get cold if the object is cold. But if there's coffee in the cup, then the gloves warm up a little bit. 00:23:27:14 - 00:23:55:22 Jason And so that's haptic response where we see, where we're feeling the objects in space. Really, I'm putting my hand in a virtual space, but the glove gets solid to indicate where there's a solid object and may change temperatures and things like that. Those types of technologies are are being created right now. The beginning versions of these exist and I think we're going to see more and more and we'll probably talk a little bit about that on other episodes. 00:23:56:03 - 00:24:25:14 Jason And so as we get things like that, things like treadmills that are able to do 360 degrees so that you can walk within a virtual environment, you can interact with that virtual environment I mean, we already have cameras and technologies that will allow us to be able to interact verbally and visually within those spaces. As we begin to live render characters with things like deep fake technology. 00:24:25:22 - 00:25:19:04 Jason And if that technology improves so that all of our digital animations can get to the point where it's photorealistic and live rendered in a photorealistic manner, we're going to begin to see all kinds of content creators, whether it's video games or movies, coming together to create interactive interactive content. Right. And so just like we're seeing a crossover in video games where a game also has video technology, also uses movies, and, you know, they're making movies based on games, but half the time the video game itself that has really cool cut scenes is just way more engaging than the movie that they create based on the game I think we're going to see more and 00:25:19:04 - 00:25:47:18 Jason more movie production that has an interactive element to it, interactive component. And when virtual reality becomes a piece of it, we're going to see entire environments become a movie, right? So that maybe throughout maybe instead of going into a theater, we're going to be able to go put on our virtual headset. And maybe we tell we maybe we say we want something that is a drama. 00:25:48:04 - 00:26:26:16 Jason And, you know, maybe a friend of ours said, hey, if you go to this certain cafe in here, there's this really cool interactive experience that happens, this interactive movie. And so you might go into this cafe in, in web three or web four whatever that virtual environment is and be able to experience a drama, a movie that is occurring in there and be a part of maybe a romantic comedy or a part of an action movie that's occurring inside of a virtual space and have your own version of that. 00:26:27:09 - 00:26:52:20 Jason Because with artificial intelligence, with live rendering, with all of these technologies, that movie can occur in a way where the viewer becomes a part of the creation of the movie. And I think that that's that's where we could be headed now. That's a ways down the road. But in the short term, we are going to be watching more movies with VR headsets. 00:26:52:20 - 00:27:27:00 Jason We're going to be going into virtual theaters. As Web three becomes more popular. I can see us putting on a headset, walking down a virtual street and seeing that, oh, this movie theater in this virtual space has copies of this latest Web series to watch or the latest movie to watch. We'll go in. We will pay our admission fee, which is going to be through cryptocurrency and then we're going to be able to watch the movie. 00:27:27:07 - 00:28:01:12 Jason And if we want to watch with friends, we can say, hey, I'm going to watch this movie. Come with me. We're all going to go and watch it. Either in a private space or maybe there might be some where it's in a bigger theater space. So you could do something like a Rocky Horror Picture Show or the room, you know, one of those interactive ones where there's things you're supposed to do during the movie and you can maybe watch it in that virtual space and do all of those things that you would do in a theater that's the interactive pieces, but actually watch it with nobody around you but everybody around you in that virtual 00:28:01:12 - 00:28:31:09 Jason space. It still sounds a little weird, but I think that's where we're headed. And so I'm looking forward to experiencing that, too. Exploring my first interactions with a VR movie, watching experience I think it's going to be really interesting to see where this goes. Gaming is definitely going to lead the way for this technology because there's so much possibility for interaction. 00:28:31:17 - 00:28:57:13 Jason But I think as moviemakers get more comfortable with that level of interaction, we're going to start to see interactive movies the first ones are going to be a little bit rough, just like the first interactive movie games were a little bit basic. You know where it was just we're following a movie on some tracks like Dragon's Lair, and you would see something flash on the side and you push to the right and you turn right and you go to the next part of the game. 00:28:57:13 - 00:29:29:16 Jason And if you don't push it in time, well then you see a different movie clip, which is game over. I think we might see some pretty basic things kind of choose your own adventure type of concept where it's pretty basic levels of of possibilities. But as it goes on, that artificial intelligence piece of things, as artificial intelligence improves, we're going to start to see movies and interactive experiences that are created live as we go. 00:29:29:23 - 00:30:04:06 Jason And so things that even the creators of it didn't plan on, you know, so the creators of it might have thought, OK, this romantic comedy scenario, this romantic comedy, interactive movie, you know, they expect that the player, the viewer is going to go into a coffee shop. They know that they're going to interact with that character. And that's how and that's going to begin the the project, the production or whatever. 00:30:04:06 - 00:30:44:20 Jason Right. But what if that that person goes in and interacts with the barista and something kicks off with the barista. Now, the barista character is being live rendered and created and artificial intelligence is trying to create a movie based around the barista. And suddenly the the main character that we're supposed to interact with now, the artificial intelligence, has to create this have this other character that was supposed to be the one come into this scenario and try to get involved and maybe becomes an unusual situation where there's that to love interests the barista and the character that's supposed to be the love interest. 00:30:45:04 - 00:31:12:21 Jason And it takes a whole different direction. These are the types of movies that are possible when we start to get artificial intelligence live, rendering virtual reality spaces where we can go anywhere within the world and create the experience that we want. I think it's going to be really interesting, and when we start to add in other people who are participants in that space. 00:31:12:21 - 00:31:39:05 Jason And so when that character who is sitting at the table is also a viewer, and now they're interacting, and the assumption is that was created by the creators of this experience is that these two characters are going to interact, but then it turns out they don't interact with each other at all and they're creating entire different experiences. I think that is going to be a really interesting version of things. 00:31:39:17 - 00:32:08:12 Jason Will there still be room for the the current movie creation process where the writer creates a story that's very linear, the producer director actors bring that that linear story together and there isn't any rails to go off on. There isn't any choose your own adventure type of path. I think there will be. I think that we're going to still want those types of stories from creators. 00:32:08:18 - 00:32:43:03 Jason And as a storyteller, as a creator, you know, I still love what we do right now, and I'm excited to keep doing what I do. But I think that we're also going to start to see some really exciting things when people who haven't considered themselves to be directors, producers, actors, creators begin to interact in these virtual spaces and create their own movies, their own stories within and people may start to record those stories and put them out as their version of that romantic comedy. 00:32:43:12 - 00:33:09:02 Jason And and so people may watch those, whether they watch those in a traditional fashion or whether they also watch those in a virtual space, because maybe they're just a fly on the wall watching that. And so the interaction happens the way it did for the initial person, the person who recorded it. But the virtual space is still they can still go out of the coffee shop. 00:33:09:02 - 00:33:35:08 Jason They can watch it through the window, they can go inside, maybe, you know, like there's so many possibilities for what virtual reality can bring to production for possibilities. It's wild to imagine. It seems like it's far out. But I think when we really break it down and look at how things progress and how things move forward, I think that could be the final frame.