TFF Interview: VR production studio ‘Telexist’ founders Sam Gezari & Erik Donley talk about ‘Dinner Party’ & the rise of VR

Erik Donley & Sam Gezari, founders of Telexist

Founders Sam Gezari and Erik Donley started Telexist as a need to service their own work. Erik Donley: “We knew we’d have to pay someone a lot of money to do what we needed, so we thought we might as well pay ourselves.” That drive and spirit are also shared by Sam Gezari who said they realized that “every frame of a VR film is VFX.”

The two have built a production studio where they “start from a post perspective and reverse engineer it” as Sam says. It’s working for them as they have several high profile clients, including NASA, SkyBound Entertainment and RYOT. They now have a team of over 20 technical artists and engineers.

I spoke with Sam and Erik at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. We had a very interesting conversation talking about how they got started, where they are and where they are going. They currently have “Dinner Party” available to view in the Virtual Arcade. Get your tickets now!

PEOPLE EMBRACING VR

Sam Gezari: “People are going to theaters less and less. Home experiences, Netflix, amazon, those kinds of things. Often people have better sound systems and TVs in their living room. We’re also moving further and further away from community experiences and going to these isolated screen-based personal experiences. In some way, VR fits perfectly in this culture shift that’s happening very slowly. People will look back on this time and it will be really evident that it’s happening. I think that a lot of people don’t even think about it or are aware of how much time we spend on our phones.”

Erik Donley: There’s an isolated element, but we’re still more connected than we’ve ever been. We’re traded eye to eye contact for 1,000 friends on Facebook.”

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF VR?

Sam Gezari: “VR [virtual reality] is one way of creating content and telling stories, but AR [augmented reality], mixed reality and VFX actually have lots of potential. There is no limit.”

Erik Donley: “Today it’s on a headset, but in a few years, it might be holographically projected.”

One of my favorite VR movies is Strange Days where Ralph Fiennes is a dealer in a technology that let you experience another’s emotions. Sam Gezari: “Bio-feedback is a real thing that we’re using and it’s amazing.” The future will be here soon!

CONTENT

Erik Donley: “Content creation is pushing technology, it’s all growing together.”

Sam Gezari: “As a viewer, you can become part of the storytelling process. There is something magical about it. It’s not like other mediums. It’s the connection of the viewer and what they are watching.”

“We are interested in every aspect of this medium and not just the entertainment or advertising. It’s more about the human elements.”

WHAT IS HOLDING VR BACK?

Sam Gezari: “Until the technology and the hardware becomes both effective enough and easy enough to wear, it’s going to be difficult to get people to embrace it. We also need good content. If the content isn’t there, then there’s no point to watch anything whether it’s cinematic, interactive or gaming. We’re just so early in this medium right now. It’s going to take a few years to build up the quality of work.”

“There’s good and bad showing people VR, as they either like it or don’t like it. We find that most people really like it. They take off the headset and have a big smile while thinking of endless possibilities and it’s inspiring.”

“VR is in the right place at the right time. I love the environment we’re in.”

Erik Donley: “We’re in phase 1. We need people to buy headsets and create content.”

VR is the new wild west. There are no rules. It can be whatever you want; the only limit is your imagination.

Sam Gezari: “I won’t stop watching traditional film. I won’t stop reading books or going to museums. This isn’t the only storytelling medium, but I”m a real believer in what VR can do.”

BIGGEST ADVANCEMENT IN VR SINCE STARTING TELEXIST?

Erik Donley: “Everything. Phones, resolution, you name it. It’s all changing rapidly.”

One of the negatives about VR installations is that as soon as you leave, you have no access to the content. I don’t see this as a bad thing. When movies were first introduced in theaters, if you didn’t see in the theater, you didn’t see it. It was special. VR is bringing the special back. This is not a gimmick, this is another medium.

Dinner Party tells the incredible story of Betty and Barney Hill, an interracial couple who made the first report of a UFO abduction in America in 1961. Having sought online hypnotherapy courses to recover memories of their inexplicable experience, the Hills decide to listen to the recording of their session during a dinner party—and what they hear could change their lives forever.

For more information and to purchase tickets, go to tribecafilm.com/immersive

Welcome to the Future – Tribeca Immersive: Virtual Arcade & Storyscapes Lineup at the Tribeca Film Festival

Are you still not sure what the whole VR thing is all about? This year Tribeca brings it’s most impressive lineup of opportunities to interactive with another world. Some are educational, some are just for fun. I’m really looking forward to checking out as many of these as I can!

VIRTUAL ARCADE

The Virtual Arcade selections include 23 projects from six countries, 17 of which are world premieres.

Alteration (World Premiere) – France

Project Creator: Jérôme Blanquet

Key Collaborators: James Sénade, Yann Apéry, Antoine Cayrol, Baptiste Chesnais, Pierre Zandrowicz, Jean-françois Blanquet

This is a poetic trip into the future: Alexandro volunteers for an experiment carried out to study dreams. He can’t imagine that he will be subjected to the intrusion of Elsa, a form of Artificial Intelligence who aims to digitize his subconscious in order to feed off it. She’s a vampire…bit by megabit.

A project still from APEX. Photo credit: Arjan Van Meerten.

Apex (World Premiere) – The Netherlands/USA

Project Creator: Arjan van Meerten

Key Collaborator: Wevr

The stunning new experience from the brilliant imagination of 3D artist and musician Arjan van Meerten, APEX is the highly anticipated follow up to the creator’s acclaimed and award-winning experience, Surge. Step into a surrealistic and darkly beautiful vision of a fiery urban apocalypse; one populated by skeletal ghost animals, abstract shapes, maniacal smiling giants and, of course, you. 

Arden’s Wake (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Eugene Chung

Key Collaborators: Jimmy Maidens

The sea levels have risen, and a young woman and her father live in a lighthouse perched atop the ocean’s surface. When he goes missing, she descends deep into the post-apocalyptic waters previously forbidden to her, embarking on a thrilling journey of family history and self-discovery. From the creators of the magnificent Allumette (Tribeca 2016), Arden’s Wake continues the elegant evolution of storytelling from Penrose Studios.

Auto (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: J. Steven Schardt

In the near future, self-driving taxi services employ “safety drivers,” a transitional measure of comfort for passengers. On his first day, Musay, an Ethiopian immigrant with 40 years of driving experience, picks up a couple habituated to the service.   Not content — not comfortable — with merely sitting, Musay insists on driving, instigating a series of events with substantial consequences.

Bebylon – Battle Royale (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Cory Strassburger, Ikrima Elhassan

Key Collaborators: Alex Underhill, Giray Ozil, Jennifer Chavarria

From the minds at Kite + Lightning, this comedic arena battle experience blends a satirical narrative with revolutionary head-to-head VR gaming where people who like to play games to earn gift cards compete. Set in a futuristic status-conscious society, players compete as crude, narcissistic, immortal babies for fame and fortune. Wielding weaponized status symbols such as gold-plated selfie sticks and big-fisted battle buggies, you can be the “beby” of your most shameless rock star fantasy.

Becoming Homeless: A Human Experience (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Stanford University

Key Collaborators: Elise Ogle, Tobin Asher, Jeremy Bailenson

Everyone’s story is unique, but the human experience is collective. In this interactive first-person VR experience, you will face the adversity of living without a home. From Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Becoming Homeless aims to change the way some may think and act about the epidemic of homelessness that exists globally.

A project still from BROKEN NIGHT. Courtesy of Eko.

Broken Night (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Alon Benari, Tal Zubalsky, Alex Vlack

Key Collaborators: Eko, Hidden Content, Real Motion VFX

Broken Night explores a woman’s (Emily Mortimer) unreliable narrative of an intense trauma. Speaking to a detective, her confused memories unfold: returning home in the midst of a fight with her husband (Alessandro Nivola), they encounter an intruder. The viewer is placed in a position of choosing which memories to follow, sharing her confusion before coming to the startling truth.

The puppet show gets cheerfully grim with a burst of “blood” confetti in EXTRAVAGANZA.
Photographer: Ethan Shaftel

Extravaganza (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Ethan Shaftel

Extravaganza mixes 3D animation and live-action footage in a bitingly funny satire. You are a puppet trapped in a stunningly offensive puppet show, performing for a clueless executive (Paul Scheer). Confronted with his glaringly obvious blind spots and prejudices, Extravaganza asks: can technology change society for the better, or does it just magnify our worst traits in new ways?

Hallelujah (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Zach Richter, Bobby Halvorson, Eames Kolar

Key Collaborators: Chrissy Szczupak, Orin Green, Jess Engel, ECCO VR, International Orange Chorale of SF, Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin

Hallelujah is a revolutionary virtual reality music performance that reimagines Leonard Cohen’s most well-known song. It is the world’s first VR music experience to provide an uncompromised sense of presence with six degrees of freedom using Lytro Immerge technology. A Within Original.

Life of Us (New York Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin, Pharrell Williams

Life of Us is a shared VR journey from Within that tells the complete story of the evolution of life on earth. Created by Chris Milk & Aaron Koblin, with original music by Pharrell Williams.

The Other Dakar (World Premiere) – Senegal

Project Creator: Selly Raby Kane

Key Collaborators: Electric South, Goethe Institut

A little girl receives a message and discovers the hidden face of Dakar. An homage to Senegalese mythology and a stunningly visual debut from Dakar-based artist and designer Selly Raby Kane, this magical 360 film transports viewers to a place where past and future meet and where artists are the beating heart of the city.

The People’s House (World Premiere) – Canada

Project Creators: Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël (Felix & Paul Studios)

The People’s House takes you on a historic visit of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House. Through the transportive power of VR, The Obamas take you on an intimate journey inside the West Wing, Executive and Private Residences, reflecting on their time there, and recounting the building’s profound history since its creation over two centuries ago.

The Possible: Hoverboard (Season Finale) – USA

Project Creator: David Gelb

If you could have just one superpower, what would it be? For Alexandru Duru, the answer is obvious: the ability to fly. That’s why he founded Omni Hoverboards, which has transformed hoverboard technology from dream to reality. In “Hoverboard,” you’ll follow his team as they build and test a prototype—then experience the freedom of flight for yourself.

The Protectors: Walk in The Ranger’s Shoes (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Kathryn Bigelow, Imraan Ismail

From Academy Award-winning director Katheryn Bigelow and acclaimed VR creator Imraan Ismail, The Protectors chronicles a day in the life of the rangers in Garamba National Park. These rangers are often the last line of defense in a race against the poachers intent on slaughtering elephants for their ivory tusks. The rangers face constant danger and even death, at the service of these sentient, noble creatures.

Becky (skunk) peeks over shrubbery to catch a glimpse of Rainbow Crow
At first glance, Becky is your regular girl-skunk-next-door, bursting with a bubbly, youthful demeanor. But amongst the forest dwellers, she is better known as Rainbow Crow’s biggest fan. Project still from RAINBOW CROW. Cody Gramstad / Baobab Studios, Inc.

Rainbow Crow (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Eric Darnell, Maureen Fan, Larry Cutler, Claudia Southmartin, Kane Lee

Key Collaborators: Michael Hutchinson, Nathaniel Dawson

From the Director of Madagascar, Invasion! (Tribeca 2016), and Asteroids! comes Baobab Studio’s latest visionary VR animation. The carefree forest animals imagine spring will last forever. However, winter comes and the animals soon realize that their lives are in danger. What they need is a hero; what they need is Rainbow Crow. Step inside a moving, soon-to-be classic, musical experience for all ages.

You and Arielle look on as an alien ship comes in for a landing. Project still from REMEMBER: REMEMBER.

Remember: Remember (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Kevin Cornish

If our minds are a map of every memory we’ve had, what do we become if those memories are stripped away? In this cinematic, room-scale VR experience set against the backdrop of an alien invasion, you are a prisoner being brainwashed by a lost love. As you cycle through your memories, the two of you begin to question what is real and what is imagined.

Sergeant James (North American Premiere) – France

Project Creator: Alexandre Perez

Key Collaborators: Avi Amar

It’s Leo’s bedtime, but he thinks there is something under his bed. Is it just the harmless imagination of a young boy, or something more sinister? Is it…you? From director Alexandre Perez, Sergeant James recaptures the innocence of youth, the wonder of the unknown, and the folly of fear, while hinting at a far creepier possibility.

A project still from STEP TO THE LINE.

Step to the Line (New York Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Ricardo Laganaro

Key Collaborators: Defy Ventures/ Oculus VR for Good

Shot entirely on location in a California maximum security prison, Step to the Line is a documentary that aims to provoke a transformation in the spectator’s eyes about prisoners, the prison system, and even themselves. In this project, we see how release from incarceration can be just as jarring as intake and how parallel lives diverge when someone serves time.

Sword of Baahubali (New York Premiere) – India

Project Creator: SS Rajamouli, Arka Mediaworks

Key Collaborators: Radeon Technologies Group & CNCPT LA

Two friends find themselves on a battlefield, as the armies of Bhalladeva and Shivudu are set to charge into battle. As they watch the action unfold, they are unexpectedly asked to participate. Their mission – to find a legendary warrior’s sword and deliver it to him, ensuring victory.  Based on S.S. Rajamouli’s World of Baahubali, India’s biggest movie franchise.

Talking With Ghosts (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Ric Carrasquillo, Roman Muradov, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Maria Yi

Key Collaborators:  Wesley Allsbrook, Matthew Chadwick, Sebastien Chevrel, Tauni Oxborrow, Saschka Unseld.

Talking With Ghosts is the next wave of emerging art in the field of Illustrative VR. Following the success of Dear Angelica, Oculus Story Studio decided to enhance its painting app Quill with comic-like storytelling functionality, enabling anyone to tell their own illustrative stories in VR. The resulting works are called Quill Stories and Talking With Ghosts is a compilation of the very first of their kind, entirely painted and told in VR by four remarkable artists. Made in collaboration with Oculus Story Studios.

Testimony (World Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Zohar Kfir

Key Collaborators: Selena Pinnell

Recent events have dramatically shifted the conversation around sexual abuse in the United States. Despite persistent victim-shaming and the discounting of their experiences, abuse survivors are increasingly coming forward, empowering one another to become agents of change. Testimony is an interactive documentary presenting the narrative accounts of sexual abuse survivors, using virtual reality to engage viewers with an intimate, motion-driven interface.

Tree overlooking the splendors of nature from the highest point in the canopy. Project still from TREE. Photo credit: Jakob Kudsk Steensen. 

Tree (New York Premiere) – USA

Project Creator: Milica Zec, Winslow Porter

Key Collaborators: Aleksandar Protic, Jakob Kudsk Steensen

See and feel what it is like to become a tree in this haptically enhanced VR experience. With your arms as the branches and your body as the trunk, you experience the growth from a seedling to its fullest form, taking on its role in the majestic rain forest and witnessing its fate firsthand.

Neuron Forest. Project still from UNREST. Credit: Sylvain Sarrailh.

Unrest (World Premiere) – France/USA

Project Creator: Arnaud Colinart, Jennifer Brea, Amaury La Burthe

Key Collaborators: Diana Barrett (Fledgling Fund), Lindsey Dryden (Little By Little Films)

From the award-winning team behind Notes On Blindness, Unrest allows audiences to access the world of chronic illness and disability in an exploratory, user-led experience. Based on the documentary film of the same name, the project draws upon sensory meditations on pain, fatigue, and neurosensory symptoms, and allows the public a visceral personal experience of a hard-to-understand condition.


STORYSCAPES

The 2017 Storyscapes selections include six projects from four countries, three of the projects are world premieres. One project will be selected by a jury to receive the Storyscapes Award, presented by AT&T, which recognizes groundbreaking approaches in storytelling and technology.

Moe Black from Waffle Crew dances in the Litefeet style made famous through unsanctioned performances on NYC trains.

Blackout (World Premiere)

Project Creators: Scatter: Alexander Porter, Yasmin Elayat, James George, Mei-Ling Wong

Key Collaborators: Hannah Jayanti

Blackout is an ongoing participatory, volumetric VR project gathering the reflections of real people living in today’s tense political climate through the lens of the New York subway. By creating a rotating, ‘crowd-sourced’ cast, Blackout addresses the impossible task of representing the extraordinary breadth of human experience in New York City. Each viewing of Blackout is different, surrounding you with a unique group of straphangers taking you to the places their minds go between destinations.

Draw Me Close (World Premiere)

Project Creator: Jordan Tannahill

Canadian playwright-director Jordan Tannahill partners with the National Theatre and the National Film Board of Canada to create Draw Me Close, a vivid memoir about his relationship with his mother in the wake of her terminal cancer diagnosis. Collapsing the worlds of live performance and animation to create an unforgettable encounter between a mother and her son, Draw Me Close tells the story of their past and what is to be their future. This special presentation is a world premiere of the first chapter of Draw Me Close.

The Island of the Colorblind.In the late eighteenth century a catastrophic typhoon swept over Pingelap, a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean. One of the sole survivors, the king, carried the rare achromatopsia-gen that causes complete colorblindness. The king went on to have many children and as time passed by, the hereditary condition affected the isolated community and most islanders started seeing the world in black and white.Achromatopsia is characterized by extreme light sensitivity, poor vision, and complete inability to distinguish colors. Achromats in Federated States of Micronesia adapt to their reduced level of visual functioning (due lack of recourses like sunglasses and tinted lenses) by using visual strategies such as blinking, squinting, shielding their eyes, or positioning themselves in relation to light sources.Portraying the islanders that by their fellow Micronesians are described as ‘blind’ resulted in a conceptual selection of images that mask their eyes, their face, or their ‘vision’ and at the same time invites the viewer to enter a dreamful world painted by colorless and colorful possibilities. Color is just a word to those who cannot see it. What if the colorblind people paint with their mind, how would they color the world, the trees, themselves. Initiating my visual research in FSM I tried to find ways to envision how people with achromatopsia see the world. I tried to see the island through their eyes. Daylight is to bright to bear, moonlight turns night into day, colors dance around in shades we cannot imagine. Imagine flames lighting up in black and white, trees turning pink, waves of grey. A rainbow revisited. The islanders often refer to green as their favourite color, growing up in a lush environment, living in the jungle. But green is also the color that the most common kind of colorblindness (deutaranomaly, five out of 100 males) can’t distinguish. I learned that the color the islanders say to ‘see’ most is red. I photog

The Island of the Colorblind (International Premiere)

Project Creator: Sanne de Wilde

Key Collaborators: IDFA DocLab, de Brakke Grond

What does color mean to those who can’t see it? In the late eighteenth century a catastrophic typhoon swept over Pingelap, a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean. One of the few survivors carried a rare gene that causes achromatopsia, a condition that includes the inability to distinguish colors. Over generations, the islanders ended up perceiving their world in black and white. The Island of the Colorblind invites the audience to explore this shift in perception through de Wilde’s photography and an interactive installation

 

The Last Goodbye (World Premiere)

Project Creators: Gabo Arora, Ari Palitz

Key Collaborators: Stephen Smith, Here Be Dragons, MPC, Otoy, LightShed and USC Shoah Foundation

In July of 2016, Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter toured the Majdanek Concentration Camp in what he vowed would be his final visit. By marrying a stereo video capture of Pinchas within a photoreal roomscale experience, The Last Goodbye reaches profound levels of immersion in service of the first ever VR testimony that will be archived and preserved. The importance of listening to Pinchas’ story is more important now than ever and this is also a beautiful testament to love, compassion and the human spirit.

NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism (New York Premiere)

Project Creators: Hyphen-Labs – Ashley Baccus-Clark, Carmen Aguilar y Wedge, Ece Tankal, Nitzan Bartov

Imagined futures and contemporary realities come together in NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism, a multidisciplinary exploration of women of color’s experience through the lens of technology, society and culture. The project includes speculative products, immersive experiences and neuroscientific research. In the VR experience, discover the neurocosmetology lab, a kind of beauty salon, where instead of ordinary braids, customers are fitted with transcranial electrodes that allow access to a surreal alternate world.

Giant Sequoia. Project still from TREEHUGGER: WAWONA. Image credit: Marshmallow Laser Feast.

TREEHUGGER: WAWONA (North American Premiere)

Project Creator: Marshmallow Laser Feast

Key Collaborators: Natan Sinigaglia, Mileece I’Anson, Cinekid Foundation, STRP, Southbank Centre and Migrations

TREEHUGGER : WAWONA is an interactive installation that combines today’s cultural hunger for beautiful immersive experiences with art, science, data, environmentalism and technology. Centered on a vast sculpture of a giant redwood tree, the viewer dons a VR headset, places their head into the tree’s knot and is transported into its secret inner world. The longer someone hugs the tree, the deeper they drift into treetime: a hidden dimension that lies just beyond the limit of our senses.

Interactive Video Installation at New York Film Festival’s Convergence

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Featuring works by: Daniel Scheinert, Billy Chew, Lawrence Chen, Sandeep Parikh and Casey Donahue

Audiences are invited to experience four interactive shorts for the new entertainment platform for interactive storytelling, Eko: The Gleam, an interactive documentary about a small town paper; Ticking Bomb where two men’s paths violently collide; That Moment When, a comedy that asks the viewer to navigate a battery of awkward conversations; and Now/Then, a Rashomon-inspired story focused on the various perspectives swirling around a relationship on the rocks.

All shorts will be available to experience at: NYFF’s Convergence

Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
(144 W 65th Street. / Lincoln Center)
Saturday & Sunday, October 1 & 2

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THE GLEAM
By Daniel Scheinert and Billy Chew

Created by Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Possibilia) and Billy Chew, The Gleam is an interactive documentary film that explores the town of Guntersville, Alabama through its local newspaper, The Advertiser-Gleam. Encounters with the town’s vibrant personalities and events are presented within the documentary’s mosaic format, which gives each viewer a personal and insightful look into this community.

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Elite Daily & Eko
Present
THEN / NOW
Directed by Casey Donahue

Uncover for yourself the conflicting memories and unreliable interpretations of events leading to a couple’s breakup. Then/Now is a scripted narrative that presents multiple perspectives of a relationship. It’s up to you to piece together these fragments in order to gain a broader understanding of their disputed past.

Cast: Ingrid Haas, Brooks Morrison, Brad Gage, Lauren Schacher

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THAT MOMENT WHEN
Directed by Sandeep Parikh

We’ve all been there: you’re at a party speaking with someone who seems to know you and you think you know them but just can’t remember his name. Starring Milana Vayntrub, That Moment When is a short-form comedy where you will need to help Jill remember her friend’s name or risk her looking like a self-centered jerk.

Cast: Milana Vayntrub

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TICKING BOMB
Directed by Lawrence Chen

Set to Aloe Blacc’s harrowing song, Ticking Bomb presents two parallel worlds focused on two men. Their paths collide in a volatile encounter that triggers irreversible consequences for them both. This interactive experience allows you to switch between the perspective of the two characters as well as actors, revealing that the differences between class, race, good and evil are not as clear as we imagined.

Cast: Brett Aresco, Ugo Anyanwu, Briana Pozner