Baobab Studios is a new movie studio specializing in 360-degree interactive virtual reality movies. Their works include the hot animation short film "Invasion!" This interesting film was produced by Baobab's creative team, including Eric Darnell, director of the Madagascar series and co-founder of Baobab. More than a month ago, Baobab launched "Invasion!" sequel "Asteroids!" This studio in Redwood City, California, was founded by Eric Darnell and Maureen Fan. Maureen Fan is the former vice president of the famous developer Zynga. The two hope to create an interactive entertainment experience through the new medium of VR, merging the elements of movies and games. The "Asteroids!" short VR film debuted at the Oculus Connect 3 conference held in early October. The complete works will meet with the audience in 2017. Baobab's ideas and team allowed the startup to complete a $6 million financing last year and earned $25 million in Series B financing last month to focus on telling new virtual reality animation stories. Investors include Comcast Ventures, HTC, Samsung Ventures, Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Advancit Capital, Chernin Group, Freelands Ventures, Horizons Ventures, 20th Century Fox, Evolution Media Partners, China's Shanghai Media Group, Youku Global Media Fund, and LDV Partners. GamesBeat interviewed Fan at Oculus Connect, and she talked about the goals that Baobab is trying to achieve. The following is an interview piece compiled by Xiao Bian: Q: Can you tell everyone what you are currently doing? Fan: "Invasion!" was officially unveiled earlier this year. This work was premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Then we went to the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. For special reasons, I can't conveniently disclose specific rankings, but this work is very good. We know that everyone likes the characters inside. Roth Films recently announced that their production studio produced "Hunter" and "Marlene Fussen", all of whom were characters in "Alice in Wonderland." Because "Invasion!" performed so well, they are working together on a film version of this work. Because people really like the first episode, but we decided to make the next episode. This is the first time Asteroids! appeared here (OC3 conference). Eric Darnell, who started business with me, directed four Madagascar films and wrote scripts for them. We have been working together for a year now and we hope to tell stories in VR. Many people are talking about storytelling, but some stories are documentaries and some stories are news. This is different from the three-actural structure of narrative that Eric loves. We want to experiment to make the audience a role in the movie. If you were Aladdin or Bell in Beauty and Beast, what would it be like? Is it a game, a movie, or something in between? For Invasion !" If you look at the Rift version, you will find yourself with a rabbit's body when looking down. When you squat, your body will become fat. The audience is actually jumping around, especially in the Vive version. You can skip the entire room. Other characters will follow you. The most exciting part everyone feels is when the other rabbit is sniffing you. People will try to touch this rabbit and pat her head. When the rabbits are dancing, they even dance with them. Then, when the rabbit hides behind you, people will say: "I know it's not true, but I can feel her breath. I'm the only barrier between her and the aliens, and I need to protect her. †We realize that in the second episode, we hope to further explore the theme of the story. The background of Asteroids! is set in outer space on an alien spaceship. They came to the galaxy and they shared their warmth in daily housework. You will see how this looks like. Q: Did you develop specifically for Oculus or just show it here (OC3 Conference)? Fan: At present, this work is on Gear VR, but as a company, we will maintain platform neutrality. "Invasion!" will land on all platforms. It will soon be on PSVR, including Daydream. We have already appeared on Daydream's homepage, also in their advertisements. But for Asteroids!, we premiered here and first launched it on Gear VR. Q: Can these works bring you revenue? Fan: "Invasion!" is free, because this is our first production. We hope to achieve revenue in the future, but now these experiences are free. Q: Do you make long movies? Fan: We have no plan to shoot a full-length movie for the time being. As a start-up company, staying focused is important to us. We did VR well and Roth Films did a good job on long movies. They like our IP. This is an opportunity for us to see the cooperation between the two parties. But when we showed it to Roth Films, we didn't want to do it. We just show VR to people, and they said: “We are interested in making it into a movie.†We thought about it, and we finally decided that it was a good decision. Because movie stories can be drawn from anything, why can't we draw from VR? This is the first VR work to be filmed. We are also very happy about it. This is the recognition of our IP, Eric's past experience has already explained this. This is one of the reasons Hollywood loves us. His creative background has been recognized by the industry. However, it still makes us happy to be recognized. This is our first work. It is really exciting for us to have caused such a big sensation. Q: How many employees are there in your company? Fan: About 20 people Q: Are you ready to make a complete season? Fan: Yes. We have always been conceived in this way. Eric has created a lot, we have more than a dozen IP now. And we chose "Invasion!" as the first one. I worked as a vice president of gaming for six years at Zynga. Everything I drilled was related to testing. Based on people's reaction to "Invasion!", we know that we should continue to make the rest of the IP. But we are ready. Question: I guess this is more like a theater-style VR and not entirely an interactive VR. Fan: For the Gear VR version, this is not an interactive experience. This is a 360-degree video. But for Rift, Vive, and PSVR versions, this will be an interactive experience, especially because we want viewers to be called one of the roles. Interactivity is very important, especially since the part that establishes the most connection with the audience is the scene in which the audience interacts with the character. This is Eric's learned experience, but he doesn't want to make people feel that this is a game. He doesn't want to do anything because you want to go to the next level. He hopes that you will make such an act out of your feelings about the character. You care about this role. What you want to do for them. This is what we are trying to explore. Everyone wants to know if this is a movie or a game. But neither is. In the game, you are usually the protagonist, but you will think 'what game developers want me to do?' And the film is the opposite, the movie is completely passive experience, you will not think of yourself, you will pay more attention to the role. When you're in a VR experience, Eric doesn't want you to feel like it's a game. He does not want the audience to worry about themselves. He wants you to care about other characters. Invasion! is his first attempt. Is there any way to put yourself in the experience without feeling pressure and not having the idea that the producer wants me to do it? I think he has found the answer. This is a bit like a game because you are one of them and the experience is running in a real-time engine. But this is also like a movie because it is a narrative experience. However, this is not a simple matter of one or the other. Q: Is the development of the market the same as you expected? Fan: Head-up sales are good, but VR needs to be more content to become a mass consumer. If you choose Gear or Rift, or Vive, then the market has only a few high quality experiences. There is more content in the ecosystem to bring more users back. We are also working hard to do this. We feel that there are a lot of content on the market that are specific to a specific group of people, such as heavy games for heavy Rift players. The documentary about Syria has a very deep theme. But we think the audience needs a content that has universal appeal. We are trying to find a way for the public to accept VR, not just to bring VR to the niche market. We believe that the reason why "Invasion!" can be so successful goes from the old lady to the children and the middle-aged people. I hope there will be more such content. Content will eventually become a reason to attract people to buy heads-up display. We need to be excited about certain things. It's not just trailers, but information-rich stuff, something you can only see in VR. Q: I didn't find out much about the elements that 360-degree experience must use. Fan: That's right. The reason why people say they can't see it on a regular screen is because when you break the fourth wall, the character thinks you are important, too. In the movie, when the character admits you, the first thing you think of is "no, it's impossible." But if something like "The Death Knight" really happened, you still won't believe that the character is really talking to you. In VR, you will fully believe that this character is real. Something in your brain will make you believe it is true. In particular, when the character is hiding behind you, because you feel that you are the only barrier between the rabbit and the alien, it will make you feel pressure, even fear. Eric and I debated this issue. I don't like to be too active. When the aliens shoot their tentacles, I hope the rabbit can stand here. But Eric said: "No, it's not true. The virtual reality should be more real. The rabbit will hide behind you." Then I said: "But it's very stressful." He replied, "No, this is VR. "The strength." The results proved that he was right, because about 2,000 people had seen this video, most of them would say: "The moment that the rabbit hides behind me makes me feel empathy." They will Caring for that rabbit. It is the success of the film that makes you concerned about the character. We can never do this in movies. Another thing is how you guide the audience's line of sight. The focus of VR is to give the audience a sense of substitution. But I believe you have heard Spielberg say VR is dangerous because the director needs full control. The director will force the audience to pay attention to certain things. But in VR, you can look everywhere. So how can you get the audience to notice where you want him to pay attention, especially if the rhythm is so important? Eric has developed many technologies through experiments. When the rabbit looks to the right, you instinctively follow the right. But if the audience does not find something interesting, they will go to the beginning. However, you still feel that this is your choice, so even if the director lets you notice a shot, you still feel that you have more control. This is another difference between VR and movie. Q: How do you decide which format is the best way to create specific content? Because you have a lot of different choices between a very short movie and a two-hour movie. Fan: This is a compromise. Statistics data show that people do not necessarily want to use too long heads. Although we can make a two-hour movie in VR, I still don't really like this. We hope everyone has a good experience, and this experience should not be too long. This is why we do not make long films. The reason why we do this is related to the Millennials. The young audience likes to finish a bite rather than a longer story. Zynga taught us this and we have to design extremely short game time. We hope this will become a comfortable experience that suits people's lives. This is why we focus on short films. If we make a 90-minute movie, the technology and the language of the movie will be out of date when we finish. With this short content, we can quickly apply what we learned to the next project. We are always experimenting. In the future, we can make a longer experience. But we need more viewers and a more comfortable experience. Q: Do you think that experienced directors can generally achieve good results in VR, or can anyone else? Fan: Anyone can, but you can't think of it as a movie or a game. Half of my team is born in the game field. I am more of a student in games. Eric comes from the field of film. We are constantly challenging each other because VR itself is the medium. We cannot think in the same way. This is why Eric is very happy to do this. He said, "I can shoot "Madagascar 20" or I can create a new movie language." He was originally an intern at DreamWorks. He directed "Little Ants", their first animated film. He believes that VR is like the beginning of computer animation movies. No one knows what they are doing, but this is a fusion of art and technology. He abandoned everything he knew, but brought what he had learned in his life. Interestingly, he graduated from his California College of the Arts and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. Many famous directors also studied there, but Eric's specialty is experimental animation, not just traditional animation. This is what attracted him. He also left the rules out of the window. Whenever he gives a speech, the first thing he says is always letting us ignore all the rules. People think that what you can do cannot be done, including what we say. It's too early to tell what you can and can't do.
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