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Take one.
I really think that the reason
that Unity and Weta are perfect partners
goes back to the foundation of both companies.
If you go back to the foundation of Weta
and Peter Jackson's genius...
He realized that he wanted to make films
that were impossible to make with the tools of the day.
And he created tools that really enabled artists to do things
that were beautiful and possible.
Similar time frame: you go back, and you look at Unity Technologies,
and they weren't looking at the artist, they were looking
to the video game maker, the programmer.
They didn't have the tools to make what they needed to make.
Around the same time frame
Unity was creating groundbreaking tools
that enabled programmers and developers
to create new forms of entertainment.
Same time frame: Peter was doing that with artists.
Today, the most important works
are a blend of developers and artists
working together to create, whether it's great films,
whether it's great video games, or it's great so many other things.
So bringing these two things together
is about as natural as anything I can think of.
I couldn't agree more, and the fact is that you nailed it,
which is going all the way back to the very beginning,
which is what Peter saw in his mind,
was was just not possible at the time.
Creating those tools to actually do it
stayed in our DNA all the way up to today.
It's the perfect time for a custodian like Unity
to take that pipeline and bring that out to the entire world.
What I'm most excited about is how many new voices out there
are we going to create
through the current artists and also future artists
by enabling these tools and put them in their hands.
To build on that,
in Unity, we say that we believe the world is a better place
[John] with more creators in it. [Prem] Yeah.
You go back a decade ago, we were talking about democratization.
[Prem] Completely. [John] Getting powerful tools
to ordinary people to make incredible things.
We celebrate the artists inside of Unity.
[John] Weta is the artists. [Prem] That's right.
But they also made the tools for the artists.
[Prem] That's right. [John] It's an easy conversation
to have because we've been having the same conversation
from two decades before we met each other.
That's exactly right, and I think that we...
that's why we're going to be the best client of the software.
We'll be the number one client and the number one customer and client
because Unity will take those tools
and make them so much more powerful and user-friendly
than we could ourselves, and we can really focus on what we do best,
which is creating beautiful,
visually arresting cinematic television and film.
I'll give you my picture of Weta:
one of the most incredible creator forces on the planet,
whether it's Academy Awards
or just some of the best films that's ever been made.
Deep in that organization
are a set of tools, a content creation pipeline,
that is used privately inside of Weta.
Yeah.
It is the crown jewels of the film industry.
People would do anything to get their hands on those tools
to be able to do what Peter Jackson does so brilliantly.
[Prem] Yes. [John] While that's hidden
inside of Weta, what's rising around us
are not just hundreds of thousands but millions
and potentially billions of future creators.
Unity's lot in life
is to take powerful content creation tools to the world.
By partnering up with Weta here, what we get to do
is to take what they've been polishing for over 20 years
and bring it to the rest of the world.
I think we're going to unlock a tidal wave of creativity
[John] around the globe. [Prem] I couldn't agree more
because our North Star, as you've perfectly articulated,
has been creativity in the artists,
has been storytelling, has been what's on the screen.
We've never been guided by anything else besides that.
It's really the benefit of being founded
by Sir Peter Jackson, of course.
That's always been what we are in service of
no matter what we do.
To be able to have the influence
around the industry, you're absolutely right;
everybody wants their hands on these tools.
We want to give it to them, something that we could not do ourselves.
That's why you are the perfect partner, Unity,
really because of what we looked at,
which is that you have the three Ts that we call it.
You've got the Technology, the Team, and the Timing.
The timing couldn't be better for our shared vision
of empowering new voices and new creators all around the world.
Just to tease out a little bit about that.
When I first realized what a genius Peter Jackson was...
I remember I got lost in reading
I was a little late, I guess, a late bloomer.
It was finals week my freshman year.
[Prem] How did you do on the exam? [John] I tanked.
I read all three books finals week.
[John] It wasn't my best performance. [Prem] Interesting timing.
For the rest of my life, I carried an image in my head
of what each character looked like,
what they acted like, what they felt like.
Just to use Gollum as an example,
I knew exactly what Gollum looked like.
I could smell what he was about.
I do not know, and did not know,
how Peter Jackson could read my mind and put that on the screen.
He created something from whole cloth
and a collection of words, it's beyond brilliant.
He needed to create tools for that.
There were no tools to deliver on that imagination.
He spoke for the hundreds of millions of people
that are affected by that story, and he gave it to us.
Sheer brilliance and the power of tools.
First of all, I envisioned Gollum the same way as you did,
and there it was. That is just absolutely, to Peter's credit,
the tools is really the focus on the first virtual character,
which was Gollum, largely on a large screen.
People were so entranced in the story,
looking at the power of that tool to create Gollum;
we got phone calls 20 years ago at Weta
that said, "Where did you get that actor?
Where did you get that person?"
There are industry professionals who called up Joe Letteri
and called up Peter Jackson and said that.
That was such a testament to the tool itself,
and also the storytelling of using that tool again.
in service of the story: people were so into the story,
they didn't even realize that, of course,
that's a completely CG character.
Why is the timing so right?
In the last year or so,
we've been hearing everywhere about the metaverse.
[Prem} Yeah [John] About the way the world
is going to change by this vague notion.
To me, the notion is not all that vague;
It's the next generation of the internet.
But instead of looking at an actor walking back and forth
or looking at a picture,
instead of us going to look at a shot window,
we're going to be surrounded
by the environment created by artists
and the Next Generation. [Prem] That's right.
They are going to bring us untold creativity
and the power of the next set of GPUs
and networks, will enable that.
But guess what? Outside of Weta, there are no tools
for creating these imaginary worlds,
these imaginary destinations in the metaverse.
One of the things I'm most excited about
is I believe Unity can take Weta's tools to the world,
and enable, literally, I believe hundreds of millions of creators
to change the face of creativity.
[Prem] Absolutely. [John] It's going to unlock so much.
These tools are going to set a foundation of the metaverse.
That's right. By the way, we were using these tools
before metaverse was the new word of the day, right?
It was the world that we built in Pandora for
It's the Middle-earth for
That immersive world, I was thinking about it flying over here this morning.
It's like, "How I'm so involved in 2D on Instagram or whatnot?"
I think about, "Okay, five years, ten years from now,
how am I going to be engaged in 3D art,
in 3D creativity in video and stills in that way?"
That's what these tools can bring in.
That's why I agree with you. I think it's hundreds of millions
of creators who are going to be able to use these tools
in platforms that I can't even dream about right now.
Yep. One of the parts that we look forward to is...
At Unity, we think it's our privilege
to serve the world's greatest artists.
We get to do that in the video game industry.
But to find ourselves in the situation as we are now,
we get to serve the finest video effects organization on the planet,
to support them by ever-advancing those tools,
to stand, if you will, just a little left of brilliance
and a little bit left of greatness, and in another, we're part of it.
We couldn't be more excited.
Us as well because, honestly, we get to focus on what we're best at.
We're the best in the world at shipping movies.
We're the best in the world of shipping creator tools.
Now that marriage actually is truly aligned with our interest
because the better we do at what we do,
the better the pipeline will become for future artists.
It's exciting to me. I've been in the entertainment business
for the better part of a quarter of a century.
This is really the first time I've ever had a customer
where I'm not sure if I want to ask them to give me their autograph
or if I can help them solve a problem.
There are so many talented...
I know exactly how you feel, by the way.
I've been following their careers for a great long time.
I can't wait to meet Joe Letteri and just marvel at what he's done.
Of course, there's Peter, but there's so many others.
I'm looking forward to get to know them.
Absolutely. We've got dozens and dozens.
That's the wonderful thing about Weta, when artists come,
to Weta, they come to stay, and our tenure is almost 13 years long,
which is about 13 times the average tenure in our industry.
We've just been able to nurture this talent and keep them.
The effects are what you would see on the big screen every day.
[man] Awesome. Fantastic. [Prem] If you don't have it in that.
[Prem] Come on. [man] No, it's in there somewhere.
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