you
my name is Anrick I'm a director I've been directing content for about 10
years I started working on web-based experiences and then moved slowly into
film and virtual reality and augmented reality always trying to look at how we
can make a story in some simple way interactive so that somebody who is
experiencing that story can touch or or change or answer or be involved in some
way in other narrative plays out
I remember the interview super well it was a nice interview good questions and
since then I remember discussing some of the the topics that I've been following
since then in that interview since 2015 I've been working on expanding my
understanding of two different things so virtual reality and augmented reality
story stories and how those stories are becoming more integrated with the world
around us spatially looking at how in particular augmented reality and
inhabits the space and involves the space that you may be in and and that
super interesting and it's also complicated because every space then
becomes different the story becomes different depending on where you
experience it that's the first thing and the second thing I've been exploring is
how I can just make stories that reach across specific devices more broadly I
think that the landscape of immersive storytelling is pretty fractured
everybody has a different device and stories are often built specifically for
one or two devices specific because of the complexity of making it compatible
so I've been exploring web VR in particular web AR allowing people that
have any type of device even people that just have a phone or or a laptop to
experience of stories
I think our society in ten years is going to radically change but a little
bit like ten years ago visually things aren't that different
we're gonna walk around the same streets we're gonna see the same buildings and
human beings will roughly be the same human beings that they are now but what
we see ourselves the way that we see the world ourselves will change and I think
what's especially important is the world is gonna start to be different for all
of us we see the same world today but in particular augmented reality and an AI
and systems that we already use every day where our music playlists are
different or the news we see is different you can apply that to the
world around us and do the stories that we're going to be telling we will no
longer be experiencing the same story exactly like Bandersnatch has a maybe a
very recent example we'll all have our own journey and the world will look
different to all of us if you apply something like face filters on Instagram
or snapchat to augmented reality wearable glasses
like north which just look like normal glasses but apply that layer over the
real world suddenly the way that you see me will not be the way that I see me and
that the way I see you won't be the way that that you see you or somebody else
will see you we'll all have a different look it's going to be really complicated
and really confusing and really fun and really fascinating and we'll be able I
think in a way to have superpowers because we'll see things then that today
we can't see with our own eyes
for sure I think the borders between the real and the virtual are blending I
think both in terms of our personality and in terms of just purely what we see
in the world those two layers are coming together I think there's some
interesting work happening both let's say a magic leap with the magic verse
that they are building or with companies like 6d AI who are really aiming to
create depth data across all cities initially and then really reaching
beyond that and once we have persistent depth data all around us once we've
mapped every room then the virtual which seems like a place you go to today will
come to us and will be present and we can carry it with us if you think about
the vision of magic leaps city scale they are projects where an augmented
reality experience follows you out of the building and down the street to work
or home that's the layer of digital and virtual blending into the real so so I
think it's going to change significantly and I think that our time is going to
start to become more balanced between the two
I think mixed reality is going to change what we see and how we perceive it for
sure I think we're gonna have new layers of information or just new layers of
expression I love the it's a strange niche scene
but it's really coming to the forefront I love the the Instagram makeup scene
and it's not something that's specific to my own passion necessarily I'm not
super into crazy makeup but it's amazing to see that discipline being applied to
digital assets and then lending over into augmented reality and suddenly
people are creating visions of humans that today we don't really have or if
anything only exists in very niche cultural groups the idea that how we
look is something we choose as humans and that it can be radically different
as opposed to mostly the same seems very possible in the next few years
I'm sometimes afraid of the virtual taken over my real life I think it can
be difficult today to choose where to spend your time just in the same way
that it can be difficult to choose between friends and family and work and
home and alone time and you know we already have some complex matrix
sometimes of how we spend our time and the virtual layers of our lives
certainly of my life opens up so many possibilities I mean the places that
could be traveling to literally in my house any day yeah it's it's an amazing
opportunity and tempting to just spend all your time in there I could get lost
in the virtual spaces that exist today and if that's you know grows is going to
be incredibly fascinating if I think about a company like improbable which as
a mission has a few different interesting layers but in particular
procedural worlds that are endless that are just generated that just exists out
of code I cannot imagine anything more exciting
than going to discover a corner that doesn't yet have a human imprint that
was created by code like traveling to other planets that's just that's for me
is on that level like that's it's like traveling to another planet I think
you
my favorite video game I think beat saber comes pretty close I
just generally love space like exploration as such I'm always such a
massive fan of astronomy as a kid and of science fiction and so to me that best
games in in in VR are the games that take me out into the universe and even
if it's imagined or on to a space station I kissed it it's the life I had
dreamt of having as a kid I dreamt that but when I was older when I was an adult
we'd all be in space traveling the solar system and we don't be hopping around so
maybe I don't have a particular one in mind but I like space games alone I
remember as the kid playing games and being convinced as much as my parents
might be worried about my obsessive game playing behavior being convinced that it
was teaching me a lot of things I knew I could tell I was getting quicker at
hand-eye coordination I could tell it was challenging my brain to solve
puzzles or or to just have my brain think about complex issues so I've
always felt like games were really beneficial and I think both in terms of
the tools and the games that VR or AR offer that remains true I think that's
really the power of wearable headsets and the weakness of phone based
experiences is when you have your hands-free you're operating in the world
as a full human and then that connection between your body parts and your brain
becomes really really strong B Sabre is an amazing example of that there's
others I'm pretty fascinated by some of the meditation experiences that exist
some of the games that are much less about action or puzzling but much more
about exploration I think that's super interesting I'm skeptical of some of the
bigger scientific claims that are being made I always try to look really
carefully at the science behind the work that claims to solve big issues or have
a medical in however medical benefit I think sometimes VR can claim to be doing
things that it might not necessarily be doing or where the achievements aren't
because of the VR but maybe because of the science that is irrelevant to VR so
I think there's loads of interesting tab and things happen
i coordination and just fun applied to physical movement like tilt brush and b
saber are fantastic but be a to me exploring space in vr that's like my my
childhood dream
I think it's it's a rough journey and I think there's a few bumps to go but I do
think that we're saying wearable devices that have the power to do a are coming
out I think we're seeing lower-priced powerful VR headsets coming out okay
let's go being just one example and most importantly we're seeing VR devices that
do AR or vice versa I know the AR headsets have some VR capabilities also
so there's a kind of convergence happening that is interesting but the
landscape remains really diverse and it can be very difficult as a creator
sometimes to understand what platform you're developing for and the cost I
know that from my own experiences the cost of of reconfiguring something for
another headset or another device even within the same for your ecosystem can
be pretty high for any developers there are beginning to be companies and tools
that try to cross that bridge that allow you to develop even as a plug-in within
unity for example in one environment and output to all and I think that's
actually the core that the real advancement being made today in the VR
and AR space is actually at the game engine level both Unreal Engine and
unity are making massive steps in making it easier for any developers to put
content into every device scaling it up or down depending on whoever has
whatever legacy object and so I think the moment you remove the need to be
aware of all the range of options of devices as an indie developer the more
you're going to be able to just create whatever your dream of making and that's
what the the industry really needs is just the whole range of of amazing of
amazing different experiences
I don't think it went super well I'm still interested in everything I think
the I can report to you after our last interview that I've learned to accept
that I'm interested in everything and I try to spend my time a little bit more
wisely so I have specific time set aside for research and for allowing myself to
try new tools and experiment with new things and then I do try to do something
which I mentioned in my talk as well yesterday which is taking a step away
from all the technology options and just right so I've I've kind of gone towards
the writing more strongly I write my stories I try to think about a story
bigger than or Arella not connected to the technology output and then I try to
find places where it could go and I like the idea of working on projects that are
maybe available across VR and they are that live differently but have those two
different outputs those two different touchpoints
yes I'm excited I've just started something big I'm working on a new
project it's called drift and drift is about climate change so climate change
obviously something that I think in 2018 really came to the news we had some
really insane crazy extreme weather events I explored that topic already in
my vr game storm in the past with extreme weather as an enemy but drift is
going to be different drift is about making a connection with somebody who
was living 25 years from now and so our ability may be to communicate with
somebody in that time and to learn from their challenges that are the direct
result of our actions or non actions is gonna be an interesting learning
experience this is not going to be a very factual experience it's not about
someone telling you off or you know trying to list all the things you're
doing wrong in 2019 but through learning and empathy and through a connection
with somebody that's living in our future I think we may be able to learn
in a very natural way the longer-term impacts and I think that's what's
missing from a lot of the climate change debates that are taking place the
longer-term impacts we're seeing all the extreme weather events happening we are
noticing the shorter term crisis and I think that it's amazing in 2018 because
of some of that that people are more aware but we should be thinking 25 30 40
year timelines so that's what I'm hoping to do in a small way is is to build a
connection with somebody that has that longer-term perspective