Firm enters virtual reality arena
Matter VR says it will make films with ‘Monty Python’ and ‘Poltergeist’ veterans.
Conventional wisdom about the immersive form of entertainment known as virtual reality cinema is that it won’t catch on until it acquires some traditional Hollywood cachet.
A new Los Angeles company called Matter VR hopes to do just that by bringing some old-school Hollywood know-how to a potentially groundbreaking new form of entertainment.
Executives from Matter VR announced Friday that they have launched the firm, and that its introductory slate of content includes projects with Gil Kenan, director of ”Monster House” and the upcoming “Poltergeist” reboot; “Ted” producer Jason Clark; and Monty Python troupe member Terry Jones.
Matter VR has a Hollywood pedigree at the executive level too: The company is founded and run by “Cosmos” producer Steven Holtzman and pre-visualization specialist Daniel Gregoire (“World War Z” and “Birdman” as well as work with George Lucas). Gregoire also worked on “Cosmos” as animatic director.
“We think this is an opportunity to work with some top talent in an exciting new way,” Holtzman said in an interview. “There are so many possibilities for what you can do in VR, and these are some of the best people to help explore that.”
The burgeoning category of VR cinema looks to create narrative content in the medium’s 360-degree world, with headsets and other equipment putting viewers in the center of the action. The last few months have brought a content feeding frenzy of sorts as tech and entertainment figures have linked up to generate material that will be ready when the devices such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift and HTC’s Vive become widely available as early as this year.
The thinking is that this content, especially if it’s made with veteran entertainment figures, will have a leg up with consumers who buy these devices and are
seeking entertainment to watch on them.
Matter VR is banking on a diverse mix of creators and genres for its own offerings. Among the films it is developing are Kenan’s “Two Moons,” a live-action science-fiction piece about an unwanted passenger on an outer space journey; an untitled live-action film from Clark; and an animated piece called “Aesop & Friends w/ Terry Jones” that features the noted performer and is being created and directed by Holtzman. Another project, “Soul Transfer,” is being created and directed by Gregoire.
The company also is developing a project with an unidentified tech company that it is expected to debut in the next few months.
Though all of these are in the realm of episodic shortform content — the preferred format for VR content at the moment — the company hopes to develop featurelength films as well.
Matter VR has outside funding for some individual projects and also will raise money for a general fund to bankroll production of its larger slate.
Executives say there isn’t a fixed amount of films they’d like to produce each year but they hope it’s a mix of live, animated, short- and longform content.
Ultimately, they will make money by selling the content to consumers across various mobile and digital platforms such as the Rift and Vive.
One of the obstacles in creating a traditional production banner around VR has been the uncertain character of the content itself. How does one, for instance, write a script or storyboard a story that is happening all around a viewer instead of in a defined frame?
Holtzman and Gregoire say they use a system in which there can be as many as an A,B, C and D story happening at once (a spin on Hollywood’s traditional approach of an A and B story happening at different times) and that consumers will be guided to a particular story by the events in the film.
Unlike traditional entertainment, VR tells its stories not in discrete edited chunks but over long takes. But that can be a virtue, not a hurdle, the Matter VR principals say.
“We think it’s a great opportunity to tell a rich story, slowly paced,” Gregoire said.
With people such as Kenan and Jones involved — Kenan has his new “Poltergeist” hitting theaters this spring, and Jones directed some of Monty Python’s biggest film hits, such as “Life of Brian” — the number of traditional Hollywood creators involved in VR continues to grow.
A group of Pixar veterans has left the studio to join a new VR animated label at Oculus, “Maleficent” director Robert Stromberg has formed a company that will concentrate on VR and 20th Century Fox has developed a separate lab to work on virtual-reality entertainment.
Although other mainstream Hollywood figures have been hesitant to dive in, Matter VR’s executives say that it’s only a matter of time for many of these people, who are hesitant because of a lack of direction, not desire.
“Not everyone knows exactly how they want to play in this space. But almost everyone we’ve talked to is curious about how they might be involved,” Holtzman said.
He paused. “How often as a creative person do you get to work in an entirely new medium?”