There’s no stopping BackLight! The French studio spread its wings despite Covid, installing one of its OZ rooms in Las Vegas (and soon in Europe) and taking BLANCA LI’s PARIS BAL to Venice for the Biennale – where the project won the award for best interactive work.
We met Jonathan Tamene, co-founder and producer at BackLight, who tells us about the genesis of the project, including the production of a collaborative experience mixing dancers and VR, as well as their collaboration with the Spanish choreographer Blanca Li.
LE BAL DE PARIS DE BLANCA LI, it all started at… Venice VR
Jonathan Tamene – We started working on LE BAL DE PARIS DE BLANCA LI (link) more than 2 years ago, after meeting Blanca during the 2018 Venice Film Festival. She had discovered our project ECLIPSE which was in selection, and the idea of an interactive and collaborative LBE experience in full body awareness interested her strongly. Passionate about new technologies, she had indeed planned to design a virtual experience with already at the time a script in hand. We did some convincing tests together and went looking for funding and sponsors. We adopted Blanca’s concept and added our development expertise to adapt it to virtual reality. We then built a first prototype, becoming co-producers of the experience.
J. T. – Then we moved to the Théâtre National de Chaillot (early 2020) for a series of full-scale tests. Our role: the VR development, which was done on the technique, the technologies, and of course some tricks of staging – notably the “plane shifting” which remains one of our signatures, known on several of our immersive experiences. It allows the viewer to move easily via platforms, elevators and other vehicles of all kinds. We really wanted a coherent and realistic space-time environment, without teleportation, interruptions or ellipses, with human-sized settings, and with the most natural rendering and movements possible for users: if they want to get from point A to point B, they will do it as in real life.
Adapting VR for Covid19
J. T. – During the production, the world changed, especially for the entertainment industry (LBE), and physical contact – necessary for our experience – was no longer welcome. We had to adapt our ambitions to the reopening of the venue. The Ball is a live show in Virtual Reality, with dancers accompanying the spectator and making him participate in the story. This is an essential element for us and for Blanca, which we have kept despite everything.
J. T. – Moreover, when we presented ourselves in Venice, we had to adapt even more and present a stand-alone version (online) especially for the occasion. A little fear can appear when you present a project like LE BAL DE PARIS DE BLANCA LI in an event as prestigious as the Venice Biennale, facing works presented as they were thought. On our side, the adaptation of the project allowed us to live the experience alone, without contact, without a dancer and without a complete avatar, contrary to the immersion that we had originally thought. This was a new production (and new costs) for us: the festival version involved new motion capture shoots, multiple languages, teleportation, etc.
J. T. – We are really honored with the award (Best VR Experience), after all the effort, development time and in a difficult global context. It’s a great reward for Blanca and our teams. The next part is coming soon: LE BAL DE PARIS DE BLANCA LI will be presented from October 7 to 16 at the Théâtre de Chaillot. And we want to show it to as many people as possible! Like any show, it must be able to travel between several venues. There is certainly a technical challenge, and additional sanitary constraints, but we believe in the potential of such a show.
Imagining the future of the LBE
J. T. – We have the ambition to continue to advance the industry and offer a virtual reality that is new, sensational, social and with as little physical constraints as possible. Our belief in LBE VR is still intact, despite the last two years. We are still here! Free-Roaming, Hyper Reality (sensations of heat, wind, vibrations on the ground, odorama…), complete avatars… We want to offer experiences that are really different from what you can live in your living room, multiplayer adventures, to be lived at any age and accessible to all. The interest is undeniable for the spectator, and it motivates us to push the limits of immersion on each of our projects.
J. T. – LBE VR has not benefited from any great evolution in the last three years. And this is undoubtedly a real flaw. We gain a little in resolution, in computing power, but we remain dependent on the industrialists who produce the material, and we can feel that their efforts are focused on the B2C consumer market first, and the B2B second but from an industrial angle. We hope from them a clear positioning on this specific market of LBE VR and we expect the next evolution of free roaming, in one year to 18 months, with streaming in the rooms (Wifi 6, Cloud…), larger playing surfaces, less investments for operators… Free roaming 2.0 soon! We’re also keeping an eye on 5G, for outdoor experiences, especially for our experiential marketing activity, our original business.
J. T. – Our OZ Experience room concept has proven itself; we opened the first one in Las Vegas in the heart of the AREA15 in early 2021 (15,000 spectators in May) where we exclusively offer VR entertainment content made in BackLight. We now want to prove that there is a market for high-end VR entertainment. We’ve done that with our first venue, and now we’re looking to expand the concept to other cities.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.