This year the Cannes Film Festival made the historic decision to create the “Immersive Competition”, a new category the festival has included, alongside the “Palme d’Or” and “Un Certain Regard”, awarding a Cannes Film Festival prize for the Best Immersive Work of 2024, included in the nominations is a piece called EVOLVER, by Marshmallow Laser Feast.
Despite the festival’s reputation of being one of the most traditional parts of the film industry, a quick look at the festival’s role in the history of film will show that it has in fact been at the cutting edge of many of the significant changes and evolutions in storytelling since its inception 77 years ago. With this new addition, it may be about to secure its role as a festival at the cutting edge of a new era.
For 2024, the General Delegate of the Festival Thierry Frémaux brought in Eli Levasseur, already a significant figure in the XR space, who has skillfully managed to combine Cannes’s historic legacy with a medium that to many represents the biggest shift in storytelling and entertainment of this century.
The creators are a mix of artists in the immersive art world, as well as transmedia artists who are further exploring immersive storytelling…. We intentionally curated works with well-known names, (…) alongside emerging artists, to make way for a new wave of artists championing this medium.
Elie Levasseur, Immersive Competition Project Director
Eight pieces were selected in-competition, with the festival making a deliberate move to look not only at VR, but at the immersive medium(s) more broadly, so as to include AR, holographic works and video projection installations, with a specific focus on collective/multi user experiences.
One of the works that will compete for the coveted Best Immersive Work Award is “EVOLVER”, created by Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF), produced by Atlas V, Pressman Film, MLF, Orange, Dirty Films, and Bia-Echo Foundation.
MLF started “as a way of committing to a passion project”, says Barnaby Steel, one of the three founders of the studio.
The founders themselves came from film, theatre and coding backgrounds, a combination which is in many ways responsible for the studio’s unique approach and aesthetic.
Ask a different person about Marshmallow Laser Feast and you will get a different answer.
To some they are one of the few success stories of the OG immersive revolution, using the medium to make profound artistic statements about life, nature and the universe. To others they are a professional business-savvy studio that have somehow perfected the precarious balancing act between completing large scale commercial contracts and realising their own artistic ambitions.
Walking towards their studios, I began to wonder exactly which MLF I would encounter when I arrived: would it be the inscrutable Warholian digital art collective, or the shrewd corporate production machine?
The answer, it would turn out, would be both.
I visited their East London studios to find out more about what the Evolver was about, the approach the studio has developed, and most importantly, how the hell they had pulled this off.
The scale of EVOLVER is impressive to say the least, being produced by Hollywood titans Pressman Film (American Psycho/Wall Street), French VR heavyweights Atlas V (Gloomy Eyes/Madrid Noire), and starring Cate Blanchett (Lord Of The Rings/The Aviator), Evolver started life as a prototype that was shown at Cannes in 2021.
It’s a good example of a workflow where we have an idea, then create a prototype to work out what’s possible, and how to raise funding for the project. We took that out to Cannes a few years ago, which led to us raising funding for the full artwork.
Marshmallow Laser Feast
The post 2016 Oculus/FB acquisition gold rush led to an explosion of startups and studios, many of whom lasted less than a few years before crashing into flames, and are (perhaps unfairly) referred to as “Boomer VR” in some of the more cynical corners of Reddit and VRChat. However, Marshmallow Laser Feast are a rare example of a traditional film studio that moved into XR and were able to make thought-provoking and relevant work without getting lost in the novelty factor and hype of a new technology.
Centred around the interactions between humanity and nature, their work often carries messages and themes that stay with the audience long after the experience is over, but how and why did the company adapt to immersive technology?
When the company started, we were doing lots of car commercials. This was around 15 years ago, when our focus was on more “traditional” film, often with some kind of technological complexity, either with interactive lighting systems or animation. I think we’ve been on a kind of spiritual journey, from having children to waking up to the environmental crisis- asking “How do my actions affect people on the planet? What is my real purpose?” I think we’ve gone on this journey as a studio together.”
Barnaby Steel, MLF
Steel is passionate about XR and has very clear ideas on the unique affordances of the medium. He speaks in lightning-fast, hyper articulate sentences, jumping between VR, art, space, time, photosynthesis and fatherhood in a single breath, but when it comes to his studio and the work they are creating, he is confident and focused, with a clear sense of responsibility towards the message MLF’s work is communicating.
Our deepest intention is thinking about the potential of virtual reality, immersive experiences where we use technology to “tickle” all the senses, engaging with light, touch, haptics and scent. We believe in the transformative potential of the medium.
At the core of a lot of our work, or at least the works on nature, is an attempt to look at science as a lens that expands perception. By being able to see this invisible world that exists beyond the limits of your senses, you are given a firsthand experience of how you exist in relation to everything else.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
“The other essential ingredient is looking at technology as a way of expanding perception” says Steel, referring to a theme that runs through much of MLF’s work.
You can think of science as really just extending perception, designing tools that allow you to see into internal structures, to look back through the James Webb Space Telescope at the dawn of the universe: Huge technologies that allow us to peer into these dark corners of reality.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
Anyone who has experienced MLF’s work will notice recurring themes and aesthetics that have become a trademark of the studio. When asked if this was something that had been planned from the start, or simply an organic byproduct of the team’s various backgrounds and competencies, Steel is quick to highlight the role of his two co-founders, and the bond they share with one another:
We’ve got quite a diverse range of mediums that we explore, from sculpture to pure sound and light installations. My focus has been more on the virtual reality experiences that explore the web that weaves life into different relationships. There are infinite narratives, and it often involves collaborations with scientists or diving into datasets. I really enjoy that process, Ersin Han Ersin (who’s one of the other creative directors with Robin McNicholas) and myself, all cross-pollinate on projects. There’s been a lot of momentum with the works we create in the nature sector, but Robin has also been working on this project called “Sweet Dreams”, which is a more playful, theatrical look at our relationship to food, it’s going to be at Manchester International Festival.
We recognise that “ping pong-ing” ideas around always enriches the work. I feel like that’s the power of having three artists that are part of a larger collective of people, and that it’s through this cross-pollination that the work finds its best possible position.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
Many of the XR studios that launched in the “Golden Years” of 2016/17 have either closed down, or fallen into the trap of needing to create exclusively commercial pieces in order to survive. They had to give up on their dreams of creative independence and of making their own artworks, of having their work recognised at festivals such as Cannes. But somehow MLF seem to have survived the various ups and downs of the XR hype cycle, becoming one of the biggest players in the commercial XR space while still retaining artistic credibility. I asked Steel how they were able to weather these storms, how they balanced their own artistic ambitions alongside the work they had to do to survive.
Our portfolio is quite broad, so we do a lot of commissions for museums and galleries.
Our virtual reality work has always been slightly subsidised by the other work. There’s been moments, for example, when “Ocean Of Air” was at the Saatchi Gallery and got extended for three months, and actually started to do really well, it was making a profit. But it’s a difficult medium to shift, because for a gallery thinking about putting on a new show, it’s much cheaper to put on something that doesn’t involve all that technology or of having to hire extra staff.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
For Steel, Marshmallow Laser Feast (similar to XR) is still in its infancy – a story which is only just beginning.
He sounds in equal parts excited by the evolution of technology and frustrated that these technologies are still far too embryonic to realise MLF’s master plan.
The way we’re thinking about the work we’re doing today, is that they are our best experiments, almost like trailers for the “feature films” that we’ll be making in ten years.
We’re doing sketches and experiments that are leading up to a much bigger experience.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
The combination of MLF’s success and their apparent secrecy has led to a reputation within the XR space of being VR’s “Radiohead”: mysterious, inscrutable and complex. It’s also led to rumours of dark warehouses full of hi-tech equipment and secret projects they conduct anonymously for governments and brands around the world. Rumours that Steel laughs off with his usual disarming blend of humour and charm. Were the rumours true? Does MLF have a secret division?
(laughs) [Our work is] all under MLF, and probably our main revenue streams come from working with museums on bigger projects. So for example, we just finished a commission for a spa in Germany. It’s just the most rewarding transition from working in advertising, where you’re given a brief, and you have to solve the problems, to writing your own brief.
I think that’s maybe one of the big distinctions, where there’s this overlap between a commercial project and working as an artist. We’re defining exactly what we want to do, and finding people that align with that vision and want to make it happen. On our website, we just tend to share the projects that we’re most proud of, and that most align with where we’re headed as an organisation, because that’s what creates the feedback loop of the kind of work you’re employed to do.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
With access to tools such as Unreal Engine & Unity, kids around the world are finding it easier to get into XR design, dreaming of a day where, like MLF, they can start their own VR studios, creating the work they want, travelling around the world, working with huge hollywood stars and winning awards. I asked Steel what advice he would give to someone just starting out:
You want to be able to express yourself as an artist, but if you’re starting out, then you won’t have a portfolio that’s going to allow you to win the commissions to sustain that. I was working as a freelance animator, and that gave me enough financial stability to take time off freelancing to do my own passion projects. That was the way that I was able to invest in myself and think long term. If you can find a revenue stream, you can cover your bills, and that gives you enough freedom to explore those self-initiated projects, or if you’re lucky and your time at university leads to a portfolio that allows you to jump straight into your passion projects, ultimately finding that space to self invest, then it creates the feedback loop that allows that seed of what you could be to flower into its full potential.
“There’s something in the struggle, when it’s difficult and challenging, when you’re having to spend your own money to make the things you’re doing. There’s something about that which sharpens the intention. If you’re driven by money, then you just wouldn’t make it, but if you’re driven by something deeper, then it’s a very rewarding process, because all the energy that goes into creating the work shapes you. You have to self invest in order for these things to come into being.
Barnaby Steel, MLF
With that, our time was up, with Steel needing to work on one of the numerous projects the studio is building in tandem (several of which were so secret I was unable to even see them, let alone write about them). His ability to translate his excitement and articulacy into VR is clearly one of the reasons MLF has flourished, staying grounded and financially secure as a studio while making heartfelt statements around subjects he feels so strongly about, stories he feels he has a personal responsibility to tell.
However, Steel’s instinctive ability to tell these stories, coupled with the studio’s artistic credibility and organisational skills, are only part of the story. MLF’s advantage comes from the marriage of business and art, of technology and storytelling, from the talented and multi-disciplined team forging new paths in an as-yet undefined artform, but perhaps most of all, it comes from the trust and friendship of its founders, fighting for the survival of the studio they love, the work they are committed to, and to a message they feel personally responsible to communicate.
Their inclusion in Cannes, and the creation of the Immersive Competition itself is significant, with Cannes having traditionally positioned XR in the margins in previous years (XR being a small part of the “Marche Du Film” , essentially a trade show for projects trying to find funding). This new positioning of immersive works is a bold move by Frémaux, championed by Levasseur and the festival in general, and one that has sent a clear message to the XR community, and mainstream entertainment more broadly, demonstrating that not only is Cannes ready for the future, but that it is ready to live up to its legacy, as a defining force in storytelling, entertainment and culture.
EVOLVER will be shown at the Immersive Competition at the Cannes Cineum until May 24, and the winner of the inaugural Prize for ‘Best Immersive Work’ will be announced May 23 at the Award Ceremony for the Immersive Competition at the Plage des Palmes.
Follow XRMust socials to hear the results as they happen.
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