Mixed reality masterpiece ‘Seven Ravens’ debuts at Venice Film Festival

The award-winning immersive entertainment company Felix and Paul Studios is out Narrator: The Seven Crows by Jim Hensonits first mixed reality experience, at the 80th Venice Film Festival on August 30. Once again, the venerable production company is at the forefront of immersive art and entertainment.

Seven crows is a mixed reality experience that started with Magic Leap in 2018 but took 5 years to complete. I saw it standing in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel in Austin, at the South by Southwest Festival, in March 2023. Co-director and producer Paul Raphaël gave me a copy of Magic Leap 2 and a book for big, thick format kids to give me a sneak peek at the studio’s first mixed reality experience. I was both amazed and amused as the characters literally jumped off the page, and the book itself turned into a metaphorical phase. Neil Gaiman’s narration adds a sense of intrigue, complementing the fear, despair, and mystery at the heart of the fairy tale. Raphaël swore to keep me a secret, but now I can say: this is the best work of this ten-year-old studio.

Raphaël told me in a Zoom interview that the physical book is the key. “First of all, we all read a book, and no matter where we are, we might be on a bus and we’re instantly transported. It’s a ritual we’re all familiar with. Second, it creates a tactile relationship with the experience. You are holding the world in your hands. It reacts to your every movement. You control the rhythm in a very intuitive way. You don’t have to explain to anyone how to do it. When the application is running, there is no interface other than turning the page. It comes to life and you move the story forward by turning the pages.”

Raphaël and partner Félix Lajeunesse introduce Lisa Henson for the first time, his company is rebooting their classic Storyteller series with Gaiman as the narrator. “When we met Rony [Abovitz, then CEO of Magic Leap] he told us the story of how Jim HensonThe story of the sand had a big influence on him when he started Magic Leap. There is a lot of synergy. “I really felt like it was destined,” says Raphaël. Delayed due to issues at Magic Leap and disrupted by the pandemic, the project found support from Epic Games and Qualcomm. There’s a live build on Qualcomm Spaces, so the experience can eventually be deployed on a wide range of XR devices.

Felix and Paul Studios are silent about distribution plans. Raphaël would just say “We’re talking to everyone right now. “I have no doubt Seven crows The mixed reality masterpiece will arrive on multiple platforms, from smartphones to Apple Vision Pro next year.

Felix and Paul Studios are also exhibiting WSpeed ​​Explorer: Green Marble, Orbit 1, which puts us in a full time lapse orbit around the Earth. It was shot in cinematic VR from the International Space Station, using a specially designed and built camera. With a fully open 360° view, the film offers awe-inspiring, unobstructed views of planet Earth.

The entire series of Felix and Paul Studios, Space Explorer: Blue Marble Trio was created with support from NASA and is currently available for free on Meta Quest.

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