Cinematic 360 specialists Felix & Paul, the team behind Cirque Du Soleil’s ‘Zarkana’ and Inside the Box of Kurios, have been signed by Oculus for a multi-project, multi-experience ‘pact’ to create 360 content for the Rift and Samsung Gear VR.
Cinematic VR content is exploding as a format, we’ve written this many times on Road to VR, but there are few content creators out there who grasped both the artistic and tough technical challenges inherent in 360 content production as well as Felix & Paul.
A “…virtual reality content and technology innovator…”, Felix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphaël, the Montreal-based studio has developed a proprietary platform for 3D 360° virtual reality filming and production. Details of the team’s capture of stitching techniques have always been somewhat mysterious, but there’s no doubt that F&P’s stereoscopi 360 degree results speak for themselves. Some of the earliest content for Gear VR came from their studio, with more recent productions like Inside the Box of Kurios and bespoke projects like Wild – The Experience.
“We believe in virtual reality’s profound potential as an art form and storytelling medium,” said Felix Lajeunesse, co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios. “Our studio’s objective is to create content of the highest quality – both artistically and technologically – and to expand the boundaries of what can be expressed through the medium. For VR to grow as an art form, creative freedom and taking risks are a necessity. Each project born out of our partnership with Oculus will be an occasion to explore VR’s unprecedented potential to immerse viewers in human-driven experiences in the fields of fiction and non-fiction storytelling as well as music and the performing arts.”
Although being billed as “…the largest live-action VR deal to date”, no specifics are given as to the money involved. Consumers and VR enthusiasts thirsty for more immersive cinematic experiences from the duo shouldn’t give it a second thought though, as the deal will mean platform exclusive content for Oculus and Gear VR platforms for some time to come.
For Oculus, it’s another example of the firm shoring up their exclusive VR content line-up ahead of the impending consumer VR battle scheduled for 2016, when all major players – Oculus, Valve/HTC and Sony – will have launched their hardware to retail.