Episode 06: New Reality with Milica Zec & Winslow Porter
Today we are joined by Milica Zec and Winslow Porter. Award winning producers, directors and creative technologists. Their groundbreaking VR projects Giant and Tree have been exhibited at Sundance, Cannes, IMAX, TED, and over 130 festivals
Episode Notes
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About our Guests:
Milica Zec: http://milicazec.com/
Winslow Porter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/winslowporter/
Tree Official: https://www.treeofficial.com/
Mike Matzdorff: Hi everybody. Welcome back to the second level podcast. We're all recording from home, staying safe and social distancing, and you should too. You might notice some of the sound is a little different than normal, but that's only because we're using extra caution. Enjoy the show. It's a good one.
Welcome to the second level. I'm Christina Heller.
And I'm Marcie Jastrow.
Christina Heller: Thank you so much for joining us today. We are really excited. Today, we have two very special guests, a dynamic bi-coastal duo. We've got Winslow Porter and Milica Zec, both well known in the VR industry for their two big titles, one of which was Giant, which premiered at New Frontier Sundance 2016, and then they had another amazing piece, following the next year at Sundance New Frontiers 2017 called Tree. So, it's great to have you both today. I'm really excited., I had the pleasure of seeing, seeing both of those pieces, actually, I saw Giant at 2016 New Frontiers, and then I saw Tree at the IMAX center actually. So, thank you both for joining us and we will dive right in.
I can't help but want to know, what was your first experience with VR and when, when did you discover virtual reality and what was it about it that made you decide to go all in and start to become, a creator in that medium?
Milica Zec: I discovered it, thanks to Winslow, we were friends and collaborators before we started our own company. And, he was already working in that field. And then he was always inviting me to it, either Tribeca Film Festival or some exhibitions of VR, or in museums or in his school NYU. And that's how I got connected with it in New York. And then we always thought like, okay, one day we need to make our own work. And that's really happened when the idea for Giant was born. We thought, okay, like, let's use this medium for some good purpose. Let's not just make the art for the sake of making VR, but let’s use it as a tool to express these important stories.
And that's how it really started for me.
Marcie Jastrow: And Winslow real quick, on the technical side of, of everything when it came to Giant can you walk us through, what that looked like three, four years ago in the world of production?
Winslow Porter: Sure. The first VR project that I worked on, called Clouds, which we actually premiered at Sundance in 2014, I was the producer and James George and Jonathan Menard with the directors, and that was one of the first examples of volume metric video that was being captured using pretty much off the shelf parts.
It was basically a glorified toy from an Xbox, the connect one. And then it was a, that was the depth data married with a video data, from a DSLR just a, Canon 5D Mark 2. And so that was sort of the beginning of us understanding the power of spatial computing, of, of being able to put somebody, , with somebody else in a space and having it feel real, even though it was a totally surreal experience of seeing so many representatives point clouds, which you guys are super familiar with. And so, the, the issue with, depth kit, it's a really amazing way to capture, but because of the technology, because, it's, the connect at that time was pretty low resolution we were getting sort of jagged edges. So, then we decided to shoot on a green screen, and we worked with Juan Salvo who does amazing work and finishing color timing. And we shot actually in Chelsea at a green screen stage. And it was an amazing situation because., people are calling speed for the camera and sound. Then they're also saying, rolling depth. And, Lisa and I had never heard that before. So, it was an amazing opportunity to sort of see how we were going to capture actors, make them feel real, and then composite them into, an environment that was fall inside of the Unreal engine.
Milica Zec: Winslow and I both come from film background, and we worked in regular 2D films before. So, in a way, Giant was the bridge, like connecting film and video game world. So, we had, team, like typical team is explaining. We were shooting in front of green screen, so we had everyone from makeup artist, the camera, camera assistants, actors. But then we also had a game designer on the other side in post-production and visual effects designers. So that was an interesting transition for me.
Christina Heller: How did you approach your creative process when moving to VR from traditional filmmaking, as they call it.
Winslow Porter: VR is something entirely its own, but it's also a mix of video games, film, Immersive theater and installation art. And so, we were all pulling from our backgrounds in that and Milica also worked with a performance artist, Marina Abramovich. So, there's a lot of amazing sort of like insights from that as well. And Milica, do you want to talk about sort of the script writing process.
Milica Zec: Yeah... Winslow, myself and our script writer, Lizzie Donahue, who we're all, we were all editors at some point in our life, film editors. So, it was interesting. Like, we couldn't make any cuts. The way we conceive Giant was like, it's only happening in this five and a half minutes, all in front of you, all at once. And then what if actors, you know we shot actors like let's say around 15 times, the whole performance from the beginning to the end, and they were in this wide shot. So, there are no close ups or anything like that as we were used to. But then we, well came up with this idea to have, because it's happening like where you're hiding from bombs in a basement. So, we came up with the idea that there should be some power outages, like blackouts in as bombs are dropping. So, we use those moments when the light goes out that we can cut. If we liked some other take better, we could continue from there, that was our creative way around.
Christina Heller: Would you mind walking the listener through Giant, what was the experience like if you happen to be at Sundance New Frontiers and you were viewing the experience.
Milica Zec: Yeah. So, we decided for us, we aren’t just what happens when you put on the headset, that we really like to have it as physical installations and then we think about it. What happens when you approach a physical installation? So, we built this huge room that would resemble the basement.
And we put like a dim light, light bulb in the center of the ceiling, to kind of resemble that darkness with the basement where the family is. So, before you put the headset on, you're entering this room and already getting into this feeling of what's going to happen. I mean, this kind of bunker almost. And then we positioned three chairs, that are, so that we can have more bigger throughput. And then, three people at the same time start watching Giant.
And then the chair that they're sitting on, they don’t know until they hear and see the bomb blast, their chair also starts shaking. So that's another element we incorporated in Giant, is haptic feedback to help you immerse you, even more into this experience. And then when you take off the headset, in front of you is like a projection that speaks about, it's connects my personal experience of going through the war with what's happening. , right now in the world and what keeps happening with Wars, so I just wanted to look to point out that that wasn't like a single event, that it's still ongoing and we wanted to raise awareness about that, but placing people in that situation so that hopefully they can feel how it is to be in an active war zone.
Christina Heller: Yeah. Milica, you're from Serbia, and you as, as I read you, you wanted to do this so that you could give people a little insight into what it was like to be in an active war zone. And, being from Pennsylvania. I've never had that experience, of course. So it was, it was very powerful and I think you guys did a wonderful job of, of giving that palpable, the palpable senses of being in a closed dark space completely out of control and, and trying to comfort, , your small family and in what is a terrible situation.
Milica Zec: Yeah, and we really had an incredible team. I mean, it really started that all of us worked in times believed and loved it so much and poured our hearts and souls into the project. Really starting from Lizzie Donahue, who wrote the script, and. I told her my personal experience, but we decided that it's not going to be based in Serbia. It's going to be America, that it's going to be in the place, in the future with American family. So, she really kind of grasped and did a lot of research how it feels to be in war zones and then compile it into this script in. And we found this common thread that people all across the world when they have young kids and if, if it's situation like war or any other disaster, they actually don't tell those kids. This kid was six years old in our experience, so they, invented the story of a friendly giant and is approaching and wants to play with her instead of telling her the truth.
Marcie Jastrow: I actually didn’t see Giant. I kept hearing about this team who built Giant and she kept hearing about me and I'm not sure where Winslow was, but I was looking for the artists. I wanted to find the artists. And. When I met Milica and Winslow, and then I saw Giant, I just fell in love with the content and I fell in love with them and their personalities as creators. They were our first artists and residents at the TEC. We backed a lot of, redoes and we did some sound on Giant., we then did some stuff on Tree., and we'll get to Tree, which is, was a, another amazing experience. But what I. Really loved about Winslow and Milica is where most people weren't incorporating haptics and, volume metric and it was technically advanced, but the story didn't suffer from it. In both pieces, that's what really stood up is both the technical side and the story side.
Winslow Porter: Marcie. That means so much.
Milica Zec: Thank you, Marcie. You've been incredible support for us over the last four years.
Christina Heller: It was a no brainer when, when you suggested to bring them on the podcast and I think this is a nice segue way into Tree. I had the pleasure of doing their, their second, large title called Tree at the IMAX experience center. In this VR experience, you are a tree in the rainforest, and you get to experience what it is like to be a tree growing inside a beautiful rainforest. As I moved my arms, I could move my branches, and it was so beautiful to see all the rainforest creatures, you also experience something that would be impossible to experience in actual reality.
Marcie Jastrow: Just to that point, Christina, one thing that's really interesting because Tree was in the center for a very long time and people used to come in and out and, it was that one moment that you always took them on this journey of going from 360 maybe you would show them Giant in the chair and then you would take them and lead them to more interactive state. And the last thing would be, being a tree. And, what I heard so many people say to me after they had done that experience was that they'd never looked at a tree the same way again, that they truly felt like they were the tree and that they had an emotional connection to trees. And, and I honestly feel the same way. I have an olive tree in my front yard, and I have to tell you, I look at that olive tree very differently every day.
Winslow Porter: Yeah. I mean, I think what you're saying is really important, you guys mentioned feelings, and for us that was the most important thing to convey. Was not just the statistics that we're being bombarded with, right now, it's other statistics that are happening and , there's only so much information that we can sort of take in from, a talking head on the news or a push notification from a news app.
So, it was really important that we, that we conveyed it as a personal feeling and didn't also hit you over the head with, with Morgan Freeman. It's a voice of God telling you how you should feel, is really important for us to allow you to be whatever tree you wanted. And also, not to give you too much background because you can only experience something for the first time once. And that was really important and Milica, I'm sure you have a lot of other things to add.
Milica Zec: Yeah. Tree was in a way a continuation of Giant. In Giant, we tackle the topic of how we as humans, are destroying each other. And then because we don't stop there, we also destroy nature. We, we as artists felt that we need to show that side of also humanity. However, we are destroying the nature all across. And then yes, we both watched a lot of documentaries. They do great really job to explain about every single detail about climate change. But then we realized a lot of people want to go to the rain forest and witnessed this and feel it and understand it on a different level.
So, we thought, okay, VR is up to this day, really the perfect tool to, to place you in a body of a tree. And then of course, add even more haptic elements that then we had in Giant and Winslow if you to talk about them.
Winslow Porter: Sure. Well, the first thing we asked you to do, because we want it to have a bridge, which is really important for any type of VR, is not just putting somebody into a virtual state. Its VR is still, is very much like a dream state and how we bring people in and out of it is, should be, sort of, of utmost importance, the onboarding is, is really paramount. So, sort of to bridge that, we give them a seed of the kapok tree, the tree that they become, and we ask them to plant it.and to pick their own seeds. So, they're basically, picking their own character, their own version of the tree that they're going to be, and then plant it in a real pot of soil. So that feeling of dirt between their fingers, there's something very organic, for lack of a better word, about that grit.
And, they are then responsible for the journey that they're going to, be a part of. And then once they put the headset on, they realized they planted themselves in the soil. And that's a huge moment of like, that's that aha moment. And, growing through too, it's not like overwhelming. It's very much on rails. But that's how we then have that moment where you pop through. And I remember Marcie seeing you pop through the soil for the first prototype that we had when we were at the Oculus dev lab. In mountain view, and you just like hearing your voice and like, you're like, I'm a tree!!!
Marcie Jastrow: And I was, and so the hand controllers were in I my hand and you had to beat through the dirt. Do you remember? And you had, you had to get through the dirt in order to break through your roots to have a trunk. And so, at that moment, I'll never forget it at that moment, you were that seed, and you were becoming the tree. It was the craziest thing.
Winslow Porter: I think that the fact that it feels like a memory, it feels like that did happen to you. There's a lot of research that's happening now more than ever about what part of the brain is used and how we're categorizing these things as memories, not just as something that was a passive experience that we sort of from a third person, but the first person , is, is a huge paradigm shift. And, then you're more likely, as you said, to remember, a tree as being a personal, experience and something that happened to you. We worked with a lot of amazing artists and engineers to help us bring the multisensory aspects, and we worked with international flavors and fragrances to be able to create a three custom sense. We actually are a finalist as of last Friday for The Art and Olfaction Awards, for Tree. For us that's really exciting cause it's, it just shows how this project is not just, a piece of entertainment for conservation purposes. But it really crosses over a lot of different lines when it comes to multisensory storytelling.
We know we've shown this project at VR events, obviously, film festivals, conservation festivals, political conferences, sort of everything in between. And so, we're really just excited to see how many more places it can go. And, I think that's what really is valuable to a lot of people, or what was most memorable. Because scents are how we as humans, imprint memories. And it's really one of the senses that we use to, to be able to understand our environment and really trust what's happening around us. So, if it's done carefully, it can really enhance the experience.
And if anyone smells one of the three smells that we have, the first one being wet soil, which is really authentic. And then the freshly cut grass and foliage, and then the smoke smell at the end. If they smell those smells again, then they're immediately brought back to the Peruvian jungle. The virtual version of that jungle that we created.
Marcie Jastrow: Milica and Winslow, Let's talk a little bit about your globetrotting about what you were able to do with Tree and Giant. The places you went, the things you saw, the people you met, you guys probably got more people in the headset than any other creator that's out there and really socialized the idea of what VR is to thousands of people.
Milica Zec: Yeah, I mean, it really started with Sundance and we cannot really be more grateful for Shari recognizing both projects, kind of in their early stages of prototypes and like seeing our vision and. And kind of risking with us., and then, we started meeting a lot of people from different festivals and from there, a lot of invitations started going. And as we started moving through festival to festival, people started seeing, and it just started growing as almost like a rainforest., it's been four years for us that we've been constantly on the road. We went to everywhere from, Cannes, Tribeca, New York film festival. We finished the film festival circuit, but then it was also like ecological, technical festivals, GDC gaming conferences.
We just realized that both of these projects actually fit in so many different categories, finally, this all brought us to somewhere where we kind of always hoped to get. And that is to decision makers and that's really happened with the world economic forum where Marcie actually,, showed them Tree at Technicolor Experience Center. And then we got an invitation and the Marcie were connected because of Lynette was already showing works there, and she was also extremely supportive in bringing in Tree to World Economic Forum.
And that's where really Tree got, totally new life where we started showing it to Presidents, Vice Presidents, Ministers of Finance across the world. And then from there, they started inviting us to their events, which is like a World Bank event, International Monetary fund, then we ended up in Singapore Gardens by the Bay, brought by Ministry of Government of Singapore. We couldn't, imagine how far the Tree reached and we almost kind of didn’t put much money into PR. This project, PR was constantly word of mouth. One person sees it and then they bring the whole family, friends and it just kind of keeps rolling. Unfortunately, of course now it's stopped for the first time because of the COVID, but we are already like talking, like things are just being postponed at this point, but I believe Tree's still going to have a long life.
Winslow Porter: A silver lining is, is that we can be using this time to be working on new things and, and really, hunker down and focus on the creative. And create more experiences that we really look forward to sharing as soon as possible.
Milica Zec: Tree was finished and started touring the world, we already had an idea for another project and that was like supposed to be AR mobile game. The time it's kind of perfect for, for those kinds of things. Could it be for the future? Because a lot of people are predicting that this kind of pandemics are going to be, could be our new normal.
Marcie Jastrow: It's a really strange and precarious situation because there's social distancing or physical distancing. You're not even going to be allowed to go to a live music event in 2020, 2021 potentially. And so how do we live our lives the way that we were three months ago? All the sudden it just gets taken away from you. So, VR can be that place, that really interesting place where you don't have to worry about socially distancing
Winslow Porter: Yeah. VR is this profound new canvas for self-expression, for communicating ideas, for transporting people to places, for educating you on things that are, can be very esoteric, know otherwise.
So, I think that it's this sort of explosion, but now I think we're seeing, because people realize that VR is not just isolating people in rooms by themselves there's a lot of excitement around social VR for connecting people, for bridging the gaps, for training for first responders, whether it comes to AR or VR, and there's now sort of a whole new rush of funding going to it.
And I think that that's really what it is going to take as it is a chicken or the egg situation. The technology itself isn't going to create these aha moments, or we'll be able to bridge communities. It's really about, funding and supporting, not just money, but having a consideration in the learning and educating and experiencing what is capable.
Where the technology is now, but where it can be and I think Oculus is doing a really good job of, of, making sure that, that, that they support that and that the creators are heard. And I think that we're at another right now, we’re sort of past the trough of disillusionment, after that big sort of peak. Unfortunately, a lot of companies, are no longer, but I think, people are galvanized now to see how VR can really be the next frontier for creating all this amazing immersive media.
Christina Heller: Yeah. I think that was beautifully put.
Winslow Porter: Well, and there's no bad view too
Christina Heller: There's no bad view?
Winslow Porter: Well, I mean, I'm only five, seven and, there's always some like tall dude at the conference or at any event, who's in front of me. in the Fortnite experience, like a jump. And I'm like, there's no bad view in this place. I like this concert a lot more than having to be in the back, getting beer spilled on me the sound is echo-y and like it just, it didn't feel, this felt like really custom. It felt like a community. I got goosebumps. I got a little misty to be totally honest. And I was like, hats off to Epic games for really going the extra mile.
Marcie Jastrow: I feel like with Travis Scott performing last week in Fortnite, that is a moment, whether it just because it's 2D or not a true VR project. That is what an immersive experience is and that is what we all have to be watching out for
Winslow Porter: And it's only the beginning. People were saying, Oh, what is prerecorded pre, pre animated. But there’s a quarantine happening right now and it's the first of its kind after the Marshmello event like this is, they set a whole new standard. So. If I think that is the type of experience and now people can use, an unreal engine. For free or they haven't able to for the last few years, but all the kids or adults or anybody who was able to experience that now has the same launcher.
They go, okay, I experienced Fortnite, but what happens if I click over here? Now I can learn how to make my own, immersive world in the same software. It's like, it's pretty amazing how there's like this transition out to not just, a one-way stream of entertainment. Now it's an interactive experience where they can build their own worlds, be able to, for social or for any type of, like really profound experience that anyone can imagine. You can kind of put it together, it's pretty incredible where things have gotten in the last five years.
Christina Heller: This may be a little bit off topic but. I do think that VR allows almost the next best thing to the real thing in terms of giving you, that feeling of connectedness, of being a part of a live event. Just what Is possible if the entire world took a couple months off from globetrotting and driving. I think we're already seeing some pretty incredible effects on the environment that is one of the benefits I think of, of all of this, is we're starting to see what having a little bit of a home-based approach can the the effects that it can have on the environment. And I think VR and AR are a way of supplementing that very innate human desire to connect and be a part of live events while also kind of keeping this new normal going
Marcie Jastrow: So, to the whole room here, Christina, Winslow and Milica, how do you think we as a community go out and bang the drum, in a different way than, than we did before? And how do we raise the awareness to everyone that there is this medium that does exist, and you can do this, and you can feel like you are physically there. How do we reengage all of those corporations that have a need to spend money? What does that look like?
Winslow Porter: I think there's a huge opportunity for creators to deliver amazing content that is sticky. And for us, we're working on a new project called Rainforest, which is, it's a mobile experience with AR components, I'm not exactly sure how much time the average mobile user spends on things like Candy Crush or Farmville or those types of things. But, I think that people would be more willing to do it and feel better about it if they're actually, if the time they're putting in is going to a cause and highlighting things that are actually relevant in the real world.
There's just so much violence in games right now too, and that, the game mechanics can be shifted. So it's something that is you know, actually, so that there's a positive side of it, like, with Animal Crossing, you learn about, about farming and collecting, but, think actually having some type of throughput on the other end of, what charities can this actually be going towards? How can we actually be helping? I think that there's, that's the responsibility of creators, but also on the publishers. And, I think that is going to have to be a shift. And I think it is happening now as well, but we really want to be able to create experiences that are for everybody and that can feel like somebody is doing something. If there's, a way that we can sort of be shifting that towards doing more meaningful things and then educating communities on everything that's happening in the world.
Milica Zec: I always thought that the good content is what will attract people. So, I kind of wish creators would put a lot of, like mindfulness into what next project they will make. Make it interesting, maybe make it fun, make it meaningful. we now need to learn all of us about solutions and what can each of us do going forward.
Christina Heller: Can you tell us any more about rainforest? get us a little excited for what's coming.
Milica Zec: Everything we do is connected in our work, and we wanted, to expand the topic, we started in Tree, but just to go through the whole rain forest through different, levels of the rain forest and teach you about flora and fauna of the rainforest by everything through the fun gameplay. So, you were part of this ecosystem and your kind of helping it evolve.
Winslow Porter: Then each person will have their own rainforest that they can care for and learn about, the threats that also, that they face. So, we want to be able to have it so that you can cultivate it. And being able to, to build something. And it's important for us to have a multiplayer component of this too, so that we can be sharing these rainforests, across all different groups and really feel like it's an ecosystem. For us it's also important to be working with partners, who are doing work on the ground. Like we work pretty closely with the Rainforest Alliance, so that this is actually based in fact, and we want this to be going through day and night cycles and have push notifications from what's actually happening in the real world.
Milica Zec: And as climate changes all of our problems, we absolutely, all of us in this planet have to work together. So, it's slowing it down. So, this game kind of is going to mimic death. This multiplayer is, we mention is, is, is going to require from all of us to work together to, to resolve, to, to win in a game actually. And that's how we, in a subtle way, are teaching people like to win in life, you need to work together.
Christina Heller: Well, I think that's an incredibly important message for where we're at right now. inside this pandemic and this sounds like an incredible learning tool, for, for remote, for all of our kids who are, working in and learning from home right now, so I can't wait to, play it. I think it sounds like totally, again, my kind of game, just like Tree was my kind of VR experience. What's the, estimated time of it coming out?
Milica Zec: We are actually about to start next month. Hopefully, I'm working on it. So, we are aiming to have it like a first working prototype, in January 2021.
Christina Heller: Amazing. And look, what do you need right now? If anybody's listening who might be able to help you? What? What do you need?
Winslow Porter: Exactly, yeah. Some talented artists and engineers who understand, game engine, and also understand like procedurally generated vegetation, if anyone knows anybody who can do that. But from our low poly. Perspective, then that would be perfect.
Marcie Jastrow: Amazing. Well, Milica ,Winslow, you always put a smile on my face, and I love hearing what you're doing and how you're progressing, and I'm glad that you're both safe and sound in your respective places, homes. I can't thank you enough for spending time with Christina and I, it gets kind of lonely in this pandemic and, and really trying to understand what's going to go on when it's over and what does the future look like. So, I appreciate hearing your outlook.
Milica Zec: Thank you both for having us all. It's wonderful talking to you.
Marcie Jastrow: Stay safe. Everyone.