Jul 29, 2015

Oculus TD Max Planck: "We want to inspire the virtual reality 'Citizen Kane'"

A distant descendant of the Nobel Prize-winning scientist of the same name, Maxwell Plank is putting his scientific and creative brain into shaping the future of animation and VFX.

Plank joined Pixar in 2004, and after serving in various technical and engineering roles on "Wall-E," "Brave," and "Up," he left in 2014 to become Technical He was appointed as Technical Director of Oculus Story Studio (Oculus is part of Facebook). A lifelong gamer familiar with shooters like "Doom" as well as more immersive and thought-provoking titles like "Final Fantasy VII" and "Stanley Parable," Plank has been instrumental in blending animated film and interactive gaming experiences to create the future VR films of the future.

It's a future that can be seen in Oculus' new short film "Henry," which was unveiled yesterday at a media-only screening in Beverly Hills, California. The short film was actually produced using the Unreal Engine 4 game production software. While this is a promising experiment, Plank still sees it as only a hint at the storytelling potential of this platform. As the barriers between hardware, software, and even artificial intelligence are gradually removed and transcended, this platform should more appropriately explode.

Cartoon Brew interviewed Planck yesterday to talk about Oculus, Pixar, Henry, The Iron Giant, and Citizen Kane, a VR film that has not yet been produced but will certainly be influenced by Oculus' formative exploration.

Cartoon.

Cartoon Brew: You showed clips of Georges Méliès and Buster Keaton to show that this is the frontier of cinematic experience. How do you think this will play out? Max Planck: People who are new to the Rift will be overwhelmed. We actually slowed it down quite a bit because we realized that if we made the story of "Lost" and "Henry" too complicated, people wouldn't be able to follow along. But on a personal note, I've been in VR for a year now and am ready to speed things up. We are still in the novelty phase and I think we will be there for a while as VR gets out there. But I look to Pixar, who had to invent the technology to make their movies.

Cartoon Brew: Take a bow, my friend.

Max Planck: [I joined in 2004 and stayed until 2014, so the machine was already up and running and we were in the golden age. But it wasn't like before "Toy Story," where everyone was saying, "You can't make a movie with just computers and get paid for it." So Pixar had to put together a huge team to build animation and lighting tools and teach computer scientists how to light and animate. They didn't have the personnel.

The cool thing about VR is that you can use Maya, Unreal Engine, and Photoshop. The gaming and animation industries are pulling from them. There is a talent pool out there that already knows how to do this stuff. The hard part is becoming a creative director or director. How do you turn these techniques into something engaging and intuitive...

And now we're there: the experience is there, but we're still disappointed. Right now it's a 2 or 3, and we're trying to get to a 10. But we think and are very proud of the improvements Henry has made, especially in scope: 'Lost' was very cool, but it was a two-sentence story, and we're not sure how we're going to get there.

Cartoon Brew: I talked to the guys at Oculus today, and they said that "Lost" was an homage to "The Iron Giant."

Max Planck: Definitely. We were very inspired by "The Iron Giant."

Cartoon Brew: Did you see director Brad Bird? I have seen Mark Andrews (storyboard artist for "The Iron Giant") and I know John Walker, the producer of "The Good Dinosaur" and associate producer of "The Iron Giant. We are very open about how much we were inspired by "The Iron Giant". In fact, "Lost" was created once upon a time by Sashka (Unseld, creative director of Oculus Story Studios), Edward (Saatchi, producer of Story Studios) and myself, and we talked about how we wanted to have that child-like experience again.

Cartoon Brew: How is "Henry" different from "Lost"? When we showed "Henry" to a lot of people, they thought it was cute and cuddly and kid-friendly and family-friendly. It's what we wanted. We wanted it to be approachable, something people would entrust us with their VRs. It's a comfortable, animated, well-lit space where you don't have to worry about it getting dark. We wanted it to be something we could show everyone when the consumer version of Oculus came out. I mean, that's what a Pixar film is. Anyone can go see it.

Cartoon Brew: You admit that you are still at the frontier, so there is a sense that everything you are doing now is still an experiment. When I was watching "Henry," I wasn't watching it because I was exploring the environment. Do you feel that VR films need to be interactive in order to keep the audience focused on the story? Yes, when we started making VR films we were nervous, because we wanted to make sure that the audience was engaged in the story. The reason why the films work is because the director frames the moment perfectly. The director wants you to see this, now, for how many seconds. Sashka calls this "liberation." It is their choice.

But we have found that if you put an interesting story in front of the viewer, they will follow it. One of the reasons "Lost" and "Henry" take so long to get their stories started is because they want to remove looking around from the viewer's system. One of the mistakes made in "Henry" is that there are so many left-to-right experiences, most of which happen right in front of you. There are a few moments that happen overhead, but you can still frame them. It still feels like a cinematic experience. There was one scene that had Henry running around you, and some people said, "I lose him."

So we are still in a novelty phase, somewhat caught up in the trappings of film. The story will eventually evolve around the viewer. It will involve some pretty cool artificial intelligence issues. How to capture the creativity of the viewer: ...... The story and its pacing may not evolve until the viewer, and perhaps their biometrics, are involved. If you are the type to look around a lot, the experience could be sped up; if you are the type to look around slowly, it could be slowed down.

We love movies now because we can relate to the director's taste and vision. That's what we're buying into.

Cartoon Brew: In other words, VR cinema becomes a matter of active rather than passive reception, and the viewer also creates the experience.

Max Plank: I've always been a gamer and a fan of pure animation; I've evolved up to around "Quake," "Doom," and "Halo," but I still play a little bit. Games like "The Disappearance of Ethan Carter," "Stanley Parable," "Gone Home," and others aimed for emotional impact. I grew up with a controller in my hands, but there are a lot of people in the world who have no experience with controllers. But with VR, everyone knows how to look around and use their hands.

Cartoon Brew: I think Henry wants to create a bond, and I think kids will not only pick it up, but they will love exploring his world. And they will be the frontier of VR cinema. They will grow up with the technology and begin to shape it.

Max Planck: And they will surpass us. Today's filmmakers are great because they grew up watching Spielberg and other directors, tomorrow's VR filmmakers will only ruin us. They should have known about this experience since they were kids and dreamed up ways to change it.

And that is exactly what we want to do and be a part of. We want to be the Georges Méliès of VR. We are setting the stage, so to speak, for another filmmaker to come in and make "Citizen Kane. We may never make a VR "Citizen Kane" ourselves, but we want to be the catalyst for it.