Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1358125
a p r i l • m ay • j u n e 2 0 2 1 c g w 1 5 S torytelling has existed since the dawn of time, evolving over the millennia since – from drawings on cave walls, to oral accounts passed down from one generation to the next, to lengthy narratives on paper and subsequently in digital format. However, ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm's immersive entertainment studio, is taking storytelling to another level, pioneering new interactive virtual-reality and mixed-reality experiences that transform storytelling into what the studio is calling storyliving. Founded in June 2015, ILMxLAB is located in San Francisco, at the Lucasfilm head- quarters, where it creates compelling, living worlds that people can visit and actually become part of. These worlds contain rich sound and visual detail, and the experience evolves based on choices the visitor makes. With the goal of pushing new boundaries in this burgeoning medium, ILMxLAB has created several commercial projects, in- cluding at-home experiences for the Oculus Quest (see "Living on the Edge," page 18), a location-based arcade style experience, and four location-based entertainment (LBE) experiences – upping the ante with each new project. It also has created a number of experimental projects (see "ILMxLAB Projects," page 17). Here, CGW Chief Editor Karen Moltenbrey speaks with ILMxLAB Visual Effects Super- visor Tim Alexander about the studio, what it does, the technology used, and how the group continues to innovate in this space. Please describe ILMxLAB. ILMxLAB is about finding new forms of sto- rytelling in the real-time space. Over the past five years, we've been mostly exploring in the virtual-reality space, but we're also very much into augmented reality, mixed reality, all of the different realities. If you look at the projects we've done, they've actually been much more about story, a nod to our background from both Lucasfilm and ILM, where we see ourselves as storytellers and filmmakers. So, we're really interested in exploring this new medium from a storytelling standpoint. How many people work at ILMxLAB, and what are their backgrounds? There's about 80 right now. And they come from various backgrounds. We truly under- stand that real time is definitely different from doing visual effects work, so there's a definite need for people (producers and artists) with a lot of experience in games and real time. Then we also have others who come from visual effects, like me. We try to cross-train people in real time so that they can be useful in both the VFX realm and in the real-time realm. We're finding that there are certain jobs that really blend well or can make the jump over to real time pretty easily. So, for certain shows, we actually staff people from the visual effects side to do real-time work. What was the nexus for forming ILMxLAB? It was the advent of VR and real-time graph- ics being viable on higher-end PCs; we're not talking about $200,000 computers anymore. Lucasfilm formed the Advanced Develop- ment Group first, which spent years exploring real-time graphics. They didn't have to put out a product or anything immediately; it was about R&D and seeing where they could take these technologies. Although, in Rogue One (2016), there's a handful of shots of K-2SO that were rendered real time, which came out of that group. What's the big-picture goal? Our big picture is to come up with the best immersive storytelling that we possibly can. We are storytellers, and we're trying to make experiences for people and get them really immersed into our worlds, but giving them some decision capabilities once there. We use the word 'storyliving' now, as storytelling is kind of one way. Our goal is to look at each of these new technologies and discover how to do storytelling and storyliving in those. How has ILMxLAB revolutionized storytelling, or storyliving as you say? I'm not sure exactly how to answer that, other than to kind of say we've been given the opportunity to actually figure out how to do this in VR, as opposed to having to be monetarily successful. It's given us a number of years to really explore the VR space. And I think our success can be measured in the awards, accolades, and recognition that we've received, including an Academy Award (for CARNE y ARENA) for a new form of storytelling. The last time that was given out was for Toy Story in the mid-'90s. It's hard to say how storytelling was revolutionized because we were kind of explorers, if you will. I wouldn't say we've totally revolutionized it yet, but I think we're leading the way, and with each experience, we're exploring the medium and trying to figure out the best ways to do storytelling. I just don't think it's solved yet. What factors have enabled ILMxLAB to evolve? Probably one of the biggest trends has been the maturation of the VR headset and heading more toward the mobile market. So if you look at our projects, we've trended toward wherever the hardware's been going, because we've started seeing people who are into our at-home personal experiences. Our Vader Im- mortal series and Tales from the Galaxy's Edge is on the Quest, but we also have releases on PlayStation 4, the Ri S, and Steam VR, which support a number of headsets. The most accessible is the Quest, but it's also the least powerful in terms of rendering. e group has created location-based and at-home experiences. Any others? We basically operate in four work streams at ILMxLAB. One of those work streams is the home and daily lives, so that would be the Oculus-type class – something you could do at home and download. Then we have an- other work stream, innovation experiments, which is pretty much straight-up R&D – things that don't necessarily get productized right away. So right now those would be, for example, experiments in AR, since AR is not that mature yet, but we do believe in it. We think it's coming. LBE is the other one. So examples of those would be our VOID expe- riences that we did; things that you have to go to a place to do. Then the last work stream that we have is next-gen film and streaming. We actually see a huge market in that area – with COVID, ILMxLAB VFX supe Tim Alexander.