Multiverse Co-Founder and Executive Producer Corey Bridges will be interviewing Academy Award-winning producer Jon Landau this morning. They've already announced a range of topics: from a virtual world around Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Titanic, and a new Facebook app for Multiverse. They started with a little talk about Hollywood, which of course led to Landau and James Cameron's latest project, Avatar: "What I can tell you is that we are using the tools of the virtual world in the creation of our movie. We are literally building our own virtual worlds where Jim will walk through with a virtual camera in a set before we've built it. He'll interact with actors, rehearse it, and check it out before we've spent money to build it."
"And we're working with something we call Virtual Production," said Landau. "We've in the past worked with motion caputre, which has always missed one very important letter in the front of it: 'e.' It's been very sterile. We literally put a virtual camera in Jim's hand and ultimately, over time, that will come to a photorealistic level."
Landau and Cameron are both advisors to Multiverse, partly out of a belief that virtual worlds will offer tools for film development in the future. Landau admits that's a long-term plan, though. As for now, Landau is an avid Facebook user, and he sees a connection to virtual worlds.
"I think there's definitely a relevance," he said. "One of the things thinking about coming here is the connective tissue. There's GEMS: gaming, entertainment, monetization, and socializaiton [I think]."
Multiverse today announced the launch of Multiverse Places, a Facebook app for its virtual world developers and users. They showed off a short clip, a lot of which emphasizes the 3D environment and the Places re-creation of Times Square that Multiverse showed off late last year. Bridges pointed out that all of the world and the technology there would be open-source.
Landau finds that important for engagement, but noted that technology isn't always the most important part for his job. Too often, he said, people turn to technology just because it's there.
"What are you trying to do with the given sites," he asked. "What are you trying to accomplish? I don't think it's good enough to just create an MMOG and say it's a game or create a social network. Why do people turn to virtual worlds and MMOGs? It's escapism. That's why they turn to movies. Why do people relate to music? It's emotional. In the movie business I relate that to plot and theme. The theme is the emotional side. If you can create a virtual world with that theme, they get something more than just playing a game, more than just shopping, more than just socializing. That's when you succeed."
Landau and Cameron are also working with Ubisoft for an Avatar game. And Landau emphasizes the importance of convergence, like sharing their assets with Ubisoft to both lower development costs and preserve their vision. He doesn't feel like working with existing brands is necessary, though.
"I don't think it is required right now. It is certainly helpful," he said. "Every movie is a new brand when you're talking about non-sequels. There are certainly existing titles--not just current titles--that there's an opportunity to play with."
Virtual worlds are increasingly important for Hollywood, though.
"Right now, we're using virtual worlds to help create our movie. That's the unique case right now, but I think you're going to see more and more of it," said Landau. "Right now a lot of it is on the promotion side. You look at McDonald's with the recent Star Wars promotion. I think the question is how we can translate the stories we're telling to be relatable to other audiences in other media. Virtual worlds offer a great opportunity for that."
He doesn't think film will go away--of course--but that virtual worlds will offer more and more opportunities, specifically providing an interactive experience that complements the one-sided approach of movies.
"I think we'll definitely see it," Landau said of virtual worlds reaching photorealism. "I was not one of those people back in 1996 understanding the potential of virtual worlds. Now having seen it, I think it's going to become the pervasive way that people deal with socialization, deal with gaming. The future is bright, but it's a marathon, not a sprint."
When asked by the audience, Landau was interested in the idea of using virtual world to present movies rather than extend them, but specifically in themed environments.
"You've got to take those slowly and look for where the opportunities are," he said.
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