On February 13, 2024, Felix & Paul studios announced that they had secured multi-million dollar financing for their next Location-Based Entertainment (LBE) VR experience that was their "most ambitious project yet" and based upon a brand-new IP that's set to launch in 2025. They had such a big success with their previous LBE of The Infinite (based upon documentary footage shot over the course of 2.5 years on the International Space Station) that they realized that LBE experiences were going to become a significant part of the future of their business.

The press release didn't provide a lot of other details, and so I wanted to catch up with Felix & Paul Studios co-founder Paul Raphaël to share a bit more context for how this came about, more details on their LBE successes with The Infinite, and whatever else he could share about this new project. In the second half of this conversation, we talk about his experiences with the Apple Vision Pro, how Apple is emphasizing entertainment experiences and 180 videos, and how they want to eventually bring many of their 360-videos Felix & Paul Studios productions or potential adaptations to the platform. We also talk about how Felix & Paul is continuing to move beyond just cinematic 360 documentary video, and into CGI-based fiction projects like their Magic Leap 2 AR piece Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, which premiered at Venice Immersive.

It's certainly an exciting time for the industry, and Felix & Paul Studios will be building their LBE experiences from the ground up taking what they've learned from cinematic 360 documentary videos and translating that into full, 6-DoF, fiction narrative VR experiences with social dimensions with even more immersive installation onboarding and offboarding plans as well.