yondr academy podcasts

Atlas V’s Antoine Cayrol joins us at the poolside podcast studio where he, among other things, instructs us on the importance of using the correct language when referring to VR makers. Cayrol does not take a doom and gloom approach to VR, but rather advocates for using commercial projects (which pay the bills and keep the lights on at many a VR studio) as time to hone one’s craft. Antoine also talks about the importance for VR to develop credibility with its audience (and ways to make that happen).

A multi-Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, Max Salomon has produced and directed an award-winning lineup of over 40 VR films for National Geographic and the Smithsonian. In this episode, Salomon, Founder of Black Dot Films VR, delves into the accidental history of National Geographic choosing for VR and why immersive has led to such compelling content reaching audiences of 200 million.

“You need a distribution strategy,” says Liz Rosenthal, Founder & CEO of Power to the Pixel and Programmer of immersive content for Venice International Film Festival, the official competition section. Liz elaborates with VRTL Editor-in-Chief, Justine Harcourt de Tourville, the different venues (some overlooked) for VR distribution and challenges creators to start their process with distribution in mind. Liz also shared what the VR competition at Venice means for the field.

Occupied VR speaks with VRTL about their companion VR piece to Fatih Akin’s “The Golden Glove,” a horror film (based on real events) in competition at Berlinale 2019. VRTL Editor-in-Chief, Justine Harcourt de Tourville found the VR piece to be just as scary and creepy as the movie and J. Lee Williams and Timur Musabay explain their approach and decisions to make an escape room piece with volumetric capture with painstaking detail.

In this episode, Justine, VRTL’s Editor-in-Chief, mangles Jim Chabin’s previous role as President of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (the folks responsible for the Emmy Awards), while Jim mixes up a date by two decades. Misspeaks aside this was a insightful conversation about how Hollywood is approaching new technology with Jim sharing several inspiring anecdotes. Jim is currently President of the Advanced Imaging Society, an organization spearheaded by the top motion picture studios in Los Angeles, among others.

In the first-ever VRTL podcast, Billy Mello, Sound Designer and principal with Lucha Libre, speaks with Editor-in-Chief, Justine Harcourt de Tourville, about sound for VR, 6DoF, HRTF and the lack of human earlids.