Toledo is a place of innovation
Virtual reality is a truly immersive medium and the level of graphics, already quite strong, will only continue to get better and better. You really feel like you are someplace else...and what you see, what you experience, it impacts your brain. So there are major implications here, to societal structure, to democracy to the way in which we interact with each other. To the nature of love, to the nature of sexuality.
With cinema, one of the great lies dating back to its origin was "It's just entertainment! It doesn't make any impact" Like the great Samuel Goldwyn said, "If you've got a message, send a telegram."
My focus is to push the medium to be what it truly can be. Something well beyond 360-video, which is where a lot of the initial money has gone…but, of course, it’s not real VR if you don’t have agency. So what I’ve been looking for for 25 years is that undiscovered country between gameplay and linear narrative and the emotional engagement of a cinematic narrative. And that takes a huge combination of interesting technological enablements, as well as an understanding of how to bring a multidisciplinary team on a process that is upside-down the traditional process.
I think it's really important to have inter-generational relationships right; some level of communication between us silver-backed gorillas, who have been looking at and working on these problems for years, and the next generation of problem-solvers. And it's happening. So it's a very exciting time because of it. And a lot of the young people I'm working with, it's very exciting. Their enthusiasm, the revolutionary nature of what they're doing, what they're being driven by.
