I can’t believe the Annecy Animation Festival is less than a week away! And man, it’s going to be a busy week. Most days you’ll be able to find me in the Bonlieu Salle de Création: Tuesday, June 13 (showing Gorillaz “Saturnz Barz” on Daydream), Thursday June 15 (showing a VR teaser for Jorge Gutierrez’s Son of Jaguar on Vive) and Friday June 16 (showing Sonaria by Scot Stafford and Chromosphere, also on Vive). Stop by and say hi if you’re there!
Category Archives: events
Pearl at SFIFF
The theatrical print of “Pearl” will be screened next week at the San Francisco International Film Festival, in a collection of family-friendly animated shorts. I’ll be there at the 10am Sunday screening at the Castro Theater, along with some of the other filmmakers, for Q&A. Stop by and say hi if you’re in the area!
VR Storytelling panel
How do you tell a compelling story in VR?
I’ll try to answer that and other questions, alongside a really interesting mix of writers, artists and technologists on a panel hosted by the VR Filmmakers Meetup this Thursday, February 16 in San Francisco. Tickets available here. Hope to see you there!
Vote for “Pearl” for the FoST Prize!
Pearl is one of twenty finalists for the Future of Storytelling Prize! Now’s your chance to vote for Pearl!
In other news, we’ll also be showing Pearl at the Kaleidoscope VR Summer Showcase, which travels around the world to London, Seoul, Berlin, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I’ll be at the SF event on September 30th.
Pearl has also been nominated in three categories (Narrative, Mobile, and Original Score) for the Virtual Reality Foundation’s third annual Proto Awards, coming up on October 8th. The nominees all look amazing. I can’t wait to meet them!
“Pearl” at SIGGRAPH 2016
Pearl will have a big presence at SIGGRAPH this year! We’re doing our making-of presentation in a Production Session on Sunday, July 24th from 10:45-12:15, and showing it on the Vive in the VR Village all day from Sunday through Thursday. Pearl will also be shown at the Appy Hour event on Wednesday, July 27th from 5-7 pm.
I’ll only be there Sunday-Tuesday, but I’m sure looking forward to it!
VR at Annecy
The Annecy Animation Festival will have a flurry of VR demos and presentations this year, including recent work from Google Spotlight Stories, Aardman, Nexus, Penrose, Baobab, and more.
Several directors and producers from Google Spotlight Stories will discuss their experiences on a panel on Monday, June 13 at 6pm.
Our own short Pearl, as well as Penrose Studios’ beautiful Allumette, will be shown on Tuesday, June 14 from 10am to 5pm.
The next Spotlight Story, Nexus’ charming Rain or Shine, will have its worldwide debut alongside NFB’s Minotaur on Wednesday, June 15 from 10am to 5pm.
And the thoroughly fun creative VR painting app Tilt Brush will be available for live demos on Thursday, June 16 from 9am to noon.
And oh yes, lots of good old linear, non-interactive rectangular films will be shown at the festival too! Here’s the full program. I’ll be there Sunday through Thursday. Vive le lapin!
The Making of “Pearl” at SF-SIGGRAPH
This just in: next Wednesday, June 1, we’ll be screening “Pearl” in 2D, 360º and VR at an SF-SIGGRAPH event in San Francisco. We’ll also be doing a talk with some behind-the-scenes footage. Seating is limited, so if you’re in the Bay Area and want to attend, sign up now!
“Pearl” in 360° at Tribeca Interactive Playground
Okay, one more update for those of you in New York: we will also be doing the first ever live public demo of Patrick Osborne’s Spotlight Story “Pearl” in full 360° at Tribeca’s Interactive Playground on Saturday, April 16th. We’ll be there all day.
Here’s where you can find tickets to the event. Hope to see you there!
“Pearl” to premiere at Tribeca Film Festival

News is finally starting to come out about the project I’ve been working on for the past year at Google Spotlight Stories. It’s an interactive 360º story, directed by Patrick Osborne, called “Pearl”. We’re simultaneously making a 2D film version of the story, which will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, April 17th at 6pm.
It’s been an amazing experience so far, full of exciting artistic and technical challenges, and it’s opened my mind to some astonishing new things. I’ll post more about it when we’re done, but in the meantime, Cartoon Brew has a nice writeup with some images from the show. And if you’re in New York that weekend, swing by and say hi!
The Making of MADinSpain 2014
Making of MAD14 by Domestika from MAD by Domestika on Vimeo.
Here’s a cool making-of video about the design event I spoke at this past summer in Madrid. It was such a great experience. The organizers made a point of creating opportunities for the participants to really get to know each other, in keeping with the event’s theme of “connection”. I learned a lot, had tons of fun, and made some great new friends from halfway around the world. If you ever get the chance to go to this conference, don’t hesitate, just do it!