The Secret Behind Felix & Paul Studio's Magical VR ‘Holodecks’ Is The Focus On Story - Paul Raphaël

It's January 1st and we've got a really special episode today. Paul Raphael, Felix and Paul Studios incredible trail trailblazing storyteller in the spatial computing space. Paul. Like many was inspired by the DK one took it to some really interesting lengths, was unsatisfied with the state of cinematic VR cameras, so he built one of the first cinematic. High definition cameras and then built another version to send into space. Felix and Paul are the storytellers behind some of the most groundbreaking, most beautiful, most genre bending, shall we say, kinds of VR Now at Area 15 in Las Vegas, Felix and Paul have launched their newest experience, Interstellar Arc, which transports you light years into the future, light years into other galaxies. And gives you a taste at what it's like to be an interstellar explorer in a new world. These aren't the kind of stories that you can tell or show or share in a traditional way. One of the reasons why I'm so excited to talk with Paul and so excited to share this conversation with you is that Paul doesn't just approach futuristic problems with the same tools. He meets the story where it needs to be and figures out how to tell that part. And is willing to sacrifice anything that doesn't support it and fit. The results. Speak for themselves. Take a listen, like, subscribe, share you The Tech Glow Up. First episode 2026. Hello and welcome to The Tech Glow Up. I'm Nathan C and today I have a very special guest, Paul Raphaël of Felix and Paul Studios. He's the Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder Paul. It is so lovely to talk with you today. Thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

Goodness, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer could mean so many things for those, out there who aren't just obsessed about immersive storytelling. Can you introduce yourself in the work that you do at Felix and Paul?

Sure. Felix, myself and, uh, Stephane, our third co-founder, started the studio. In 2013, we actually go further back, professionally, but that's when we started the studio and focusing on virtual reality. at the time, we had transitioned from being more film focused to more immersive storytelling focused, not in VR yet, but with the release of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter. Our minds were blown. as rudimentary as that thing was, compared to what we've got today, we knew this was, the eventual future of storytelling. we shifted everything we were working on towards, virtual reality. we started by designing, what was the first cinematic virtual reality camera at the time, Creating, the first, VR, 360 3D, experience, Strangers with Patrick Watson, a Montreal musician. I, found a way to, force, the headset onto Palmer's Lucky's, face at CES in 2014. It was a demo of a test shoot that we had done. And then that started, a relationship with Oculus. which became a relationship with Facebook and then Meta. Basically since then we've been focused on those two things. the creative, development of virtual reality storytelling. but through that, a lot of technology developments. So starting with that first camera and many other cameras, eventually cameras that were sent into space. And more recently, we've been focused on, large scale location based virtual reality experiences. So experiences for up to, over a hundred and fifty, sixty, seventy people free roaming in a large open space, collectively experiencing, a virtual reality, story.

Oh goodness. I wanna dive in, to this immerse, this like 160 person free roam experience, but I'm gonna wait just a little bit. This origin story of starting in media moving into immersive. And so very 12 years ago, very early pre DK1 is like a very notable, and like you said, VR was, it was mind blowing, but also required like a suitcase and of gear and maybe a couple hours to get set up before you could really dive in. what about virtual reality then, caught your attention triggered that inspiration that, you've been able to follow for over a decade since?

May, maybe I'll start by talking about what drew us to immersive storytelling? I was a, since I was a child, I think I was nine or 10 when I started making movies. And, always imagined I would, you know, one day be well, hoped I would become a filmmaker and, studied film. And, within cinema, there were certain movies that I found. Had a more immersive quality than others. and by that I mean, almost like a, films that left space for the viewer, right? Usually these were slower paced films, that would have less cuts and longer takes. And, there'd be like a psychological, almost spiritual quality to them. And these were the kind of films we loved and. We aspired to make at some point in the early mid two thousands, you know, there was a lot, a lot of immersive, kind of projection experiences, projection mapping, immersive theater was becoming bigger. Mixing media, right. You know, interactivity, all this stuff. And we're like, okay, this is a more native way of immersing someone by literally physically having them be a part of the experience. we did a few projects, of that kind and. Eventually, this was just before VR. we got into 3D filmmaking, but we were using 3D films as, a means to creating, immersive installations rather than making a 3D film. And so the nuance there is, rather than making a film. at the time, Avatar was pretty big and, that certainly was an influence, but, you could watch it in multitude of different sized screens. 3D TVs were a thing too. You could watch it at home on a screen that was a hundred times smaller than the one in the theater. the vantage point was never the same. Right? so really what you had is a film with. depth, but it wasn't correct. In any way. It wasn't, representative of scale or anything like that. Still an immersive effect and very interesting. but we were like, what if we, could lock down those variables, right? have a specific size screen, a spec, you know, sweet spot to watch that, and then filming for that. For those specifications, right? now of course, in the process, we would dramatically reduce our potential audience, but we were like, Hey, the effect would be worth it. And, we did some experiments in that vein, some documentary, some fiction. And, the effects were on people. W what was mind blowing? Like people were coming outta these, screenings as if they had some kind of psychedelic experience. Right. And, we were, we were just like, okay, well this is not a financially viable, path, but it just so cool and so interesting artistically. And, the impact this can have is like we were, we just kept going. Until the day we tried the DK1, and of course, VR wasn't a new thing. but, the DK1 kind of was pointing towards a not so distant future where this could be accessible to everyone. And the minute we tried it, we were like, okay this, you could see with smartphones Television's resolution was going up, the things were getting smaller, thinner. They were like, okay, well it's a matter of years before this thing is 4K per eye and it's got, a better form factor and all this stuff, a little longer than I expected, but still, very, very quickly. it it went from seven 20 p 10 80 to 4K whatever, and, it made a huge difference. And so anyway, we fell in love with the medium and. Of course the first thing we wanted to do coming from a film background was get films in there. So while there were a lot of, unreal and unity kind of games and demos, the extent to which there were films in there, there were 360 monoscopic films that had been maybe made for, the internet or for domes, no one had combined stereoscopic. At scale in 360 which when you think about it, really, it's it's a contradiction, right? when you wanna shoot a panoramic image or a 360 image, you want to shoot everything from a single point. That's the definition of 360, you know, panoramic image. And then when you wanna shoot, 3D, you need two points, So we had to, figure out how do you, obviously have to cheat somewhere, and then how do you do that? And we had to crack that. And once we cracked that, it was the most, incredible artistic journey of, okay, we've got a new medium. It, this is literally a new medium. possibly the ultimate medium. And by that the most flexible and maybe the last in the sense that the way you might get the immersive imagery and audio and interactivity may change and evolve over time. Eventually it might become a, chip or, something that's beamed directly into your consciousness. But the fact that you can create an experience that is, that every aspect of your experience maybe not certain senses, but certainly the vis the audio visuals. to completely take over that and to make the audience experience Absolutely. Whatever you can imagine. I don't know what, could, you know, what, what else, what could be better than that, right? Or what could be more, powerful than that?

Yeah. you've said. several things that just totally grabbed my imagination. I am so inspired to hear that like your early inspirations around virtual reality storytelling were informed from this sort of immersive, sharing the directorial chair a little bit with the audience, right? Like that example of we were inspired by films that give space to the viewer. Was like the opposite of that was always my complaint about early virtual reality. It was very much like you're on a single track carnival ride and you can only look at or enjoy. things that the director has put in front of you. And sometimes those are very good, but I'm a curious completist and so many times I'd be like looking behind me when somebody was trying to talk to me and I saw that there was this rest of the world and kept wanting that agency. You started your. VR filmmaking, with that idea of a collaborative agency with the viewer, you've talked a lot about storytelling and the inspiration. one of the hardest things I found in explaining that aha moment of virtual reality to people that it's a see it to believe it kind of technology, right? Until you are immersed, until you see everything around you, until you have those experiences, It's hard to imagine what it's like and you're like, hinting at the future of immersive could be in brain computer interfaces, kind of neural links, my product marketer brain just slumped over. It was like, how do you explain to somebody what neural content looks like? How do you, like, so I'm, just gonna put that there.

Look in some ways. It's the easiest thing to explain. And in others it's the hardest, right? Because it's called virtual reality. The word reality is in there. It's like reality. It's, not quite as high fidelity as reality, but it certainly aspires to be, and in many ways that's the experience you get is an experience of reality. Now, reality could be. Lifelike. It could be dreamlike, it could be, completely abstract, it could be a lot of things. but ultimately, it's a lot less of an abstracted medium than every other, almost every other medium we've ever, ever had, including literature and television, film, certainly when you combine senses, virtual reality is the closest thing to a natural human-centric medium. and the reason it's so hard to explain though is because when people think of any form of media, they are used to. The legacy media the classical, you know what they know, right? Even though those are highly abstracted mediums, that, rect like a 16:9 rectangle that's flat and that's moving it it's, certainly life-like as well, right? Like I'm looking at you and I'm imagining I'm not it's not that abstract, but it's certainly more abstract than, seeing you across from the table, in 3D, and being able to look wherever I want in the scene, at any given point. the other challenge that comes with that is while cinema is a more abstracted representation of reality, it has about a hundred years of evolution and, you know, people have mastered and developed all the tricks and ways to spend this belief and and then there's style and that evolves through time and depending on the artist, and that's all great. With, VR know we've been doing it for 12 years and we're still scratching, barely scratching the surface of how to do that well. How do you, basically have to reinvent everything and I think a lot of the. The dangers of, of a lot of the, well, a lot of the danger in, in VR is not fundamentally enough rethinking how to create for it. And not just for entertainment. Like even if you're gonna create an application, an interface, how do you browse the web, you know? What we're seeing is, what we've been seeing is, taking the 2D traditional ways of doing things and just bringing them into VR, which makes sense as a stepping stone to what it will eventually become. but it's really, really early days at almost every level and that that creates a barrier. And so what I think has been, nice about storytelling or creating, entertainment in VR is you don't have to worry about a lot of these things. Right. So I often tell the story of my late aunt who, weeks before she passed away, she was someone who had never gotten into any form of, modern technology like smartphones or laptops or anything like that. She was actually quite, afraid of these things, right? I remember for years she was. Playing with the idea of getting an iPad or a tablet, but she never did it, every time I saw her, she'd be like, what would you recommend? And then she would just always be too scared to go ahead with it. we, around that time had just filmed or put together some of our first footage from the, I. And I was trying to convince her to put the headset on and have a look. she was like, no way. Like, I don't want to, hold a smartphone and you think I'm gonna put this contraption on my face. And then I told her that this is actually a simulation of reality to the point where you don't have to worry about anything. I'm gonna put this thing on. You won't have to figure anything out. You're just gonna be somewhere else for a few minutes. And we'll take it off if you're uncomfortable, and then that's it. And she watched the whole thing and she came out in tears and she couldn't believe that this was possible. and I think as high tech as that was compared to every other technology out there, it is actually high tech enough that it's finally becoming. More natural. And I think that's where XR is heading. it's a lot more like what our media should be like. I think.

Yes. Oh, that showing people beautiful scenery that they haven't been able to be yet before is. by far one of the easiest ways to get somebody into virtual reality. we took a quest, like three the last time we went to visit family in Japan. And my wife, who is not really a techie, was just like, at these undersea videos. She was so excited to give the, their, the cousins and, grandparents, this view. We've been talking a lot about story. Your title is Chief Innovation Officer you've hinted several times about. In this process to tell a good story. You've also invented several cameras other devices to like help give yourself the tools that you need to level up. So I'm curious, can you talk a little bit about,

Cool.

Not every storyteller is also building technologies and cameras. can you talk about that part of Felix and Paul's process and the innovative Work?

Yeah that's always been my thing. ever since I was, a kid I was into. Filmmaking, but I was also into computers and programming and I remember at the time jumping onto the, digital. Editing, wave very early on in film school. That was extremely frowned upon, at least where I went. it was a very traditional film based right? Steenbeck and 16 millimeter film, which is beautiful and great and amazing and, nowadays it's a luxury to shoot on film. no shade on that. But, the flexibility that came with. Nonlinear editing. and then also, you know, digital effect, visual effects. I was really fascinated by what you could do with, 3D Maya and things like After Effects. And, so I was always fascinated by the new thing that you could have someone experience because of. advancements in technology and just how much more accessible it was. When I was a kid, there were already movies like Jurassic Park and T2 and it wasn't that I was one of the first people to do it, but it had reached a point where as a kid, as a teenager, I could do it at home. so that was crazy. You have a wider palette of possibilities at a younger age, which I feel like somehow expands your concept of what's possible as you project yourself into the future. Right? So I, I was really always, interested in that kind of spot. And it wasn't, you know, technology for technology's sake. It was what can the technology allow you to make someone feel? It was always about making people feel things, it's more than story. It's more than about storytelling. Story is a means to the end of making someone feel something, right? So oftentimes we've created things, experiences that were very light, if not completely devoid of what would be easily identifiable as storytelling. There's always a story because we are making the thing And it's a selection of things. So it's in that sense, a curated thing. And it's like a gray scale of, is that story or not? At some point it becomes story, I guess more commonly accepted as story. And then eventually it's like, well that was clearly like a three act structure, hero's journey. And you know, there's no question there. but you know, when we're creating whatever we're creating, it's almost a secondary concern whether and how much story is actually in the experience. and really it's all optimized for. Making the person feel not just something, but the thing that we want the person to feel. we'll dose as much or as little story or as much or as little silence or as much or as little anything. with that goal in mind.

I'm so heartened by this, perspective. a lot of my critiques of early immersive, early VR stories. Directly speak to, doing it in an opposite order, right? We have this technology, we wanna tell a Star Wars story. How do we put Darth Vader? you back it out from there to the user experience? I think so. Absolutely. Love it. so you're sort of hinted that you've got this curiosity, this drive, and, kind of a builder's mindset. Right now you're working on something pretty big. You're not just building cameras, but you're building a whole purpose-built space for hundreds of people. Can you talk a little bit more about Interstellar Arc, that you've been working on, and, this experience, that'll be launching, I guess it's launched in Vegas, as of the time of this airing.

So from what was traditionally what we did at the studio, cinematic, not, or very little interactive, experiences, right? That were usually just distributed on the platforms. most of our work is. Released on Meta's, platform, some of it on other platforms that no longer exist. when we were, working on the, SpaceX, explores the ISS experience, which was meant to be also just another at home documentary series. it was. quite the ordeal to make that project. But, the intent, the release, strategy was the same as every other project about halfway through filming, we realized, we just had to find a way to get more people to see this thing. And by more, I don't just mean in numbers, I mean in types of people, right? the types of people that wouldn't normally have a headset. Now, of course, people who have headsets also show to people who don't have headsets, but we wanted to have a point of entry that was more universal. and also while we had shown our work in festivals and galleries, throughout the years, the throughput on it was always minuscule. this was about the time the original Quest came out and we realized, you know what? This is actually the first time we could imagine, creating something that is very large scale, right? Location based. We very quickly had the idea of creating a virtual ISS that you could walk through and see other people and then geo localize. Snippets of the content we had filmed rather than watching, it in chunks of 30 minutes, which was how the documentary series was made for episodes of 30 minutes here, all the content we had shot, and maybe some of that wasn't in the series, didn't make the cuts, would be available just as you discover it, as you walk around a virtual ISS. And so we partnered, with, Phi Studio, who's been part of our story since our very beginning. And, we designed the Infinite and launched it in Montreal. it was, meant to be this one time thing. At first we're like, we're gonna do this thing, it'll be cool, and, that'll be it. by the time we launched and shortly after, we're like, wow, no, this is actually. First of all, this thing's gonna, we're gonna tour this thing. after Montreal, we went to Houston and it was a huge success there. Everyone who worked on the project and at NASA brought all their friends and family, and the astronauts themselves went to see it. And everyone who. People who worked on the is s but will never go, could finally experience what it was like to be up there, at least to some degree. so that was huge. And then that kind of kick started a world tour and the creation of multiple kits of the experience as creators, we really fell in love with the format. earlier I was talking about the senses that VR takes over right sight and sound at first. But now we brought in the body, which was not necessarily a new thing in the sense that there were 6DOF experiences. There were things like the void that allowed you to explore it. But, so we took that, we scaled it up to a much larger space, a much larger group of people. Right, like I said, up to 160, 70 people. and it really became the closest thing to the holo deck, right? Like you can your, sight sound your, physical movement, the social aspect, in the infinite, we didn't have as much tactile feedback except for a few moments where you, you, you're sitting down and you can feel a virtual chair physically. All of that to say that after having done the infinite, our focus shifted from creating strictly cinematic experiences to creating large scale physical location based experiences. and whether they were cinematic or not was again, secondary to the first. So even though we had mostly a history of filming and a minimal amount of interactive experience in terms of the history of the studio, Interstellar arc is almost fully, real time rendered. Yes, there are still some filmed elements, but it's almost entirely, interactive. So it again, purpose built for this format that we had kind of stumbled into while making, the ISS experience. So, interstellar arc, had its premier event on the 5th of November. It was just like such a. it felt like the closest thing I can compare it to is when I was a child and I went to Walt Disney World, like just the physical, you know, we created not, it's not just the virtual reality experience, but the whole building is part of the story. Right. The minute, even from outside, you know, the, the, in short, the experience is, is about an inter stellar voyage, right? And it's told in real time. So you, the building is decked out like a spaceport. The lobby is where you check in you line up, you go in, you sit down, put on the headset, you take a shuttle, you go into cryogenic sleep. You wake up 260 years later and you're on the final approach to, an exoplanet 11 light years away. everything you see, you can touch virtually. it's only been, open for about a week their reactions have been out of this world, no pun intended.

I think the pun is perfect. even the best spaceships have something that's a little bug you gotta hit the panel or you got sparks Flying. you can just build it into the overall effective things. The curiosity and like the willingness to step into these new modes. It absolutely seems like great content, great partners a focus on that user experience are really core to your approach and how you make this magic happen. How have you taken the learnings from watching hundreds of people, interact with your stories and used that to learn, adapt, and grow, the focus of next projects? I'm imagining a project like Interstellar Arc. It might be a few years in the development. And so are you updating that project and pushing out new content tweaks or are you taking that info and thinking about Interstellar Arc two? how do you, How do you balance, learning and growing when you sort of production timelines might be, more like movies than, a Weekly sitcom or so?

We certainly learned a lot from the infinite. so we kind of hit the ground running with Interst cell arc, even though. It is quite different than the Infinite. After it's been now about four years since we launched the Infinite, although we started development on Interstellar three years ago. we very quickly, we saw what, potential there was, what missed opportunities. we had missed with the infinite, what people wanted to do, what people liked, what people didn't like as much. what made people comfortable, what made people feel good or or less good in the experience? so a lot of that came from the infinite. and then while we were developing arc, we took a lot of the feedback that everyone who tried and including the developers, it's a pretty large team, right. and then friends and we did a lot of play tests and, we're still doing play tests. We're doing one today, even though the project's launched. We're doing a play test here in Montreal, and we're gonna keep doing it. I don't think this project is gonna sit still. we still haven't streamlined the updating process of the 400 headsets. it's up to 170 people. We're using the Quest3, which doesn't have, swappable batteries. So we really have two headsets per person and extras. so it's, a lot of headsets to update when we have to push even a, small, you know, bug fix. So but, we are going to be, we already have a, any minute now we're gonna be doing an update, for the people in Vegas. Some of that addresses bugs, some of that, addresses feedback already that we've gotten. And it's gonna keep evolving. as long as we can make it evolve. we are both. The answer to your question is both. We're both going to evolve Interstellar arc and are thinking of the continuation. I often describe Interstellar arc as the first 10 minutes of science fiction film stretched out to an hour, right? Because it's told at the speed of life, right? not at the speed of film So in that sense, speaking about drama, there's a lot less drama in the sense that how much drama would you have in the real world in an Hour? what is the point of the experience? Is it to, have you live drama or to have you live an experience? let's say it was possible. You've decided you're leaving the Earth, you're going to go to Area 15 in Las Vegas, you're gonna go to the spaceport that they've built there, and you've signed up, all your things are in order and it's a one way trip. two 11 light years away, and you're going to get there. You're gonna get in a shuttle, you're gonna fall asleep. You're gonna wake up. Next thing you know, you'll be an hour away from arrival and you're gonna live that hour. And then by the end of it, you're going to see this new world with your own eyes. How much more drama do you like? How much more do you need in an hour? But then. You know, depending on the audience member that may or may not be enough. Like they still might have that expectation of a wait, where were the aliens? Where was my phase laser gun, where, you know, so we hint at a larger world, and if you dig, you get some, some hints of what might come next. And maybe one day we'll make the sequel and, and you know, we've got, we're thinking a few steps ahead. Maybe one day it'll, there'll be three of these. That you could all do all at once if you've got the stomach for it. we, we try to make it very comfortable, but it's, you're still walking in a centrifuge for most of the experience. you could live a three hour. Yeah.

I was in a free roam a VR experience in Tokyo, and one of the most delightful parts of it was understanding that we were all basically in the same physical room. But there were slight indicators. If you weren't in the same like part of the story, you would show up like a, game avatar Your avatar would look different. So you could like not run into people, but that you also would know that they were like on a different mission. And, It was so delightful just to be to know that I was in a space and to know that others were on their own journey. And even, that sense of presence and safety and was just, incredibly, lovely. Paul, I'm way too interested, compared to the time that we have today. One of the questions I'm gonna take it a little personal now, and, through the conversations that I have on the Tech Glow up, I've learned that founders and CEOs all bring a very unique perspective and framework to how they approach their work. And I. I'm really curious about how you like to tackle hard challenges. Do you have a framework for how you deal with the tough That co-founders, experience on a long journey that you've been on?

Yeah. So part of it is, I always trust my gut, like I to a fault. but I can allow myself to do that because I feel like even if I'm wrong, I know Felix and Stephane are gonna do the same thing. And if we all feel the same way, we're probably right. If two outta three feel one way, the two outta three are probably right. if we're all in different directions, then we're not on the right track. So that resolves things usually naturally. I mean, when something's wrong, we need to, like, you know, these days there are a few things, you know, kind of existential like direction questions of the studio. Like where exactly do we go next? we've got a sense of what we need to do next, but how do we get there and what exactly that is and what are we gonna focus on Exactly. Trying to accomplish, you know, it's been. one of these moments where we're not all perfectly aligned, but that also points in a direction by triangulation, right? I think working with people you profoundly trust, is key. I couldn't imagine the last 12 years in this situation where there was any form of conflict or. Where we weren't fundamentally aligned or we were in this for weird reasons. Like we're all in it for honestly, like I will not take a payday to keep doing what I'm doing Right. The way we're doing it. I'm not saying we could, I'm not saying there is a payday that we could take that we're not taking.

advise.

when we explore the possible futures. Some of them seem to point towards more, money in the short term. But, I'm much more interested in continuing to explore this medium with as much freedom as possible. but while still surviving right? And the still being viable, so we don't wanna, be so blind to financial, opportunity that we collapse. So it's about towing that line. but really, I think that the only thing we have is, if we have anything special, in this world, or in industry, Something to offer the world. yeah, it's this kind of obsession with pushing immersive storytelling, mostly VR based, Forward. However we do that.

It's this combination of all the things that you need, right? You have a mission that pushes, the whole organization forward. You have this focus and passion about story that really brings your users into the equation. And then the thing that you said at the top of the question, I'm just enamored with, right? That you have this explicit trust, right? And that you're expecting your co-founders to be passionate, to be engaged, to be pushing at the edge. And that gives you permission to have a similar level of engagement passion and direction in this space.

And I'll just add I'm talking, about the founders here it's not just the founders it's, the team, right? It's the entire team and. our whole executive team and, all our leads and every single team, member, right? It's the, wider that net gets, the harder it is for everyone to be perfectly aligned. so it there's the kind of the ground zero, which is I guess the founders, right? And then it kind of spreads outwards and, and, but you want as many people as possible to be, on board with the vision and to be sensitive to anyone who isn't. For better or for worse, right? If they're not on board, is it'cause.

Yeah.

I mean that it's really hard. I mean, you know, these days we're, you know, we're launching. It's not gonna be finished for a while, honestly. but we're launching, you know, the biggest project we've ever made and it's a lot of strain on a lot of people at the studio. Right. and not only that, but we're also starting up the next things. It's just, it's a lot right for everyone. and, you know, hopefully not gonna have too much collateral damage going through this and we're trying to, navigate as gracefully, as possible. But it's a tense as tough, exciting, wonderful, scary time.

Paul, we are close to the end and I'd love it if you could join me in a quick speed round.

Okay, let's try.

Paul, if there was one takeaway that you'd want our listeners to walk away with, today, what would that be?

Come see Interstellar Arc at area 15. but I think I'm really, you know, I've expressed how much I'm in love with this medium. And I think, I would say it's an important medium that a lot of people are. Underestimating, I think they, whether they've had a bad experience or too few good experiences with it, or maybe they've just not given it enough attention. and this is a message, I guess to audiences, but also to, to investors and people in tech world and, it seems extremely shortsighted to me to think that this is not the future, I think for me it's now, we're doing it now but we can't expect everyone to do it. there's other things that need to be done, for sure. But, I think most people should realize that, we live. In a world that is a certain way, and this is a medium that allows you to combine the digital realm to the physical realm. it's inevitable that this is how things are going to be. And so if you're thinking long to, yes, of course AI is a huge part of, everything right now. so I think a lot of people are mostly focused on that these days. but ultimately. you know, sometimes I think a lot of people are like, why are these companies so stubborn with their immersive devices? Right? They're like, metas, you know, releasing these headset. Apple released their headset. Samsung just did. And then it's like a lot of people are like, nobody wants these, no one's buying them. and yet these companies, they keep making these devices. I think they understand that this is inevitable, right? And that it's also gonna take a while to build it. It's such a paradigm shift in so many ways. Even the smartphone was not such a paradigm shift, right? it basically brought the internet and, your computer into your pocket in a very graceful way. and UI and UX evolved, there was a nice initial jump from, Apple at the beginning, and then they continue to evolve it. and it's pretty, elegant by now. Most of the content that existed was just reformatted for the screen, and it also created new things like, TikTok and things like that weren't maybe quite as possible before, I guess. But they're not fundamentally that different, whereas everything in an immersive environment doesn't have to be different. You can put the floating screen in your virtual field of view. But that's not, really taking advantage of the median. There's just so much to do, so much foundational work, technologically, conceptually, ux, ui, and then just new things that we can't even think of that you'd want to do in immersion Anyways, all this to say that it's such a fertile ground. It's so clearly the future of how we experience. Digital, that, I think everyone should, have patience, and faith that that's where things are going. Right. and, give it another shot once in a while. Come see Interstellar Arc, like I said.

it.

yeah.

Comes I love it. thank you so much. I'm gonna actually count that as your key takeaway and your hot take.'cause this idea that like immersive, That like digital is shifting where the screens are and that there's a whole new, suite of tools that you can be using and experiencing, I think is fantastic as well as. Let's go see Interstellar Arc at Area 15. I'm such a nerd about strategic planning. Quickly, what quarter are you thinking in right now as you're doing all of this launch work, as you're updating the interstellar arc? What, where's your planning brain?

It's really hard not to be, obsessively focused on this and the next quarter and interstellar arc success. In some ways we're betting the house in Vegas with this show. Like we've put everything in it. if it doesn't have a minimum of success, we're in real trouble. we're starting other things as well. but you know, it's really about how do we take what we've done with ARC and really make that, make babies whether and not just. Not just arc itself yes, we want to bring arc elsewhere around the world. It's gonna stay in Vegas, but we wanna create more of it. It's not a touring show, like The Infinite, I guess is what I'm saying. it's Cirque du Solei. They have their, traveling, tents, right? And then you have the Vegas shows that are permanent, right? That's our, Vegas Cirque show, right? In a sense. So we wanna have more of those.

Arc Dubai.

Yes, there you go. That's, exactly what we would like as well. Yes, absolutely.

I know time is short. how can people follow up and learn more and stay connected, with the arc of your work?

yeah. So we are on all the platforms, Felix and Paul on every platform. Interstellar Arc is on most platforms as well. I think he just, Google or chat GPT. You'll find us.

We did a good job at branding and I love it. Find us, out in the world. my goodness, Paul, Raphaël, this has been such a pleasant, deep dive into a storyteller's perspective on virtual reality and also like a technical innovators. journey in engaging audiences. I love that. your work has both this, creative side focused on engagement and this technical side, but both. said time and time again just come back to the experience of your viewers. I have to imagine that just laser focus on who you're trying to speak to, has to be a big reason for 13 plus years of fantastic, storytelling and interactive work in VR. thank you so much for joining me on the Tech Glow Up. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you.

The

If you've made it this far in the podcast, I really appreciate you. Thanks for listening. Please make sure to like and subscribe so that you never miss an episode of the Tech Glow Up. And hey, can I ask you a favor? If you really enjoyed this episode, could you share it on your Instagram stories or maybe post the link with what you enjoyed on LinkedIn? The sort of sharing and engaging really helps small podcasters like me reach the audience that I know really cares about these kinds of conversations.