Adrian Rashad Driscoll is the CEO of Collimation and a top 100 XR expert focused on storytelling through immersive technologies. Here's a summary of the key points from his interview:
Key Takeaways:
- Driscoll emphasizes using XR technology to create impactful, empathetic stories rather than just for gimmicks.
- He developed "Footprints Through Time," an AR experience about the transatlantic slave trade, using volumetric capture and animation to create empathy.
- Collimation focuses on making technology invisible to let stories have visibility.
- Driscoll advocates for inclusive technology development and responsible AI use.
- He's working on making concerts more accessible through XR, aiming to provide the energy of a mega concert with the intimacy of MTV Unplugged.
Driscoll's journey into XR began 12 years ago as a contractor for Oculus. He founded Collimation to tell impactful stories using immersive technologies. A key project, "Footprints Through Time," uses AR to educate about the transatlantic slave trade, emphasizing empathy and understanding over confrontation.
Driscoll stresses the importance of narrative-first approaches in XR projects, often advising clients that photorealism isn't always necessary for impactful experiences. He aims to keep technology invisible, letting the story take center stage.
Looking ahead, Driscoll wants to scale up initiatives like the Scale Up Immersive program, which helped 30 companies enter the XR space. Collimation has recently opened its seed funding round after five years of bootstrapping.
About Adrian Rashad Driscoll Social Alchemist, VR Nerd, Executive Troublemaker
From the small city of Barstow CA, (yeah, the pitstop on the way to Vegas) Adrian Rashad Driscoll followed his dream of becoming a professional actor and moved to Los Angeles. Shortly after that, he was woken up. After 15 years of great weather and bad traffic, he now makes his living as a filmmaker
and Immersive Media creative.
He has had the privilege of working with large companies such as CBS, NBC, KTLA, The CW, Paramount, Facebook, Microsoft, United Way, and more to push the boundaries of immersive media whilst producing great XR titles and experiences.
In 2020, Adrian partnered with music legend Gimel “Young Guru” Keaton to form the immersive media production house, Collimation with a dedication to bridge entertainment with emerging media. In addition, Adrian teachesin multiple education programs around the world to bring more people into
immersive media.
He also teaches at the OYA & EAST education programs on multiple XR initiatives
geared towards education, entertainment, and medical research. His goal is to create opportunities for under-served communities and using said opportunities, to change their current trajectory. “French
fries” are the key to his heart.
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
if I go mute, it's just because I'm trying to be respectful.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:I appreciate it, but it's a conversation, you know, and so, like, we're meant to, step on a line. I'm very verbose sometimes, and it's like, Adrian, shut up, you know. So, like, that should be the entrance of everyone. Adrian, shut up. That should be the soundbite.
Nathan C:been using this kind of banter as the intro to the show, so we'll probably just leave it in.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:I love it.
Nathan C:Hello! Hello and welcome to the Glow Up! Fabulous Conversations with Innovative Minds. Today, I have the distinct pleasure of chatting with Adrian Rashad Driscoll, CEO of Collimation and doer of many things in the worlds of art and XR. Adrian so good to see you.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Peace. Happy to be here.
Nathan C:Amazing. So great to have you on The Glow Up. first off, you are somebody who does a lot in the world of spatial computing and art and music. Could you introduce yourself a little bit and maybe, try to hint at, some of the origins to your work in innovative technologies?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Okay, yeah, that's a big question. peace everybody, Adrian Rashad Driscoll. I am a top 100 XR expert, storyteller first. that just means I'm a nerd that likes to tell stories. Sometimes I use a headset. Um, yeah, you understand, yeah, you're on the same page. But, yeah, I've been in XR for 12 years now. I started out with a company called Oculus. And I fell in love with the ability to tell certain stories. you know, I, I've always been a, I, I've never had a job, so I wasn't working for Oculus. I was a contractor. I've never had a job in my life. but what, well, I'm not sure we'll dive into that, but, yeah, I was a contractor there. I fell in love with the storytelling ability, and then I was so heartbroken that nobody was using it. Not nobody, but most people were using it as a gimmick as opposed to creating impactful and engaging and empathic stories. So I use that leverage and I started telling my story through the medium. And now I try to get rid of people using tech for tech sake. I tell people and I tell companies and brands, how do you leverage this technology without, you know, without making friction with having it have an actual impact for you and your users?
Nathan C:So, are you able to share some examples of maybe one of your favorite stories that you've been able to tell, with VR technologies?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Absolutely. the most impactful and completely my favorite story so far is Footprints Through Time. You know, we used volumetric capture, mixed with augmented reality to tell the stories of the transatlantic slave trade. And although most people wouldn't believe it, racism is still very prominent. In America, you know, I've, I've been called a lot of things this year that I shouldn't have been called, you know, so it's, it's surprising to people who don't understand it, but you can't have. You can't just go and yell at people, say, Oh, you're bad. Cause you're white. And it's like, wait, what? You know? So the goal is always to create empathy, to create understanding and create conversations. You have a young boy, not young. He's 18, but I'm old. So he's young to me, but, you know, we got this kid who is with his best friend and that's who you play. You play his best friend. And he sees this woman, this old woman, just standing at some benches. And she's actually a great great grandmother of him, who was sent here to tell him stories. So you're a part of this, this journey and you guys all go together and you learn. And it's very matter of fact. It's not your bad, your bad. It's none of that. It's here's what happened. Here's people who did this. here's how it happened. So with that lens, You feel more empathic and engaged as opposed to feeling attacked. And, we've done very well so far and we hope to scale it very soon.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:how can people experience, those stories? Is that site specific? Is it, in a headset? how can people? Engage with that idea.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:So right now you can experience it very easily if you live in Louisville. So we did it, in collaboration with the Unknown Project, the Fraser Museum, Bernheim Forest. So there's a lot of, it's very site specific. It's using VPS and on, Eighth Wall, shoutouts to Niantic, great partners in this. Shoutouts to Metastage, great partners in this. But, yeah, it's site specific for now, but we are looking to expand it so it's, more nationwide.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:I mean, the kind of stories that you talk about are, far from gimmick, far from, kind of shock and awe level flash that, AR and VR can sometimes be thought of, You described, a pretty tense topic, the history of the slave trade has some pretty, gruesome details to it. How do you, as somebody who is a strategist on this new form of storytelling, guide people to balance between the reality and the empathy that you can generate with 3D and immersive projects, plus the real, human limits and experience, goals? That, you know, talking about a sensitive topic or, you know, a topic that is full of emotion and history might, how do you advise balancing those things? How do you approach sticky problems like that?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:love the question. You know, one thing to kind of soften the blow, so to speak, was, we use animation. So we have volumetric capture, which is, you know, photorealistic actual people, right? And then it's supplemented, as we tell these stories, through kind of a comic esque animation, right? So You're still seeing Black pain. You're still seeing Black trauma, but you're seeing it in a way so it's not, you're not watching 12 Years a Slave, because nobody wants to see that. great movie, but nobody wants to see that. Like, no one's like, oh, I want to go see a slave film. No, no one wants to see that, right? But by nobody wanting to see it, it becomes a topic that's not discussed, right? And you know, appropriation happens, We want to avoid anything happening like this again. so how do you avoid that if you never talk about it? that's been kind of the correlation. And look, we worked on this for like a year and it's definitely changed me, you know, and I, and what I think is a positive way, I don't know, I might just be jaded and, But realistically it's one of those things we want to have that in mind. We don't want people being turned off by it because it's so aggressive. So we thought animation was a very very short story long approach of a long answer.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:My brain, you've caught my brain's attention, with this site specific storytelling. Actually, the thing that I was trying to get to was, tell me about the choice to have the primary narrator be like a third in the story and that the viewer is kind of a secondary character. how did that relationship and, as you're thinking about directorially telling a story like this, how did you decide that that was the role for the viewer, the person experiencing through XR?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Yeah. And I think so many people make these experiences and they're cool, but like this could have been seen on a screen, right? And when it wouldn't do anything different, right? So having these moments, like, you got to have seen Henry, Henry's a great example, right? Everyone's seen Henry, right? I assume you have, if you haven't, go watch Henry, but, Henry has a moment where he has his cake and he looks at you. He breaks that fourth wall and he looks at you, he makes eye contact, and it's like, whoa, and you feel it, you know, and it's not just, I felt it, my mom felt it when I showed her and everyone else felt it. So it's like, how do I create these moments of inclusion? How do we create these moments of connectivity? Because you're already, we can assume you're separated from it, you know, Black people are only 13% of the population.. So there has to be somebody who doesn't understand what the plight is, right? So to have that and connect with you via that, you had to give the user a sense of presence. And that's why we connected that to, to give that sense of presence.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:you know, I finally caught up. I think that one of the problems in the question that I was trying to get to, right, which was, often XR experiences make the viewer the primary character, right? And if you do that, that puts a person like me. into the potential for being in digital blackface, and that's probably not a very good experience for anybody involved. a way that you can experience the story with the right players, and have a guide into it is very important, but in this particular story, it's kind of a problem to have, Anybody be that main character. it's
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:And, and, and to, and to your point, right, correct. And to your point, Isaac, his perspective, and I should have included this earlier, his perspective is racism doesn't exist anymore. He's a black kid who's like, what are you talking about? It's not MLK days. He has this thing in his mind that it's not that big a deal. So as a black person that you know, who you're, you play his best friend, you know, as a black person, you know, is coming with this perspective, you feel more comfortable coming with the perspective. Like, is it still, cause you may not know. It doesn't mean you're racist, it doesn't mean any of that. You may just not know that it's still prominent, right? But it's easier to consume when someone else has your same potential perspective.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:There's some, I really appreciate that attention to like meeting the viewer where they're coming from and, trying to create a shared perspective, even though you don't necessarily. know, what that perspective is. so as a storyteller, you know, very juicy for how do you leave hooks? How do you open the door for common ground? and it really comes, I think from some careful consideration of like, who is the audience? What do they know? What do they feel?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Right.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:Do you have a specific process or approach for how you engage with audiences or potential users when you're building a project like this? is research and getting to know those people part of how you build?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:There's so much research that nobody will ever understand or see or appreciate. And it's just these fine details and it's like, nope, that Those shoes wouldn’t have been black. And it's like, really? You know, and for, Mamalu, who's our main character, plays a griot. We are Authentic African Sheik from an African store in Leimert Park, and all of this has to be authentic or it breaks the illusion. And I'm not putting my name on anything that could have a broken illusion. No, this has to, oh, and then one person out of a million will see it and be like, hey, did you think of, yeah, I did it on purpose. And that's the whole reward. that's the whole reward for it. But yeah, it's ridiculous amounts of. Ideation, research, and revision. Like I'm still making revisions on the project months after it's released, because I'm like, Oh, you know what? That could have sounded better. What about that ting right there? And I think there was a squirrel in the background and that's literally it because you have to tell the story. And I'm obsessive when it comes to that, unfortunately. I wish I wasn't. I wish I didn't care. Kind of.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:Well, let's get into the mind of the director, the mind of the CEO here a little bit. I really love how we dived into this project and, you know, this sort of mixed reality work that you're doing now. You alluded at the top that you've sort of always worked for yourself, you've always kind of been a contract, you've always sort of taken that founder's approach. When did you know, that being a founder was your path? how did you sort of discover that? And, what keeps you on that track?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:You know, I came from a single parent household. at one point, my mom, who was making great money working for someone, she got tired of the way she was being treated. I saw it and I see her come home tired and I see her not have time to, you have family time, she had to be up ready for work again, so she still gave me time. I'm not, she's a great mom, but not having that time freedom, you know, your boss calling you having to do an assignment, you having to do these things, you know, I saw her struggle through that, and at one point she gave up and she said, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going to be my own boss. And she's been her own boss ever since. And me seeing that grow up, I'm like, yo, this is crazy. And I get my work ethic from her and my grandfather, rest his soul. And I started my first company when I was six. I was literally pushing lawnmowers. I had two employees. I was pushing lawnmowers up and down the street. I had two employees, you know, and like the whole thing was, Hey, look, at the end of the day, can we get hot Cheetos and Starbursts, you know? Right. But I'm bringing in something to be able to provide for the family, you know, and I had a whole medical thing when I was younger, but, I'm like, Oh, I could do it now. I could, I can keep doing it, you know, and I was doing entertainment. I was writing stories. I didn't know I was acting. I didn't know. I was just having fun. So to be able to scale that and. Nothing changed. You know, I moved out on my tax check, 1, 400. And it's scary as whatever explicit language you want to enter. It's scary, right? However, I can't see myself going and working for someone who's going to try to control my time. I have a son. I have a wife. I owe them my time. I don't owe this employer my time. So that's, that's where it started from though. To see my mom do it and struggle through it. It was, yeah, I knew I had to.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:I love it. One of the reasons, they talk about, why the most successful entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs. And it's just, it's not that they're successful every time, but they've done it enough that they learn how to make it, how to build a business, how to get it going, and. almost like a muscle memory for, how do you identify a problem? How do you connect with people? How do you, teach the space? How do you make things happen? I find that most people, in addition to why they start a business, I can't even begin to imagine, I took the very opposite route, right? I had a day job all the time, nonstop until just very recently. And, I have to tell you the, there's like a weightlessness when you don't feel the pressure of that clock, or when you know that, like, because you're the boss, You're making the best decisions for the business. And like, it's nice to have that like comfort and lightness, confidence.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:And it's really not comfort, right? Because as a as a CEO, I work for my employees, you know, let's be straightforward at Collimation. I don't take a salary, you know, I'm working for my employees, but we haven't accepted a dollar of investor money either, you know, cause I don't want to mess up. Like you're thinking of all these lanes and like, I have to do the best for them. I can do the best for my company, best for my brand, you know, It's stressful. These gray hairs, these are collimation gray hairs. Between collimation and my son. These are those, you know, but like, it's great, but it's not. Here's a small story. I had a client who's like, Adrian, I want to do what you do. This like eight years ago. And I'm like, all right. So I want to quit my job and just be an entrepreneur. You should, it's great. and a week, she quit her job, she quit her job. She lasted one week and, she had another call for a project and she's like, yeah, I'm, I'm back at work. And I'm like, oh, I thought you quit. Yeah, I went back. Don't let me, don't let me sell you snake oil. It's not easy. But if you find something that is fulfilling enough, then it's worth it.
Nathan C:One of the questions that I love to ask folks is to talk about, how you navigate some of those challenging decisions, to keep your idea or your company on track to where it's going. have you, are there ways that you've learned from your customers or from your audience that, showed you how you need to change and adjust how do you learn, from those strong signals?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Yeah, the biggest thing that I learned is You're not alone in this. Use Utilize your team. You know, and maybe sometimes your team doesn't fully know what the heck you're doing or what the heck your vision is, but if they're supporting you, let them support you in their vertical slice of what you're building. And you'd be mad surprised. I have the best team in the world. Not to say that, no one else can build and do all these things, but they get it and they're here to support the ultimate mission. So once you have that air, everything else kind of becomes a lot easier. And then Don't take discount clients. And here's why. we need the money. Oh, I got my mortgage due on the first. I gotta make this money. But the clients that are talking you down, they're They're going to give you so much headache. Because if you think about the people who buy from Groupon, and I buy from Groupon sometimes, They're looking for the best deal, but they're going to try to get the best out of you. And the more you let them squeeze out of you, that becomes your standard and what you're known as. Pigeonhole yourself financially into this bracket. 100, 000 client, it's like transaction sent, a hundred dollar client is like. Well, hey, look, can you change this and this and this and this? And you're like, I did it for a hundred so I can pay my phone bill. But your thinking isn't their thinking. So understanding that and figuring out that relationship to where you can provide value over providing money, or they can provide value to you as a client as well is very important. those two things I live by.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:I want to follow up on this. How do you, as somebody who works in kind of a new and unproven space, how do you put a value on what things are worth and how do you, make sure that you are charging, what is right, what is fair for the kind of, experiences that people are hoping for and that you're trying to build for folks?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:So thank you for this question, because it's going to give a lot of context to my last statement, which sounds wild right now, I'm sure. You have to understand the difference between money, Value. That's the baseline. Money is what you're being paid for something that's cool. Value is what you're really getting. Right. So to separate the two, right. if I wanna buy a car, right? And this car lot wants a commercial and I want to do a commercial for'em, right? Did they have to gimme money? No. They're giving me value. Right, but as a business, as a brand, my first thought is how do I bring value to you, right? The money doesn't matter. You'll never be underpaid for anything because it'll always come back. How do I bring value to you? You know, I've done things with billion dollar companies where I've made 500 bucks out of the budget, right? I'm providing, I'm getting value. I'm like, okay, that's marketing spend because the next billion dollar company is going to say, I have a million dollar budget, right? Separating the two and looking to provide value and to get value as opposed to looking to provide a product for money will separate you and will always give you a guiding light to where your projects and your clients.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:Do you also apply that to like, the value of guiding somebody into innovative technologies into XR? I mean, working in entertainment, in VR, right, the world of, you know, talent management and engagement into film production, into volumetric, there's so many aspects that, it seems like, the value of working with Collimation is quite there, like, how do you help it, make, better informed customers? How do you teach people about, those challenges and the value of these sort of experimental ideas?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Having a narrative first approach, that's really it because everybody wants Oh, photorealistic and 8K. I've talked to so many clients and I'm talking myself out of money. I can give you photorealistic 8K, just give me an extra, X amount of dollars. Most of them, it's not what they want. What they want is a consumer experience. That's going to be impactful. It's going to be sticky. That's going to have people talking about it, social media, virality, whatever. Remember Richie's plank was not photorealistic. It was not photorealistic, but you didn't step off the plank. So, you can't tell me that your audience needs photorealism to be attached to the experience.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:This is such a good example. Oh my gosh, this is, I'm always battling, you know, over resolutioning things just because you can make cool graphics in 3D. for those who haven't played a lot of VR games, Richie's Plank is a great example. is a animated walk the plank game in VR where you put on a headset, you're put into a world that looks like you're on a very tall building or a number of other scary places and it's a test to see like, do you have the guts to walk? it makes for fantastic demo videos of people falling to the ground when, seemingly nothing is, that demo alone does a really good job of explaining the potential for a consumer experience, for a memorable experience in VR, Adrian, we got, theoretical, we got tactical, we got into some of the agency side. The glow up, right? for again, for those who may not know, is a notable transformation, right? A rebirth, a coming of age of sorts. As somebody who's been working in innovative storytelling in quite a while, with a number of projects under your belt, what are you looking to glow up in the next 6 month or a year? what sort of big goals do you have?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:You know, the biggest thing that I call a success, aside from Footprints was great, and my son is my biggest success. Shout out to Academy. The biggest success I've had was this program called Scale Up Immersive, where I was a co lead and we put together and designed this whole project and we gave 30 companies opportunities to get into the XR space. We're focusing on Black companies the Toronto and Ontario areas, and it's like, oh, wow, this works. This works. I've had, mentees tell me that they're changing their career and, I still have conversation with these students and mentees to this day. And I advise them. So we want to do more of that. We want to be able to scale that in a very major way. I got in through a NBC program, not into XR, but it helped me get some of these relationships. So I want to be able to be that bridge and that catalyst to really start helping people connect those dots. that's the glow up for me to be able to do that. And. when I died, people said, Hey, look, it's a little better because he was here.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:You mentioned earlier the kinds of, like, partnerships and coalitions that it takes to do bold things. is there help or, partners, resources that you're looking for, to help you with this audacious goal that you just shared?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Yes. we just officially opened our seed round so bring in money, please. this is our fifth year. We didn't accept a dime of, investor money. So we want to make sure we're doing it right. So, yeah. we want to start talking to investors now. we have an incredible team that's supporting, we want to meet new partners. New technology, you know, we are, here for it. We want to continue to push this envelope to keep technology invisible. So stories really have the visibility.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:Ooh, you just caught me with keep the technology invisible. that's like the opposite of what you would expect. Somebody selling 3d holograms, right? but I want the story to be so good. You're not going to notice how you heard it. Right. is like, that's a pretty epic, amazing. my brain got so excited.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:I love moments like this because you get it. you understand, you're very aware, right? And. It's rare you get to have conversations with people who are aware, who not only understand the importance of storytelling, but understand the technology, understand what goes into it, you know, so I'm here for it, you know, yeah, ask away please.
Nathan C:one of the things that you've been really generous with, in this conversation is teaching about the black experience both in history, but also sort of alluding a little bit to like what it's like to be a professional, to be in technology. And, I, I've sort of watched the ebbs and flows of, corporate conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion. And, there's often, a trough of disillusionment that happens, right? Where, companies and initiatives will sort of Push, women, queer people, black people to the forefront, to be a scion of diversity and, hey, won't you come work with us? And then, when folks come into these systems and workplaces and others, you know, they find, like you said, there's not a lot of people around that share their experience. They might have to be teaching diversity when they thought they were just going to be developing. How do you balance, your empathy, for, your community, knowing the challenges that it takes to, make an impact, to get a seat at the table, to build that sort of reputation where people will listen, how do you approach, the opportunity and the risk there, when you're advising and mentoring?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Well, you know, it's crazy, honestly, think of how uncomfortable it was for you to say that with just thinking, because you're aware, right? You don't want to be offensive, but you know, We as people, and not just Black people, people in general, humans, we have to stop being so offensive and assuming that it's, something is because of something else. It's so easy to say, oh, this is because I'm Black. It's so easy, and that's such a lame excuse. Now, it does happen. When it happens, you talk about it. Absolutely. But to say because I'm Black, or because I'm this, or because I'm that, no, maybe, look, sometimes it's not because you're this, sometimes you just suck. You had a moment of Being less than perfect. You had a moment of being human. Cool. but to have that mentality when you go into a room and say, Oh, they're going to treat me this way because I'm this. You're failing yourself. That's Be aware of what's around you. You know, they still look at me like I'm a DEI project and that's okay. They can think that. I don't care because when I walk in the room, I know who Adrian Rashad Driscoll is. I'm top 100 because I'm top 100, because I earned this spot, And it's not just me saying it, you look it up, So, like, having that confidence in yourself to say, Look, I could mess up or I could be great. I'm not always great. It's gonna be huge when it's actually starting to provoke change. Because if you start looking for change and you're always like, here's something I look at and people don't see it, like the DEI programs, right? The DEI programs sucked. Most of them sucked. You know why? Because you have someone who doesn't identify with the problem telling you solutions for the problem. You have to help people how they need to be helped. Okay? You gave me a glass of water. Thank you. You feel good. I gave you a glass of water. Well, guess what? I was drowning. That didn't help me how I needed to be helped. You thought you were doing something good to help me, but you didn't help me. You didn't meet me where I was. What I needed was a rope. You're like, a rope's not going to quench your thirst. You don't understand, you know, but you have so many people that I'm drowning are like, well, I can't give you a rope because that could be insensitive to black people. And it's like, oh, okay, well now I drowned. You know, that's that's the problem. That's the problem. People consider themselves woke and they say, I can't say this. They won't have a conversation to understand why they feel they can't say this. They just feel they can't say this. That's why it doesn't translate.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:I love this idea that the assumption that you have any sense of what is going on with any people, with anybody, just in general, it is like, that's pretty bold. We are complex people. there are so many ways that we can, have different perspectives on similar things and, I find with just cycles around the sun, that adage of you really don't know what other people are battling, we're generally not as far away, from each other as we think. We think we might be. I, I think is, are easy ways to get back to center. There's something, you know, I'm always working in technology thinking about, you know, agile and like this idea of constantly learning, right? Like in most, most success is like, can you learn from learnings as cheap as possible? That is, how you eventually succeed in business, and, what I'm hearing from you is, this encouragement to be a little bit more patient, and, to be a little bit more, focused on meeting people, where they may be, and seeing how you can, Engage and learn and grow even when, programs stink or, interpersonal, tensions are at a peak, that there's always a way to get in there.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Because not everybody wants you to do bad. not everybody wants bad of you, not everybody assumes bad of you. And when you attack these situations with a cookie cutter mindset, you take away from the actual problems. Because now they can't be approached because you're telling everyone they're wrong because of your past traumas, as opposed to analyzing said trauma. Just say, Hey, look, here was the genesis of it. Here's how we fix it. now everyone has to have the same mindset and we're too complex as people. It just doesn't work like that.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:So, I could go on this track forever and we'll find the right place for all these things to go into. Well, I'm sitting here looking at my notes and that we're 40 minutes into this conversation and what you had marked on what we were going to talk about was creating more accessible concerts and we haven't talked about more accessible content at all.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:I'm
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:do you got a few minutes to talk, to get into accessible content? this is actually kind of a space that I'm very interested in lately because it seems like there's a whole new group of storytellers that have decided that for some reason or another, that VR is a great place To go see shows. what about, like, game worlds and VR and, these interesting camera angles? What makes this such a compelling storytelling medium? And how can XR make concerts more accessible?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:You know, I love the opportunity to tell a story during, and there's a story being told through most concerts, right? You know, you have lights and dah, dah, dah, and the story is very simple. You know, everyone's coming here to have a good time, right? But for me to be able to connect with an artist and tell a story to their audience that their audience may not have been able to have before, or they may not have had enough money to build using raw, you know, raw materials, That's special. You know, the thing we did with Rapsody, that was special. We got to tell her story. We got to build an environment for her. The thing we did with, the GU Subway, like being able to tell this story in an impactful way, it's magical in itself, but then saying, look, this 2, 500 ticket I can give to you for 20 bucks and you can still feel like you're there. That's magic. That's oof. You know? So that's, that's been our goal. we want to give you the energy of a mega concert, but still have the intimacy of an MTV unplugged. And that's been our approach,
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:One of the things I've really been struck by is like the better than front row kind of experience that you can get, in a VR concert, you know, just the, by nature of the content, it has to be kind of close to you.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Sure.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:that you, you know, to get cameras in the right place and all that, like, things start to really, have an intimacy, but like you're saying, can have that scale of kind of experience or flash. You can build sets that are kind of like Tomorrowland without needing a multi million dollar budget.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Right.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:When,
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:that's what it is. you're building Disney parks in a music experience. how could you not love that?
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:yeah, how do artists So, how do artists, interact to the kind of work that you do when they see it for the first time? Like, do you have to explain it or do you have to, like, corral them in?
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:The only way to explain it is to show it. Like, this is one of those things that's like, I can give you all the 2D videos in the world. But yeah, you know, you gotta see this. You know, and for our artists, we always try to make technology, again, invisible, right? I'm not putting you in a mo cap suit. I'm not putting you in a 3D face scanner. Why? Right? Because that's not what you're used to. I'm gonna let you be how you are, because if you're in your natural element, you're giving the energy to your crowd that they expect, instead of saying, hey, look, put on a mo cap suit. And, you know, it's like, what are you trying to, get radio frequency? Like, what are you doing? I don't know. it doesn't work the same.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:I love it. you've mentioned twice now, this idea of, When you're trying to do something creative, right? You got to trust your team for their strengths. You got to lean in to what that artist is good at, right? Like don't. over engineer a project to get it away from the core strengths of the content, of the vision of the creators. it's so key, right? Like, just literally, stick with the strengths, hire good people for what they do. You can make really dope stuff.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:That's it. You should be trying to take technology out of every project, not put it in. Your goal should be to strip the project down to what's the most delicious cut right here and strip out all the other technology. make it as minimalistic as possible when you're making an experience. Always.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:feels like we let the folks in Vegas determine what, like, experience design should be And everybody got this sense that, like, if it's not an eight foot blinking screen, it's not a great experience.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Right.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:But I'm with you, right? Like, I always talk about taking the right bite of innovation.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Absolutely. I like the right bite.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:The right bite of innovation,
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Yeah, that's fire.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:copyright, awesome future.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Yeah, yeah.
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:Adrian, it has been such a fantastic time chatting with you. I'm always inspired by the ambition and focus, that you bring to your work. the sense of purpose that I hear, in what you do is just, so cool to see in a founder. And I think every founder out there is probably a little envious of, thank you for sharing your perspectives on, storytelling and taking technology out of the mix. I've learned so much with you on the Glow Up
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:I appreciate you, Nathan. We all have a part to play and I'm happy to be a small part of something big..
nathan-c-_1_11-20-2024_140120:Same. Thank you so much.
Adrian Rashad Driscoll:Always fun chatting with you.