Sunday, May 25, 2014

VR or Bust - I will miss you ToyTalk

It's been an exciting and bittersweet month for me. I see in front of me an opportunity to be involved with the future of storytelling. I left Pixar at the end of last year to find what Pixar was in its early days, a collaboration between technologists and creatives to make an inspiring experience no one had ever seen before.

I was happy to have this place be ToyTalk. The product and team there is special and I believe it will shape how kids are entertained for years to come. I've discovered, however, that my latest hobby of VR has a depth that I can see myself working on for the rest of my life.

Just in these early days of consumer grade VR, I can already see how immersion makes an audience member feel deeper, richer emotions than what they can get out of film, TV, or books. The ups and downs of a story arc could have so much more range, in amplitude and in steepness. The number of unknowns to discover, experiments to run, and inventions to make in figuring out this new medium could be astronomical, and I've always wanted to shoot for the moon.

So I have left ToyTalk to pursue a new opportunity, developing and building the future of storytelling.  Now if only ToyTalk were also working on VR, this would be too perfect - to work with an amazing team on the product I feel passionate about.

I will miss my friends and co-workers at ToyTalk and look forward to being one of their biggest fans.

 "And now for another topic ..." - Winston of The Winston Show