‘Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall’ Is A Masterclass In VR Storytelling
April 24, 2018
by Kyle Melnick

Meena’s journey continues in this absolutely breathtaking expansion to last years VR tear-jerker.
The last time we talked about Arden’s Wake, we referred to it as essentially “Pixar in VR.” A testament to the endless possibilities of long-form virtual cinema, the ambitious project immediately grabbed our attentions with its unique approach to storytelling, refusing to let us go until the credits rolled.

Arden’s Wake: Prologue tells the story of Meena, a strong young woman living in a post apocalyptic world in which the seas have swallowed the entire Earth. After an unexplained accident befalls her father, Meena ventures into the unknown depths on a daring rescue mission, discovering various sea life scattered among sunken remnants of the old world. Unfortunately that’s where part one ended, leaving audiences desperate for more of Meena’s story.

With Penrose Studios’ Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall we finally have some answers. Premiering at the Tribeca Immersive’s Virtual Arcade as part of the annual Tribeca Film Festival, this second installment to the Arden’s Wake story not only continues Meena’s story as she continues her desperate journey in search of her lost father, but drastically improves upon nearly every single aspect of the original installment’s production.

Along with adding 14 minutes of additional story to the Arden’s Wake series, the textures are crisper, the animation is smoother, the room scale is more generous and for the first time ever, there is professional voice acting. Not just voice acting, but brilliant performances by Swedish Academy Award-winner and new Lara Croft, Alicia Vikander, in the role of Meena as well as Richard Armitage aka Thorin Oakenshield of the Hobbit trilogy as the father.

“This project is unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and I think virtual and augmented reality are going to be big in Hollywood, as well as entertainment more broadly,” Alicia Vikander shared. “Meena’s character has a special spark, and I was immediately drawn to her when I experienced her in VR. The movie daringly brings up difficult situations while also allowing viewers to get quite close to the characters in such an immersive and emotional experience. I am thrilled to help bring Meena’s character to life.”

“As we continue down our path of creating world-class immersive stories and bringing important issues to the surface, a natural next step for us was to partner with someone like Alicia in our work,” added Eugene Chung, CEO and Founder of Penrose Studios and writer/director of Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall. “The added emotion, perspective and texture Alicia adds to the piece is new territory for the studio, as well as for the AR & VR storytelling industry overall. We’re incredibly honored to have Alicia’s partnership in in this journey, and it is inspiring to work with her. As we evolve the way we tell stories in AR & VR, we’re finding more and more ways to make sound and visuals work together to create engaging, human stories in this brand new medium.”

According to Penrose, the Arden’s Wake series is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. While speaking to project co-creator Jimmy Maidens, the ambitious developer expressed their interest in combining the stories and characters within the Arden’s Wake universe, perhaps eventually introducing elements from other outside projects. It sounds as though when it comes to the future of Arden’s Wake, the skybox is the limit.

With VR filmmaking still in its infancy, the jury is still very much out in terms of established techniques for shooting VR films. And while they still may have a long way to go, Penrose Studios has definitely proven they’re on the right track with Arden’s Wake. Miniturizing their sets down to the size of toys has proven to be an excellent form of virtual storytelling, providing a comfortable yet immersive experience that allows the audience to choose how they view the journey; something conventional 2D media couldn’t possibly hope to replicate.

Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall is available for viewing from now until Saturday, April 28th at the Tribeca Virtual Arcade show floor in NYC. An official launch date for the full Arden’s Wake experience will be made public in the near future.

Last year Arden’s Wake: Prologue took home their first Lion for Best VR from the Venice Film Festival. After experiencing this second installment myself, I think it’s safe to say Penrose should start thinking about making some room in their trophy cabinet.

Im geduldig sein, haben wir ja genug Erfahrung.

Richard Armitage@RCArmitage

.@PenroseVR Congratulations Eugene and your brilliant creative team at Penrose Studios.

Eugene YK Chung@eyc

Antwort an @RCArmitage @PenroseVR

Thank you @RCArmitage. A wonderful pleasure working with you, and look forward to your further bold strides in this new art form.

Critically Acclaimed VR Studio Penrose Secures 10M Series A
Charlie Fink

Jul 11, 2018, 07:07am 1,039 views #VentureCash

Penrose Studios, the narrative VR content shop responsible for the critically acclaimed Allumette (free on Steam) and Arden’s Wake (featuring academy award winning actress Alicia Vikander) announced today it has closed a 10M series A round round of financing, led by TransLink Capital.

In addition to TransLink, this round includes new investors such as SalesForce founder and CEO Marc Benioff, Grammy-award winning artist will.i.am, Korea Telecom, Co-Made, and returning investors Sway Ventures, 8VC, and Suffolk Equity.

Penrose Studios launched a new VR series last year, Arden’s Wake, which has two installments, The Prologue and Tide's Fall. Arden’s Wake: The Prologue premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2017 and received the top Lion award from Venice Film Festival for Best VR. The second piece in the series, Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall, premiered at Tribeca earlier this year, and features Academy Award-winning actress Alicia Vikander (Best Supporting Actress, The Danish Girl 2016) and actor Richard Armitage (The Hobbit, Captain America: The First Avenger). Vikander gave Arden's Wake heroine Meena her voice. Arden's Wake tells the story of Meena, and her search for her troubled father, who disappeared during a deep-sea dive to retrieve artifacts from the ruins of formerly great skyscrapers on the ocean floor.

“In what is still an early form of storytelling and entertainment, the Penrose team has cracked the formula to create VR stories and experiences everyone can enjoy,” said Jay Eum, co-founder and managing director of TransLink Capital. “The company's unique technology paired with the beauty of its work speak for themselves. We're proud to work with the team and Penrose leadership to bring more VR entertainment to audiences around the world, especially in Asia.” According to its website, Translink Capital, based in San Jose, “has long-standing relationships with over 20 of the most significant Asian technology, Internet, electronic manufacturing services, and telecommunications services corporations in Greater China, Japan, and South Korea. These companies have invested in the TransLink Capital funds and have co-invested with us in our portfolio companies.” Korea Telecom is also an investor, and particularly interested in 5G, Penrose Founder, CEO and content visionary (producer, writer, director), Eugene Chung, told me in a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday afternoon.

“VR continues to be a breakthrough form of entertainment for all ages,” said Eugene Chung, Penrose Studios founder, and CEO. “As we participate in taking this new form of storytelling to the next level, we’re proud to have a great group of investors and artists with a shared vision of the future of this medium.” Chung, who was previously Head of Film & Media at Oculus, founded Penrose Studios in 2015.

I have written about Chung and Penrose in this column several times before, most recently after seeing Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall, at Tribeca. I called it one of the five most awesome experiences in the festival. Critics agreed. I raved about Penrose’s previous narrative VR experience, Allumette, which Wired called “the first VR masterpiece.” After seeing the first installment of Arden’s Wake at Tribeca last year, I said it was "the kind of entertainment that will make people want to buy a VR system.” In a piece in Forbes last summer, I described Chung as “the D.W. Griffith of virtual reality.” The artistic quality of the work sets a high bar for other storytellers working in this new medium.

The team of 20 at Penrose have produced over an hour of VR content on a platform of their own making, the award-winning VR development tool they named Maestro, which won an award itself at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. By contrast, it takes several hundred people at Disney more than two years to produce an animated movie.

Like the early film pioneers, to whom he has often been compared, Chung wears three or four hats. “I’m 24/7,” he explained, adding, “My vacations are short business trips to amazing places.” When he’s not working, Chung is a voracious consumer of VR and pop culture. Chung credits his ability to manage both the business and creative work of the company to the leadership of his co-founder, Chief Scientist Jimmy Maidens, and Animation Supervisor Bruna Berford, who, like Chung, is an Oculus alumni. Among other things, the new financing will allow Chung and his team to grow Penrose’s staff “sustainably with the market”. He says they will be very discerning when adding to the team. “We want only the best, most dedicated artists who live and breathe VR every day and have a passion for great stories.”

With Arden’s Wake behind them, the company is settling into a new project about which Chung is characteristically mum. What he would say was that the company’s new projects “would be increasingly interactive and social, while emphasizing the company’s commitment to stories with emotional impact.” While Chung said he wasn’t done with the cloud kingdom of Allumette and the postapocalyptic water world of Arden’s Wake, for the next project will create yet another, completely new world.

With the market for VR content in a nascent state, and maturing more slowly than predicted, producers have had a notoriously difficult time securing financing, yet Chung says Penrose's Series A was oversubscribed. They even opened it up so that celebrity investors could participate in the round.

Chung and the investors have faith that as the market matures premium content will command extraordinary value, as it does in other media. Allumette is free for all VR platforms on Steam, Viveport and in the Oculus Store. Chung and his investors are not measuring the product’s success by revenue, but rather by the number of downloads and the audience reaction to the fifteen-minute experience. “When our investors looked at the global performance of Allumette, they were very excited. It was a big plus in our favor.”

Arden’s Wake is not available to the public, though Chung promised distribution plans would be announced soon. He says the company is working on business model innovations and exploring emerging markets for VR in public places, museums, libraries, and educational institutions. Over a billion smartphones are now AR capable. Niantic’s Pokemon Go, Snapchat Filters and upcoming Google Maps upgrades all offer great consumer AR use cases, but no one has yet offered a narrative entertainment product for mobile AR. Penrose sees this as a huge opportunity.

Chung is likewise bullish on standalone devices like the Oculus Go, and Vive Focus. In the longer term, his investors are confident that the increased bandwidth of 5G mobile networks will spur significant advances in consumer VR. “Our plans for the future include open sandboxes for the worlds we’re creating, where people can enter and explore places like the cloud world together, and really be inside the story with the characters. Like a virtual Disneyland that you can explore again and again,” he said. “It would never be the same twice.

Charlie Fink is a former Disney & AOL exec and Forbes columnist. In the 90s, he ran VR pioneer Virtual World. He's the author of Charlie Fink's Metaverse, An AR Enabled Guide to VR & AR.

Penrose Studios
Penrose Studios erzielt in A-Finanzierungsrunde 10 Millionen USD
11.07.2018 – 23:34

San Francisco (ots/PRNewswire) - Start-up für virtuelle und ergänzte Realität aus San Francisco wächst weiterhin mit prominenten Investoren

Penrose Studios, Studio für preisgekrönte Unterhaltung mit virtuelle Realität, hat heute den Abschluss einer A-Finanzierungsrunde unter Leitung von TransLink Capital bekannt gegeben.

Neben TransLink nahmen eine Reihe neuer und erneuter Investoren an der Finanzierungsrunde teil. Zu den neuen Investorenpartnern des Studios gehören der Unternehmer Marc Benioff (Gründer und CEO von SalesForce), will.i.am (mit einem Grammy ausgezeichneter Künstler und VR-Kreativer), sowie Korea Telecom und Co-Made. Zu den erneuten Investoren gehören Sway Ventures, 8VC und Suffolk Equity.

Seit der ersten Finanzierungsrunde im März 2016 haben Penrose Studios die neue Serie Arden's Wake mit den zwei Teilen The Prologue and Tide's Fall aus der Taufe gehoben. Arden's Wake: The Prologue hatte seine Premiere 2017 auf dem Tribeca Film Festival und wurde auf dem Filmfest von Venedig mit einem Löwen für die beste VR ausgezeichnet. Der zweite Teil der Serie, Arden's Wake: Tide's Fall erlebte seine Premiere im April auf dem Tribeca Film Festival. Die Oscar-Preisträgerin Alicia Vikander und der weltbekannte Schauspieler Richard Armitage gehören zum Ensemble. Nicht nur wird Hollywood die VR näher gebracht, sondern das Team des Studios nimmt zudem aktiv an der Innovation bei Technik und Film und an Veranstaltungen der VR-Branche weltweit teil. Penrose Studios war zudem auf der FMX 2017 in Stuttgart vertreten.

"Das Team von Penrose hat in dieser Form, die bei Storys und Unterhaltung noch in den Kinderschuhen steckt, eine Formel gefunden, VR-Geschichten und Erfahrungen zu schaffen, die jedermann genießen kann", sagte Jay Eum, Gründer und Geschäftsführer von TransLink Capital. "Die einzigartige Technik des Unternehmens und die Eleganz seiner Arbeit sprechen für sich. Wir sind stolz darauf, mit Team und Führung von Penrose daran zu arbeiten, dem Publikum weltweit, speziell in Asien, mehr VR-Unterhaltung anzubieten."

"Die VR ist weiterhin eine bahnbrechende Form der Unterhaltung für alle Altersgruppen", sagte Eugene YK Chung, Gründer und CEO der Penrose Studios. "Wir wirken daran mit, diese Form des Erzählens auf ein neues Niveau zu heben und sind stolz auf die Zusammenarbeit mit exzellenten Partnern und Investoren, die uns dabei helfen, weiterhin unsere Dynamik in der Branche aufrechtzuerhalten."

Kapital der A-Finanzierungsrunde wird die weitere Entwicklung von VR- und AR-Filmen und -Erfahrungen finanzieren und den Penrose Studios die nötigen Mittel zur Verfügung stellen, weiterhin zu wachsen, innovativ zu sein und von der Kritik gelobte Inhalte für die wachsende Zahl der Nutzer von VR-Headsets weltweit bereitzustellen.

Weitere Informationen über Penrose Studios erhalten Sie unter www.penrosestudios.com oder folgen Sie uns auf Instagram, Facebook und Twitter.

Informationen zu Penrose Studios

Penrose Studios ist eine der führenden Filmproduktionen der Welt unabhängiger Filme mit virtueller und ergänzter Realität. Das Studio produziert preisgekrönte, umfassende, computergenerierte (CG) Welten, die mit vollständiger Bewegungsfreiheit fesselnde Geschichten erzählen. Das Start-up mit Sitz in San Francisco ist für kühne Innovationen im Geschichtenerzählen mit virtueller und ergänzter Realität bekannt, welche die Einbildungskraft freisetzen und Magie erzeugen. Das Ziel des Unternehmens ist, die nächste Generation des Geschichtenerzählens zu definieren und mittels seiner Arbeit die Grenzen der Unterhaltung hinauszuschieben. Dies geschieht durch umfassende Erfahrungen, die sich universellen Themen wie Familie, Liebe, Verlust, Furcht und Opfer widmen. Penrose Studios wurde 2015 von Eugene YK Chung gegründet, zuvor Leiter des Bereichs Film & Media bei Oculus VR, das später von Facebook für 2,3 Milliarden USD erworben wurde. In Leitung und Belegschaft des Unternehmens finden sich Pioniere und erfahrene Fachkräfte aus vielen der größten Filmstudios. www.penrosestudios.com

Pressekontakt:

Jessica Douglas, jessica.douglas@penrosestudios.com

Raindance Film Fest@Raindance

And the Grand Jury Prize: Best Immersive Story winner is Arden's Wake: Tide’s Fall by @eyc and @PenroseVR

VRScout@VRScout

Five Emotionally Draining VR Films via @KlyeOnFire https://vrscout.com/news/five-emotional ... -vr-films/ …

Five Emotionally Draining VR Films

March 30, 2019
by Kyle Melnick

Beacause who doesn’t love crying in a VR headset?

VR technology has proven an effective tool in nearly every field it’s been tested in. This is especially true for the entertainment industry, impacting everything from gaming to filmmaking. VR’s capabilities as an empathy building device make it a natural fit for creators looking to introduce the next generation of storytelling.

Thanks to enthusiastic filmmakers–both independent and established–we already have a solid collection of impressive VR films available, many of which have audiences fogging up their headsets. Below is a small selection of incredible VR films that had us emotionally exhausted by the end credits. For the sake of simplicity, we’ve limited our selection to VR films with little-to-no player interaction.

ARDEN’S WAKE: TIDE’S FALL

We can’t talk about emotionally draining VR storytelling without mentioning Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall. Released back in 2017 on the festival circuit, Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall is an absolutely jaw-dropping experience that blends captivating visuals with an equally enthralling story.

Developed by Penrose Studios, the story follows Meena–voiced by Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider, Ex Machina)–a strong young woman living in a post-apocalyptic world in which the seas have swallowed the entire Earth. After an unexplained accident befalls her father–voiced by Richard Armitage (The Hobbit Trilogy, Castlevania), Meena ventures into the unknown depths on a daring rescue mission, discovering various sea life scattered among sunken remnants of the old world.

What follows is a heart-wrenching journey about love, regret, and acceptance. Sufficeth to say my time with Arden’s Wake: Tide’s Fall was some of my favorite spent while in a VR headset. The Pixar-style visuals and unique viewing format hooked me within the first 10-seconds, while the well-crafted story kept me captivated for the duration. In fact, the only negative I can find in the project is the fact that it’s still unavailable to the general public.

CROW: THE LEGEND

Developed by the storytelling experts over at Baobab Studios (Asteroids!, Invasion!, Jack (Part One), Crow: The Legend is another star-studded masterclass in VR filmmaking. Featuring the voices of AAA talent like John Legend and Oprah Winfrey, Crow: The Legend is a modern-day retelling of the historic Native American origin legend of the crow that mixes storytelling, music, and light player interaction.

Users step into the role of “Spirit of the Seasons,”–an invisible embodiment of the seasons–and use their hands to periodically change the seasons and progress the story. The light-hearted adventure follows Crow (voiced by Johne Legend), a charismatic forest creature whos colorful feathers are outshined only by his magnificent voice. During an especially bitter winter season (way to go user), Crow and his fellow forest friends struggle to survive the harsh conditions. It’s then up to Crow to travel past the sun into the unknowns of the cosmos and seek help from “The One Who Creates Everything By Thinking” (voiced by Oprah Winfrey).

The entire film is littered with jaw-dropping visuals, from the dreamy atmosphere of the fall forest to the chaotic beauty of space. Combine this with an emotional story about commitment and sacrifice, and you have one hell of an impactful VR film.

CYCLES

I guess it should really come as no surprise that Disney’s very first foray into VR storytelling would be an unmitigated success. Developed by Disney Animation Studios (Frozen, Zootopia), Cycles is a uniquely-told story inspired by Gipson’s childhood spent at his grandparents home before having to move them to an assisted living environment. Told from the perspective of the home itself, the film centers around the trials of a family over the course of 50 years. Throughout the emotional experience, you’ll watch as the family goes about their day-to-day lives throughout the warm domicile.

“Every house has a story unique to the people, the characters who live there,” states Director Jeff Gipson. “We wanted to create a story in this single place and be able to have the viewer witness life happening around them. It is an emotionally driven film, expressing the real ups and downs, the happy and sad moments in life.”

By employing several unique VR storytelling techniques, such as fading the visuals to gray and lowering the audio when the user breaks focus from the primary actions of the scene, Disney has ensured that audiences catch every second of this raw, relatable tale. Cycles serves as an excellent example of the future of VR filmmaking, both in technology and storytelling.

Disney has yet to announce an official release date for a public release.

DEAR ANGELICA

Illustrated entirely in Quill, a VR creation tool for PC VR headsets, Dear Angelica follows a young woman who’s writing a letter to her mother, Angelica. As we progress through the story, the daughter falls asleep; it’s then you realize that she’s coping with the death of her mother, a famous actress. She is, essentially, keeping her mother alive through the memories and movies she left behind.

The experience keeps you in a dream-like trance throughout your journey, the world twisting and morphing around you with every new stroke of the brush. Narrated by Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise, The Long Kiss Goodbye), Dear Angelica features the perfect blend of conventional art, filmmaking, and technology, resulting in a memorable journey throughout which you gain a genuine sense of who Angelica was.

GLOOMY EYES

The newest film on our list, Gloomy Eyes is an adorable reimaging of the classic ‘ugly duckling’ tale. Narrated by Colin Farrel, Atlas V’s three-part adventure follows Gloomy, a tiny half-human, half-zombie hybrid struggling to find a place in a world fractured by an ongoing war between zombies and the humans who hunt them. Eventually Gloomy falls in love with an equally adorable human girl; the only issue is her uncle, who just so happens to be the most celebrated zombie hunter in history.

“Anything that invokes a sense of magic and total immersion is worth gold, and it was amazing to be a part of the vision Fernando and Jorge created in Gloomy Eyes,” spoke Farrell during an interview with Variety. “It’s a completely transportive and beautiful experience, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and really connected with my passion of storytelling.”

Gloomy Eyes is somehow adorable, thrilling, and heartbreaking all at the same time. It’s truly one of the more unique VR films available, offering users an inspiring journey set within a dark, Tim Burton-esque universe.

Unfortunately, Gloomy Eyes has only been available at festivals and special events. No word yet on a public release.

Penrose@penrosestudios

We are thrilled to be releasing "Arden's Wake" on @oculus
this week! Hailed as "a masterclass in VR storytelling", "Arden's Wake" won the inaugural Lion award for Best VR at the Venice Film Festival and has been featured at Tribeca and Raindance #VR #film #penrose #cinema