Putting the Technicolor Experience Center into Perspective

One of the reasons VR, AR, MR and the immersive media environment in general is an exciting space is because we are in an early stage of development.  We are still fully understanding how to create the art, master the technologies and monetize our shared efforts across the ecosystem that is now forming.

The Technicolor Experience Center can be best understood as a frontier outpost.  The TEC and its partners are blazing new trails.  Together, we are creating new communities, and as first movers on this frontier, we are in a position to explore the full potential of this exciting new medium.

But even explorers need a plan. They need clearly defined missions. And they need a place where they can co-develop strategies and form the partnerships with whom they can push the boundaries of this new frontier.  So let me share with you how the TEC provides a central space where strategies can be developed and partnerships can be formed.

The TEC is a Purpose-Built Space.

It is a hub for immersive media that is designed to serve as an accelerator for how new experiences can be created for media and entertainment -- as well as for adjacent industries -- such as retail, travel and leisure, to name but a few.

It is a community of communities that leverages immersive sound labs, motion capture facilities, post-production capabilities, and other solutions that enable immersive and connected lives and homes.

The space itself has been designed from the ground up to stress-test new methods of immersive content creation while trying out new technologies and new processes.

The TEC serves as a meeting ground where knowledge can be created and shared to educate the artists, technologists and industry leaders on how to harness the full potential of immersive media as quickly as possible.

In short, the TEC is a place where award-winning talent meets cutting-edge technology to create new experiences through open innovation and industry-wide collaboration.

A Place to Develop Shared Strategies.

Immersive media has captured the imagination of the industry – and consumers – by introducing compelling innovation in the form of completely new approaches to experiencing content.

However, I think it is fair to say there has been very little coordination among the different links in the value-chain that connects content creators to content distributors and the people who make the devices that render these experiences for consumers.

One of the largest initial strategic challenges for our community lies in creating a rational ecosystem.  We must build a market that offers value to consumers, while rewarding each key player in the value chain.

Another strategic challenge that the TEC will address revolves around what we mean by “experiences,” and how that concept ties back to traditional notions of storytelling and entertainment.

We know that VR, AR and MR will borrow creatively from movies, television, animation and very interestingly, from gaming.

But immersive mediums will have to take us beyond what consumers find familiar.  This “familiarity gap” creates a strategic challenge to define the grammar of this new art form, so that we can all work together to create, meet and then exceed the expectations of audiences all around the world.

Finally, we have the strategic challenge of providing access to the experiences we are creating.

How can we -- as a community with a vested interest in creating a vast audience for immersive media -- accelerate the pace to a critical mass of consumer adoption?

We have a long row to hoe in developing ways for people to experiment with this technology, get hooked on immersive mediums, and provide an ongoing stream of experiences that will compete effectively for both mind- and wallet-share with existing entertainment options.

The Key Lies in Forming Effective and Productive Partnerships.

Deeper collaboration across different disciplines and areas of expertise is needed to accelerate the cycle of innovation – by harnessing bold experimentation -- so that we can bring rich, interactive and impactful immersive experiences to market as quickly as possible.

From the TEC’s perspective, the industry needs partnerships that build bridges between communities (such as content creators and network service providers) that are currently poorly connected -- or completely disconnected.

The industry also needs to fill knowledge gaps within communities to develop and share deeper expertise within the content creation, distribution and consumption processes.

We Have an Opportunity to Build on a Rich Vein of Existing Projects.

Since we launched the TEC last summer we have worked with partners – many of them in this room – to help develop more than 60 immersive projects.  In this process, we have tapped into all of the brands that are associated with Technicolor, including: MPC, The Mill, Mr. X, Mikros, our R&I labs and Technicolor post-production resources.

We are actively working with partners on more than two dozen projects that are in our pipeline as we speak.  Just a few of the recent projects that have leveraged resources that are now available at the TEC include:

The TEC is looking for new opportunities to work with the creative technology community to explore how we can push the boundaries of immersive experiences together.