VR Film Archives

This year’s winners include Ted Lasso, Saturday Night Live, and Space Explorers: An ISS Experience.

Last night was the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards, an annual ceremony honoring major achievements within the modern television industry. This year’s winners include Apple’s Ted Lasso, NBC’s Saturday Night Live, HBO’s Last Week Tonight, and other recognizable projects from some of the biggest names in the biz.

This includes immersive entertainment studio Felix & Paul, whose groundbreaking VR film series Space Explorers: An ISS Experience took home a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program. This marks the sixth Emmy nomination and third win for Felix & Paul Studios. The studio took home awards for The People’s House – Inside The White House With Barack and Michelle Obama and Inside the Box of Kurios.

Developed in collaboration with TIME Magazine and NASA, the four-part series offers an unprecedented look at life in space. Episode one of the series, “ADAPT,” introduces audiences to professional astronauts Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques, Christina Koch, and Nick Hague, as they arrive aboard the space station for the first time.

In this one-of-a-kind-VR production, the astronauts themselves served as both the cast and crew. Felix & Paul hooked the crew up with a special camera designed specifically for shooting 360-degree video in a zero-g environment, allowing the team to capture some truly jaw-dropping footage of the ISS as well as planet Earth.

Image Credit: Emmy Awards

Episode two, ADVANCE, offers a closer look at the day-to-day lives of the ISS crew while, simultaneously, shining a spotlight on the many accomplishments of women in space.Episode four, which is scheduled to launch January 2022, will take the series in an exciting new direction with the first-ever 360-footage shot outside the International Space Station. To accomplish this incredible feat, the production team created their own “Outer Space Camera” attached to a “Space Crane.”

Episodes one & two of Space Explorers is available now in 360° mobile format on select 5G-enabled tablets and smartphone, leading Big Screen venues and domes, and in VR on Oculus Quest, Oculus Quest 2, and Oculus Rift headsets. Episode four is scheduled to launch before the end of the year.

Feature Image Credit: Felix & Paul Studios

Baba Yaga won an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program at the 48th Annual Emmy Awards, bringing Baobab Studios’ total Emmy awards wins to nine.

Baba Yaga also previously won two other Emmy awards — Outstanding Directing Team for Animated Program (Eric Darnell, director, and Mathias Chelebourg, co-director) and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for Character Design (Karl Athannossov).

“It was already such an honor and thrill for Baba Yaga to be awarded Emmys for both character design and direction,” said Baba Yaga director and writer Eric Darnell. “And now, to be honored with the award for best interactive is truly spectacular and a reflection of the team’s monumental efforts to give the audience the opportunity to be the hero of their own story.”

The immersive VR movie released in January exclusively for Oculus Quest after premiering at various film festivals in 2020, including the Venice Film Festival almost exactly a year ago. In our review at the time, we found it to be entertaining but slightly safe. It certainly wasn’t the ambitious step-up we were hoping to see from Baobab’s next offering:

This is a likable, sweet but ultimately safe adventure, highlighted by some great VR novelties but also equally limited by them. I want to see something from this studio that feels truly dynamic — like my presence has genuine impact in the stories it creates. Baobab remains one of VR’s most promising storytellers but, four years on from its debut, I feel like I’m still waiting for it to really hit its stride.

You can read our full review from last year here.

Baba Yaga is available now on Oculus Quest for $5.99.

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