'Light as a Feather' Gets the VidCon Treatment
Jul 12, 2019
"Light as a feather, stiff as a board" becomes lifelike with mixed reality.
Fans of Light as a Feather can experience the haunting series like never before at VidCon 2019.
To promote the second season of the supernatural teen thriller, series’ producer Awesomeness teamed up with technology startup Magic Leap and ViacomXR—which creates AR and VR content across Viacom’s departments—to develop a mixed reality activation that enables fans to join the cast of the show with two adventurous activations.
In one experience, users are transported into the bedroom of the villain of the show, Violet, where they will go on an adventure alongside the characters in order to unlock a mystery. In the other experience, users can virtually levitate in a game of “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” as seen in the series.
It’s the first time that Magic Leap is using volumetric capture to create a narrative story. Through volumetric capture—a recording process that uses both depth and color information to create a moving 3D hologram—the characters are not simply CGIs, but rather digital twins. Every angle of the actors’ bodies was captured so the avatars are exact replicas.
Light as a Feather "was just the perfect intersection where the technology could complement the creative and bring it to life,” says Nikki Scoggins, vp of marketing at Awesomeness. “It made sense and wasn't just technology for technology’s sake.”
Levitating with the cast of 'Light as a Feather' from the VidCon 2019 mixed reality experience.
“Spatial computing enables an entirely new way to tell stories and explore narrative experiences,” said Daniel Diez, chief marketing and communications officer, of Magic Leap in a statement. “This foray into spatial adaptation of a popular entertainment property, offering fans an entirely new way to engage with the characters and stories they love, is a rich and compelling example of just that.”
Awesomeness and ViacomXR saw an opportunity to get involved in the mixed reality marketing space with the premiere of the new season, and quickly developed the VidCon activation in only three months.
“This partnership with the ViacomXR team and Magic Leap allows us to be at the cutting edge of where technology meets storytelling,” explains Scoggins. “I think that as we start to explore how we create worlds and how people can interact with the stories that we build, companies like Magic Leap are going to be absolutely integral in that storytelling process.”
The activation is also an example of Viacom’s commitment to finding new ways to engage fans through augmented, virtual, and mixed reality across its stable of brands.
In a VidCon panel earlier this week, Paramount Pictures’ Ted Schilowitz presented an especially bullish perspective on the potential of mixed reality, which merges aspects of the real and virtual worlds into a single experience. “I personally believe that VR is a multi-billion dollar sideshow, but mixed reality it the multi-trillion dollar opportunity. It’s the evolution of the smartphone revolution.”
