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PETE LEPAGE: Well, welcome everybody.
My name's Pete LePage.
I'm a developer advocate here at Google.
And with me today, we've got a very special group of people
to talk about Movi.Kanti.Revo, the new Chrome experiment in
conjunction with the team at Cirque du Soleil.
With me, I've got a Nicole McDonald, who was the creative
director on the project and Gillian Ferrabee, who is a
creative director at Cirque du Soleil.
Nicole, why don't you introduce yourself first,
because you're up on screen.
And then we'll have Gillian introduce herself.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Hi, I'm Nicole McDonald.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
I'm a creative director and director specializing in
interactive directing.
PETE LEPAGE: Awesome.
Cool.
And Gillian, do you want to introduce yourself?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Yeah hi, I'm Gillian Ferrabee.
I'm the creative director at Cirque du Soleil.
My title is creative director of images and special
projects, which is mostly anything to do with TV, film,
and new media.
And this project would fall under special projects.
PETE LEPAGE: Awesome.
All right, well, cool.
So today, while we've got some of these things going on, if
you guys have questions, things that you want to ask of
folks, we've got a place where you can ask questions at
goo.gl/5iDjh.
The URL is there on screen.
So if you have questions, things that you want to know a
little bit more about, feel free to go and post your
questions there.
And we'll take your questions as we get towards the end of
the session.
So with that, I want to take it over to Nicole to start and
say, Nicole, when you started thinking about this project,
where did your initial inspiration
come from for this?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, we actually really researched
Cirque du Soleil, and the brand, and also the live
shows, and we tried to figure out where to bring the live
show into an interactive space.
And one of the inspirations was magic.
Magic is something that draws us in, [INAUDIBLE] to the eye.
It's visceral.
There's emotion behind it, and that's where we, kind of-- we
thought about magic.
Magic [INAUDIBLE].
PETE LEPAGE: So what about the magic of Cirque du Soleil sort
of brought you to that experience?
What were some of the things that you thought about that
would translate well to the web?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, one of the things that I think Cirque
du Soleil does extremely, extremely well is, it kind of
is a feast of sense.
It's so beautiful, there's so many colors, there's so many
things going on.
It's just hyper, hyper gorgeous.
[INAUDIBLE]
points, well, one of the points that we wanted to be
careful of was that in a live experience, we feel connected
in ways that we don't when we sit behind a computer.
And so one of our wants was to really figure out how we could
get closer to the action and experience it, maybe, in that
same way we would with a live event.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
And Gillian, for you, as you started to look at this
project and start thinking about this project, where did
the inspiration come from for you?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I think for us, the first meetings we had,
the two things that came up as themes in terms of bringing
Cirque du Soleil to the world of the web was curiosity is
something that Cirque creates for their
audience as a way to engage.
So as Nicole said, it's magical, and you want to
understand what's behind that magic or where that magic is
going to take you.
So that idea of still being able stretch people's
imagination and initiate curiosity, which would give
someone the desire, then, to move forward and into the
experience, in the sense of interactivity.
And the other thing that came up for us is adventure.
Because the web gives this sense that you can access the
whole world.
What's the edge of the map?
How far can you go?
And how wide can you reach?
So [INAUDIBLE] came up with curiosity, in the sense of
magic, and adventure.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool I think, for me, one of the really amazing
things about the web is that we are
always pushing it forward.
Or we're always trying to push it forward.
And that's certainly one of the main components of Chrome
experiments is, like, we can take the web here, and what we
do to push it to that really neat thing?
And how do we make it do something it's never seen
somebody do before?
Nicole, when you started working on this, how did the
technology affect your inspiration?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, it's actually going back to the
live shows.
Even though you're not necessarily interacting, it is
still a 3D experience.
And one of the things that I really wanted was to have it
be engaging in a 3D experience.
And so that's where we came up with the idea that we were
using a 2D world in a 3D space.
And so I think the technology allowed us to really create a
layered environment.
And that, I think, started to snowball into, how do you
create a layered environment?
What does it do?
How does it react?
Why does react?
And I think that's a good question is, why?
Why use technology?
And it's really to tell more of a story.
PETE LEPAGE: So you see technology being a good way to
tell a better story and engage with people in storytelling
and more dynamic experiences?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, from an artistic level, I think
technology is a paintbrush, right?
So it's in size.
You can either use a fat one, or you use a
smaller one for details.
I think that technology is also just a way-- it's an
outlet to communicate ideas.
And the exciting thing about it is, like you said, it's
never been done before.
But also, we can pull in people to dream in ways that
they haven't before.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah.
This is a question for both of you guys.
Before you came to the web, or before you started playing
with technology, what is your creative experiences based on?
Did it come from painting, drawing, or did it always
really exist around the web?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Gillian?
[LAUGHS].
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Wow.
Well, my personal history goes way back.
I've been performing and making art since as long as I
can remember.
My mother's a designer and an artist and an educator.
But for me, it's been mostly live and some
drawing, music, singing.
But the primary has been live audience, traditional and
nontraditional stage.
PETE LEPAGE: OK
NICOLE MCDONALD: And for me, my background has been
everything.
You know, wit Christmas every year, I got a new art kit.
I was constantly a little artist.
I started, actually, in college as a performance and
filmmaking and painting.
[LAUGHS].
And then I immediately, after college, went into games.
And I painted sets for games.
And that started my interest in interactive.
And so I took this fine art world and
started making it digital.
I was really quite lucky.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
Gillian, when Nicole and the crew first sat down with you
guys and said, hey, here's this really cool experience
that we're thinking about doing, and showed some of
their inspiration and mood boards, what did you think of
what they were showing and where they were going with
some of these things?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Well, the first thing that was, I think,
exceptional and almost magical, really, to use the
word, was that we had prepared a mood board, and there was
actually one image that we both had chosen for our mood
board, of all that's possible to find on the net.
So that was kind of mind blowing.
When they presented their mood board, we looked at each
other, like, we didn't give that to them, did we?
No, we haven't talked to each other.
So there was an immediate complicity and common vision
that was obvious from that and from a few other things.
And the other thing, from the Cirque's point of view, that
was a strong indicator was--
I can't remember, I think was Nicole, but somebody brought
up the idea of the screen, what you might call the fourth
wall, and how to playfully interact with your audience.
Like now, even, this is live, we're talking-- how do you
interact through this new form of communicator?
And that was something we were definitely curious about.
So those were the two things that pretty much nailed it.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
Nicole, what were your feelings on those first couple
of meetings, when you sat down and said, this is what we're
thinking, going from a really web and creative background to
a company who's all about doing live,
in-person kind of stuff?
NICOLE MCDONALD: It was super, super exciting, obviously, I
mean, I kind of a dream come true, really.
To work with such a creative, imaginative, really
responsible company, that's kind of rare.
But I think the challenge of it all was thrilling, to
really kind of crack open the nut a little bit and be able
to do take a step into a direction of interactive
performing is super exciting.
PETE LEPAGE: So as you started working on some of this stuff
and sort of took the technology with your vision,
how did the technology change the way that you saw the
vision being done as you were working through the project?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, I think I'm a developer's worst
nightmare in that [INAUDIBLE], because I think I know enough
of what technology can do, I know where we can push it.
I think that one of the challenges for us, from a
development standpoint was, could we get things in time?
Could different technologies be available at that moment?
I think that was our biggest challenge.
PETE LEPAGE: So whether and when technology came on,
whether you had access to it?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, and I think that usually the process
of how I work in an interactive space is, we
dream, and then we kind of dial it back.
And then we become detectives and solve problems, which is,
I think, the best-case scenario.
Solving problems means we move forward, which is [INAUDIBLE].
PETE LEPAGE: Were there any problems that you were really
proud of having solved with this project, technology-wise,
creativity-wise?
NICOLE MCDONALD: That's a really good question.
I think you'll notice that there's an incredible amount
of layered sprites and divs, figuring out what a system
could handle.
And you dream big and so you have, like, seven videos
playing, and all these animations, and then there are
all these huge files.
And then really figuring out, OK, now we have--
it's not moving on a computer.
So nobody can watch it.
It looks great, but nobody can see it.
Really figuring out what that wait was.
So how do we turn this down, but still, how do we maintain
our vision?
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
NICOLE MCDONALD: That was definitely a big challenge.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah.
What was it like going through the process of saying, OK, so
we've got our idea here.
What did the workflow look like, to say, all right, so
here's our idea, after those first meetings with Cirque, to
then go and get to that final project?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, we took some time and wrote the story.
That was super fun, just to tell the narrative.
And then once we had the narrative, we actually made it
a functioning animatic And then from the animatic, it
kind of gave us the answer of flow and also an asset list,
which was super important.
PETE LEPAGE: For each of the different scenes, yeah.
NICOLE MCDONALD: And then we shot it.
And then at the shoot, we were able to kind of pull in video
live and be able to see how it moved and whether or not our
horizon line was correct, or overshooting it, or even just
if it was a worthwhile experience.
And then from there on, it was just, go.
PETE LEPAGE: And Gillian, how did you see, and how did your
team work with Nicole to really take that vision from
beginning to end?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I think the main thing was keeping in
touch all along the way so that everybody had a sense of
what was happening, what it looked like.
Did it match what we wanted and imagined?
I can't think of any specific obstacle, but I know that we
hit a bunch.
And Nicole probably remembers this.
We would always say, well, that's because something else
even better's going to show up, which it
actually did, often.
The part that was most interesting, for us, I would
say, was the actual shoot and watching how the artists,
themselves, how Nicole was able to translate to them what
their work was going to look like in the final product.
Because a live performer knows, they're onstage when
it's happening.
So what they give comes from that knowledge.
And so Nicole was able to inform them the context that
they were performing in, what it would look like, and then
they were able to play and adapt with that, which was
exciting for us to see that.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, and I think that's where the
animatic played an incredible role, and also being able to
input stuff immediately live.
In a green screen environment, it's cold.
There's no connection.
And I think that was super exciting that we were able to
show the artists where they were in the space and really
let them have that world and take over that world.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah, actually, I just got some of the green
screen video set up so that we can see have a quick peek at
that, I think.
Let me see if I can get that running here.
There we go.
So we've got some picture in picture going so that folks
can see what's going on there.
So this was the scene where our guide jumps
backwards off the log.
And you can see her there on that blue screen.
Nicole, as we run through that, what was your process of
thinking through how to do these things, because you see
just this blue screen.
And the artist has really no idea, we have really no idea,
until we see what's going on, what to expect.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, what we tried to do is to have some
key frames to show the artist where they were in the space,
and also for us to be able to plan appropriately.
This is an A-camera.
We don't have a B-camera to cut to, so the entire scene is
first person POV.
So we really needed to make sure that there was a thread
throughout-- like a breadcrumb trail continuous, throughout
the experience.
And with these frames, we were also able to build out the 3D
experience, and then immediately key the video and
put them into an environment to help the artist see what
space they were working in, and to--
what was the first film of Star Wars that came out, where
they used blue screen everywhere?
PETE LEPAGE: The remakes, or the--
NICOLE MCDONALD: The new ones.
PETE LEPAGE: Oh, yes.
NICOLE MCDONALD: I just remember how cold that was.
There was no connection.
And there was just these two people
speaking to one another.
We were joking and saying, we do not want to create that.
PETE LEPAGE: Gillian, for you guys, was this the first big
web project that you guys had worked on at Cirque du Soleil?
Or how had you guys worked with the web before?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: It was the first creative
project, I would say.
Obviously Cirque has done lots of marketing, and the company
website, and other, more traditional, transitions to
the web, doing things that people were doing anyway,
before the web, but in a different way.
But this was the actual--
the content was created for this project, and
it was fully creative.
[INAUDIBLE].
PETE LEPAGE: Were you somewhat skeptical at the beginning, or
did you think that we would be able to create such an
immersive, Cirque-like experience right off the bat?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I'm a highly optimistic person, so I wasn't
skeptical, because I almost never am.
But I would say there were definitely lots
of people who were.
And the minute we met Nicole and their team, that went out
the window.
Their enthusiasm--
and maybe they were as highly optimistic, but they were the
experts, and they seemed really
excited that it was possible.
So that schooled us pretty quickly.
PETE LEPAGE: That's awesome, yeah.
How would you describe the difference between working
with a web experience and working with a live show,
starting something like that?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Wow, that's a good question.
It's completely different, because, from the beginning,
your framework is not a theater.
It's not an audience.
It's a platform, in a way.
It's a tool.
But there's much more unknown, which can be exciting, except
that, when you're doing a show, the parameters are very
concrete and practical.
PETE LEPAGE: Right.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Go ahead Nicole?
NICOLE MCDONALD: I was just going to say, I think it's
practical because it's known.
Because we haven't defined the process of interactive--
there is no cookie cutter process, necessarily.
I think that that's the exciting and the scary part.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: It's definitely
exciting for Cirque.
And the first question we asked ourselves is, what are
all the things that we can't do in a live show because of
the parameters of time, or the weight of something, or the
feasibility, visually?
The suspension of disbelief is completely different live.
So it's a very exciting terrain.
I mean, Cirque has always been interested in the unknown, as
Nicole said.
PETE LEPAGE: So what were some of the things that, right off
the bat, when you said, what are the things we can't do a
live show, what were some of the things that you said, we
can't do, could we do these on the web?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: The first thing that comes up is, in the
web, you have, to some degree more say how
the story is told.
Because live, you don't know where the
person's going to look.
Which Cirque is a real master of giving people lots of
things to look at and, in a way, guiding their attention.
So that's different.
On the web, it gives more of a traditional
storytelling process.
And the other thing is practical--
like, to get something onto stage takes time.
And to get it off takes time.
And when you're shooting, you can do that before you turn
the camera on for however long it takes.
So that's a very practical and very creative examples.
PETE LEPAGE: Were there any things in the Movi.Kanti.Revo
experience that you pushed to have them try
some of those things?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Nothing comes to mind because my
experience is that Nicole and [INAUDIBLE]
surprised us over and over.
We didn't have time to catch up.
NICOLE MCDONALD: From our perspective, I think it was
about, really, how to challenge this experience of
intimate, a one-on-one experience, whereas in the
theater, there's many, many people around you.
So how do I engage somebody in the one-on-one experience?
And then also perspective--
we can gauge perspective behind a computer.
In a theater, you're in a seat.
[INAUDIBLE]
that Cirque does an amazing job doing many shows, like
you're moving around the space as much as they're moving
around you.
But I think that's a really super interesting thing for
how to translate live experience in the future is,
it's a virtual theater seat.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah actually, that's a perfect segue into
the next question I have, which is, what do you think
that the web brings to experiences that you can't do
in a live show?
And where do you see that going and changing the way
some, not just Cirque shows, but in all live entertainment
changes in the future?
NICOLE MCDONALD: That's a very good--
I mean, I don't really think we know quite yet until we do.
Because I think the wonderful part of about doing stories
interactively is that every single time, we find out
something new about a way to engage somebody differently.
And that's, I think, the part of the process that is the
most challenging, because it's almost like--
and I think this is why my developers kind of hate me
sometimes-- not hate me, but obviously, raise
their fist to me--
is because I think I'm constantly using technology in
ways that it's not supposed to be used.
And that's how we move forward.
That's how we push the lines.
PETE LEPAGE: I think one of the things that really excites
me with the web is, it's not always about--
the technology is not supposed to used this way.
It's that as browser vendors, or as the people who make the
specifications develop stuff, they say, hey, we think it's
going to get used this way.
But then creative, brilliant people like you guys come in
and say, oh, hey, if I do this and this, I
can get this to happen.
And suddenly you get something that's never really been seen
or done before.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, it's like using a hammer for
something else other than nailing.
If there's a tool available, then it can kind of push us
into ways that we don't reveal yet.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: One other thing that comes to mind from
a live [? performance ?]
point of view is there is a different kind of intimacy.
As Nicole was saying, you can move the camera into places
that you can't always see from your seat.
And then the other thing that's way out there is the
web provides a different kind of live, which is--
for instance, in the way that if you're using an app,
sometimes you can see who else is using it at that moment.
There's a collective participation over time and
space that you never have with the limitations of 1,200
people from 8:00 to 10:30 or any form of live experience.
There's that potential for a different kind of live.
NICOLE MCDONALD: And a very new and exciting unity.
There's people that are coming together that would never have
the opportunity to come together.
It's incredibly exciting.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
Well, let's talk about the workflow, a little bit, of
taking some of the actual practical things and putting
them onto the web into some of those experiences.
So Nicole, as you started going through and saying, OK,
this is what I want some of these scenes to look like, how
did you say--
for example, the tree of life scene--
how did you translate that from being something in your
head to being something very, like, touch, like, I can go
and see that, I can move around?
NICOLE MCDONALD: I think it's that this is about sketching.
We sketched the tree out.
I kind of [? drew ?] the layout, originally, handed it
to some very talented artists, who painted it.
PETE LEPAGE: Now, when you say painted it, because we've got
a lot of different types of folks who are watching this--
some may be a little bit more like me, who are more
developer oriented.
And for me, I know how to write some angle bracket
markup-y like stuff, but anything more than that, I
need your help.
So what's painting it mean, and how do you go about that?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Well, I really wanted the experience
to be very set designed, but also touched by humans.
So we actually literally created paintbrushes in
Photoshop, and if you zoom into some of the [INAUDIBLE]
the pieces, you'll actually see the actual paint brushes
of the artist that digitally painted, in Photoshop, each of
the elements that we created.
Because we wanted it to feel, actually, a bit of Renaissance
[INAUDIBLE].
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
I think you broke up there at the last little second, but I
think you were saying Renaissance paintings, and
each one was hand drawn.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, I'm breaking up.
PETE LEPAGE: All right, well, hopefully this will clear up
here in a second.
So from the point where you started taking each thing, and
turned each painting--
designed each scene in Photoshop, where did it go
from there?
So you've got this great PSD file that's potentially pretty
huge, and you can't just hand that over to a developer.
So what happened next?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Then we had this huge PSD, and
we pulled it apart.
Can you hear me, OK?
PETE LEPAGE: I can now.
All right, looks like we've lost you here for a sec.
Let's see, Gillian, why don't we pop over to you for a sec
and give it a sec for Nicole's network
connection to come back.
What was your favorite scene in this project?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Wow.
I sincerely love them all for different reasons.
They have different energies and different flavor.
I mean, the tree of life was the one that
surprised me the most--
how moving it was, how effective and how moving, when
he floats up at the end, I was completely
surprised the first time.
And then I really loved when the user arrives at the fork
in the road in the forest, because it was just
delightful.
The delight of this little tricycle coming and then the
clown, and how that all works so beautifully, the same way
it would've onstage, those are the ones that I remember at
this moment the most.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool Nicole, do we have you back?
No, looks like no Nicole yet.
All right, well, I've got to say, I think my favorite scene
was tree of life, as well.
There was just something absolutely beautiful about it
that really said--
between the growth of everything, between the way
that you can go in and see all of the different things
interacting and moving together, it's just such a
beautiful thing.
And in some ways, I think that scene is kind of
a little bit sad.
But it's also just so--
I feel like, it's a great big circle, which is kind of fun,
something that you don't typically see around
in stuff like that.
All right, it looks like we've got Nicole back.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Sorry guys.
PETE LEPAGE: That's OK.
And it looks beautifully nice and sunny there now.
I'm jealous.
Cool.
Well, Nicole, we were talking about taking that gigantic PSD
and turning it into something that, as a developer, I could
go do something with.
Do you want to talk about that a little bit more?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Sure.
So the PSD, one of things, [INAUDIBLE] that we had to
kind of creative a layered PSD that was appropriate for the
space in which we were putting it in.
So in other words, if we had some trees, if there's trees
behind them, those trees behind had to be painted.
So in Photoshop, this huge, layered file then got cut into
transparent [INAUDIBLE]
and optimized.
And then we brought them into the 3D space in HTML5.
And that was kind of it.
It was pretty long term in the effort it took it to create,
but once it was created, it was executed fast.
PETE LEPAGE: Very cool.
And just as a reminder for those folks who are watching
live right now, we do have a place where you can go ask
questions if you have questions
for Gillian or Nicole.
You can post your questions there, and we'll take some of
those as we get towards the end of the session.
But the URL is up on screen right now.
Nicole, I had asked Gillian what her favorite scene was.
What's your favorite scene in the experience?
NICOLE MCDONALD: That's a good question.
I think probably, the tree of life.
I think the barge performance, I think, is really lovely.
PETE LEPAGE: Which one was the barge performance again?
NICOLE MCDONALD: The one with the clown pulling the house,
and then the girls coming out and dancing and performing.
I loved the fork in the road.
I like a lot of them.
PETE LEPAGE: Which one do you think you're most proud of?
NICOLE MCDONALD: I think the tree of life.
I feel like that was the closest to what I had
envisioned.
The clown is just--
the fool in love is so beautiful.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah it's pretty pretty is slightly awkward to
say, but very true.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I think what people love about that is that
the poetry translates.
It's a very poetic representation of something.
And everyone I've spoken to got it.
They got the metaphor, and they understood and were very
moved at the end, when he floats.
So that's what struck me, is how, again, this concept of
the web, and a screen, and how such a depth of human poetry
can translate.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah.
That was for my grandfather, actually.
He's very connected with family.
He's just madly in love with family.
So I thought that was a nice homage to my grandfather.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Wow.
PETE LEPAGE: Wow, that's kind of neat.
Gillian, how do think Cirque's going to approach the web
differently because of this experiment and the way that
people have been responding to it?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: How are we going to respond differently?
We're just really excited.
It was a delight from beginning to
end, the whole process.
And people have responded beyond our expectations,
in-house and everybody outside.
So that only creates the appetite to continue.
That's basically what--in the big picture, there's lots of
excitement around it and lots of interest and ideas and just
general excitement.
PETE LEPAGE: That's really cool.
And it's so neat to see this kind of stuff really whetting
the appetite.
One of the things that I hope comes out of this and other
Chrome experiments is really to get other developers, other
creatives excited, that they can go do things on the web
that they've never seen done before, right?
We've never seen a 3D world like this built where you can
change the angles and interact with it in such different and
neat ways until now.
And this really has said, hey, look, we can
do something neat.
Why don't you go try something?
In terms of the workflow, as you started building this, to
jump back to that kind of stuff, Gillian, how did you
see the workflow happening in terms of working with a
company who wasn't necessarily Cirque developers, and Cirque
designers, and Cirque people?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Well again, it was all new,
I think, for us.
I don't know for Nicole's team.
I would say Nicole's experience with a diverse
background, having done film, having done live performance,
meant that she knew how to speak to us.
I think that facilitated a lot.
And it was really the ongoing sharing of just where
everybody was at, and a lot of visual referencing.
And then the big chunk was the actual
shoot itself, obviously.
That was, I would say, the peak of the collaborative part
on a day-to-day basis.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
Well, we're getting a little bit close to the end.
I want to take a look at some of the questions that we've
got from some folks who are posting their questions.
So one of the questions that we've got is, where do you
think the web is going to be with Cirque in 10 years?
And this is, I guess, for both of you, because I think this
kind of interesting for both of you guys to take.
And I'm going to tack on a little bit of an extra
sentence on there--
not just Cirque, but
performances and art in general.
NICOLE MCDONALD: My hope is that it's an experience that
we're participants in.
I think that we've come close to being able to be
engaged on the web.
I would love to see performance, especially on the
web, become about me feeling connected in ways that I
haven't before.
And whether that's with touch and call and response, meaning
if I touch somebody, do they have goosebumps, suddenly?
If I touch them hard, do they get bruised?
I think that's where we're going.
PETE LEPAGE: OK.
So new interactions and better ways to touch the audience.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, and the audience is suddenly
participants.
And it's kind of dictated by their own personal experience
and desire.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
Gillian, what are your thoughts?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I mean, 10 years is a long way, in terms
of technology, to ever imagine what's going to have happened.
I think the two most exciting things-- the first is, kind of
what Nicole was saying, but I would say around the
refinement and sophistication of kinesthetic interactivity.
So that's something that Cirque thinks about a lot,
which would allow for the user, which is what we call
the name for the person now, whereas we had a conversation
about it recently where, it could go so fast, or there
could be so many dimensions that it's not longer the user
and the web, but there's going to be a whole sense of
possibilities of the user being part of the art, and
influencing the art, and then the art responding to that,
and there being so many possibilities in
that that it really--
the line becomes more and more blurred.
And then the other one is, I think Nicole mentioned it
earlier, what the web provides in terms of the opportunity
for people to find each other that have more and more
specific things in common, and how that's going to affect
art, per se.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah, that's an interesting idea.
So one of the questions that I had, that I wanted to sort of
continue on with some of the things we were talking about
earlier, is, how do you guys want to see technology change
in the near term, so like in the next couple of months, to
make these experiences better or more interactive?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Technology physically?
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Alpha channel video in WebM.
PETE LEPAGE: Why don't you talk a little bit about why
you want that?
Because I know that was something we were trying to
get in, and unfortunately we didn't get it in
in time into Chrome.
It's coming soon but not quite.
NICOLE MCDONALD: It's actually something I've wanted, about,
for two years now.
PETE LEPAGE: OK.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Because you have more control of changing
the way a video or an experience is.
Let me think for a second.
So if I have an alpha channel video, and my videos are on
rails, meaning I have a narrative that is moving from
A to B, I have no ability to switch those rails and have
the content or narrative change quickly.
With alpha channel video, we can have a much more reactive
environment for the user in the narrative meaning.
And I have hope that that's something that we have a
little bit more control over in the future, is that we can
kind of change the narrative on the fly, depending on what
user is reactive to.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah and in Movi.Kanti.Revo we kind of did
that at one point, where there's the fork in the road
scene where the user can choose which direction to go.
But it's a very limited amount of changing on the fly.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Right, and if you had a WebM alpha, the
possibilities of A or B, becomes A to Z, which, I think
would be exciting.
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah.
And Gillian, what about you?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I don't have the same tech
knowledge of lingo.
But two things that come to mind for me, it's simply that
people think about interactivity as a full-bodied
experience.
Obviously, being a dancer from Cirque, that's the first thing
that comes to mind.
Anything to facilitate, and encourage, and play with
people using their whole body, not just hands and eyes.
And the other thing is the context and the environment.
I love the idea of anything where the screen
is somewhere different.
It's on the street, it's on the floor, the screen comes to
me more in my world than just at my computer.
I think that as a 3D dancer person, that's what I'm
looking for.
PETE LEPAGE: I think that's a really powerful piece, that we
are interacting with more and more screens every day,
whether you're talking about your smartphone, whether
you're talking about your laptop, your desktop, maybe
it's a tablet that you're walking around with.
There are just so many different screens that
we have access to.
And seeing these experiences on more and more of these
scenes, I think, is phenomenally powerful and a
really cool, fun thing to see the web change.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I think It opens up the possibility for
surprise, which is one of the best things in life and also
neat in that we all all live in worlds, often, that are
very busy, and very repetitive, and where we have
physical routines in our life every day.
So the idea that a screen can play the part of a magical
moment, the way flash mobs work, dance mobs, where at the
beginning, you're going to work, and you're going through
central station as you do every morning, and then, ahh,
people start dancing.
So how can screens or the capacity for screens to be in
new places begin to provide that?
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, and how do we show something new, and
exciting, and different to people who wouldn't have
access to new and exciting things?
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
Well, so I want to wrap up with one question for both of
you guys to answer.
And it's really about, if you could say to other designers
and creative folks, after having worked through this
project, what would you say to them?
How would you encourage them to go and play with this?
Or what would you say?
NICOLE MCDONALD: To-- playing with Movi?
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah.
NICOLE MCDONALD: I would love for people to go and see it,
and experience it, and be excited by it, but also to
help us move forward with technology.
And how would they do it differently?
What would they do to make the story have more depth or add
more creativity to it?
And then go do it so that we kind of keep leapfrogging and
progressing, and inspiring each other.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
And Gillian, what are your thoughts on that?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: My thoughts are to encourage other
physically creative people-- so that would mean anyone
whose art form is their own body--
to being playing with people whose art form is technology.
Because I was so surprised, with this project, how
visceral my response to the artists was, how much I could
really feel them, and their personalities, and their
charisma, and what they were emanating.
So I think that's really encouraging for people who are
physical performers, to know that when you partner with the
right artist of technology, they're as excited as you to
have that happen.
PETE LEPAGE: Cool.
So we just actually had one question pop in on the
question list that I think is actually
a really neat question.
And the answer I'll give immediately is, not right now,
but I'm curious what you guys think.
Is there any possibility of Movi.Kanti.Revo being
implemented on Google Glass and this virtual space being
overlaid in the real world?
How do you guys see that actually happening?
Because--
NICOLE MCDONALD: [INAUDIBLE].
We have actually talked about it.
And we have some ideas on how to make this almost, kind of,
be an interactive flash mob.
PETE LEPAGE: Oh neat.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Yeah, we potentially could be putting
it in places that surprise us and draw us in.
PETE LEPAGE: Gillian, are you familiar with Google Glass?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: No.
PETE LEPAGE: Google Glass is a project that Google has
started working on.
It's a research project for the most part right now, but
effectively what it is is it's a pair of glasses that you
wear that have a little display right here.
And you can interact with it in all kinds
of different ways.
So the video that they showed was showing being able to get
maps, but being able to send messages, call people, talk to
people, because you have that display right there in your
field of view, or maybe it's a little bit above, or something
to that effect.
But you've always got that technology right
there around you.
GILLIAN FERRABEE: I had heard of it.
I didn't know what it was called.
PETE LEPAGE: OK, so for something like
Movi.Kanti.Revo, how do you see that, maybe, playing into
something like this?
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Well, what comes to mind first is the
obvious one, of the characters being a part of your daily
life, and making even more practical uses playful.
So if it's a map, as happened in the forest, that they could
playfully feed you the information.
And the other thing that comes to mind is just--
my memory is that, in our brain, 80% of our receptors
are visual, and it affects our whole body and our brains in
ways that we're just learning about now.
So I think there's possibilities beyond that that
the biological science is going to
meet us on that front.
Who knows what it would do to your body to think you were in
a forest when you are in a city.
And if the forest is peopled with fun, magical people,
would your whole body relax?
PETE LEPAGE: Yeah.
It would be interesting to take that same technology and
concept and go the other way.
So put those on people at a Cirque show, where you can
take the just amazing magic of a Cirque show and augment it
even more by providing things that change for each person.
That's really cool.
Well, I think that that's pretty much about all the time
we have left for today.
I want to thank both of you guys for joining us, Nicole,
for joining us from bright and sunny LA and Gillian for
joining us from Montreal.
This has been really great, and I think this experiment
has been fantastic.
You guys both did an absolutely wonderful job.
It's been amazing to see people respond to this and
really just sort of react and love it as well.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Thank you.
PETE LEPAGE: With that, I want to say thank you for joining
us, and thank you for helping make this project
a phenomenal success.
NICOLE MCDONALD: Thank you!
GILLIAN FERRABEE: Thanks for having us.
PETE LEPAGE: Thanks, guys.
All right.