Of foresight...weak chain links and #adultanimation

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There's so many personal insights and thoughts to share about this video. From how employees can make or break a company, to advances in #Adultanimation...to Nvidia's render prowess, to Realtime filmmaking on a desktop. There's something for everyone, so read on>>

#AdultAnimation and Realtime filmmaking: Undoubtedly, #Netflix is popularizing this genre, and although the term sounds controversial, it's nothing more than a genre that's being enjoyed by older teens through to savvy middle-aged audiences. The interesting part is, today, indie to small sized studios don't have to break the bank to create full films or episodic anthologies in this genre. Perhaps the more famous ones are Netflix's Love Death+Robots and #AmazonPrime's Undone. Affordable motion capture (mocap) suits and Realtime game engines are making it possible to tell compelling and gripping stories in this genre within as little as a 500 sqft studio.

#Nvidia RTX: The story of Nvidia's popularity rests not only in its intense investments in R&D, but also equally in it's pioneering spirit. Like Netflix, they dived in early, and while today its main competitor, AMD has similar success, Nvidia with CUDA are a household name in gaming and their cards are Realtime graphics beasts for filmmaking. It's the studio interfaces that also count; genlock was there at least a decade ago. They spoke filmmaker-ese early on, kept up with the times, and thereby built a loyal following. The video at the start of this article is rendered in near-realtime on a stock Nvidia 2070 RTX graphics card sitting on my desktop.

#Employees can make or Break... A company founder or board may have perfect 'vision' but it's usually down to a few employees who might be a weak link, because they do things 'by the book' and can't see beyond the blinders they wear while on the job. An example; This video is rendered in the game engine Unity, versus conventional Hollywood wisdom of using UnrealEngine.

My personal insight: I approached Epic Games, makers of Unreal Engine (UE), and applied for a grant to invest my time (3 months) to learn the engine and evangelize it - to Univs, and studios where I offer advisory and via my own short films. I also applied to their "Unreal fellowship" program. I was told —unofficially, I didn't have a great IMDB page, so didn't qualify.

Never mind that my book "Think in 3D" was used and referenced while making some big name Hollywood tentpole stereoscopic 3d movies, or is used as part of reading syllabus at Immersive design courses at the USC, or, that terminology I've coined in cinematic stereoscopy is listed in Technicolor's Dictionary of 3D. The decision rested with employees who couldn't see the bigger picture.

Yet, thanks to them, I've re-discovered how good Unity can be in Cinematic output - not in my hands - I'm no 3d artist. But as a Creative Technologist, I invest my own funds where possible and months at a time learning the state of the art, even contributing back (I've pointed out shortcomings to Unity in their physical camera and Recorder modules) so as to be able to guide a team, or when offering advisory to Studios and media institutions.

Unity has transplatform capability from LED wall based Virtual Production, to realtime filmmaking and crossing over to Cinematic VR and Cinematic AR, including interactive branching narrative films.

Or, take for example the time I was advising one of India's TV networks on Immersive Journalism incubation. The Middle East's (ex)head of HTC tried to make a quick sale of an HTC Vive Hmd instead of seeing the larger picture; thereby, putting me back on track with Oculus, who immediately onboarded me to their Oculus Start initiative.

The moral: Do background research, even on people, and have an eye for ideas with breakthrough market potential. One owes it to their company or organization.

Now... with a workflow and pipeline almost in place, who do I speak to at an OTT platform, that has an appetite for #adultanimation? An anthology along the lines of Black mirror meets the Twilight Zone?