PARK CITY, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Positron, a virtual reality technology studio in Los Angeles, announced today that it will mark its Festival debut with Voyager, the first cinematic, full-motion VR chair platform, at the 2017 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival, January 19-29 in Park City. Select VR works from the New Frontier program will be available to screen in Voyager at New Frontier VR Palace, including If Not Love and Orbital Vanitas.
“Positron is thrilled to offer cinema lovers at the Sundance Film Festival the opportunity to experience a completely new level of immersion in VR storytelling with Voyager,” said Jeffrey Travis, creator of the chair and CEO of Positron. “New Frontier is the ideal forum to share groundbreaking technology that provides filmgoers with a completely relaxed VR motion experience while empowering filmmakers to direct the viewer’s attention to points of interest in the story.”
“We’re truly excited to be presenting our VR experience, Orbital Vanitas, to Sundance Film Festival audiences through Voyager and the revolutionary motion it provides for cinematic VR,” said Shaun Gladwell, Lead Artist. Leo Faber, Key Collaborator on the surreal sci-fi mystery film elaborates, “To have the technological tools that enable us to further deepen the narrative through Voyager’s gentle motion and haptics is now a very happy reality for VR storytellers.”
Industry reactions from those who have experienced Voyager underscore its distinctive capabilities. “This is f****** awesome!” exclaimed Nonny de La Peña, “Godmother of VR” and filmmaker in the New Frontier category at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Ran Tao from Google VR added, “There is absolutely no motion sickness.”
"We discovered after gathering data from over 1,500 people, that Voyager solves the critically important problem of discomfort and motion sickness,” observed Jennifer Rundell, COO & Co-Founder, Positron. "Voyager is an exceptional seated VR solution that offers gentle motion that’s organically connected to the storytelling, and users who previously experienced motion sickness with VR report they no longer suffer from it in our chair. Voyager takes into account how our bodies need to be involved while allowing people to experience VR with more of their senses, to relax and go magical places, leaving the current physical space behind.”
Voyager will also have a presence at the “Cinematic VR and the Future of Storytelling” panel on Thursday, January 26, 2017, 12:00pm -1:30pm at Cinetransformer, located at 500 Main Street. A Hosted Presentation by Ribbow Media Group, the panel discussion will explore the future of cinematic VR and storytelling possibilities for content creators and audiences. Panelists will include Maxwell Planck, Technical Director at Oculus Story Studio, Brad Becker, CEO of Sentient Play, Sundance alumni and VR director Milica Zec (Giant), Brian Furano, Co-Founder of Riot.House and Positron CEO Jeffrey Travis. Roy Taylor, Corporate Vice President and Head of Alliances at Radeon Technologies Group, AMD, will moderate the panel. Voyager will be available to demo as time permits.
For Voyager images please visit Positron Media.
About the Creators
Jeffrey Travis and Jennifer Rundell are the CEO and COO respectively of Positron, a creative technology studio based in Los Angeles. Jeffrey is a filmmaker and engineer, and Jennifer has a background in product development and human-computer interaction. They began working on the idea for Voyager together when looking for a way to elevate the virtual reality experience for both creators and audiences.
Founded in 2014, Positron combines creative design, engineering, storytelling and brilliant coding to create interactive experiences that have never been done before. The team includes mechatronics engineers, designers, software developers and artists collaborating together to create magic.
About Voyager
Voyager is the first full-motion chair platform designed for cinematic VR. Integrating beautiful design and engineering magic, it reflects a passion for VR storytelling. Voyager delivers a completely new level of immersion in VR by providing a comfortable, fully integrated personal VR theater that incorporates gentle motorized yaw and pitch motion, haptic feedback (powered by Subpac), and specialized seating. Its unique software and hardware technology integration enables nuanced motion and haptic tracks to be encoded along the featured content’s visual and spatial audio tracks. The chair precisely guides the viewers’ attention to points of interest in the experience, while also allowing a viewer-controlled motion mode. Voyager units will be available Q1 2017 to select theaters, hotels, concerts, and events that desire to provide a premium VR experience.