On the Music and Movie Industries Entering the Metaverse

We’ve already witnessed the birth of a new phenomenon before the term ‘metaverse’ was thrust into the news by Facebook’s announcement last week.

The Travis Scott concert held in Fortnite generated 12.3 million concurrent attendees, 27.7 million unique players across 5 showtimes and 45.8 million views. It was history in the making, all taking place within a virtual environment many brush off as simply a game. But Epic is constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the technology of Unreal Engine it makes me think we are only at the beginning of what the future of media and entertainment could look like if creators dare to imagine with them.

We’re already getting more hints at this with Rockstar launching its own music label, CircoLoco, to cross the games world with the music industry but why stop there?

Why not launch a record label within the metaverse itself? Music entirely written, composed, performed and distributed virtually using all the tools available to build in the metaverse?

Recently I was watching a music video, the environment that the artist was inside entirely generated in 3D using an engine - most likely Unreal or Unity in this case - and it struck me that instead of watching the music video I could be within it.

A music video within the metaverse would no longer be bound by traditional 2D formatting, nor would a spectator. The combination of Unreal and Epic’s Metahumans would mean that you could place yourself as a viewer entirely within the volumetric environment of the music video and watch it from any angle, even walk/ fly/ move around at will while it plays out.

The Travis Scott concert is one thing, this is entirely another.

Then it got me thinking about the movie business.

The lessons we're learning in new filmmaking techniques seen with Industrial Light and Magic’s Stagecraft LED walls and volume sets, the way The Mandalorian and Loki were produced, using UnrealEngine is essentially one step away from somebody producing an entire movie in the metaverse that you'll be able to experience the same way I’ve described above.

You can go when or where you want on a given place, watching a scene, following a character, coming back in time, following an other character, coming back to the start, knowing now this and this characters were doing something. Very neat idea.

@thespaceshipper

Like, imagine watching an Avatar movie then stepping into it fully and watching it from any angle. From within. It's 3D volumetric movie-making beyond anything we've experienced before. It’s different from VR shorts like Dear Angelica from Oculus because you would not necessarily need virtual reality headsets to enjoy it. If you approach this like building an open world game then it becomes an entirely new medium of filmmaking and storytelling.

As a narrative, story-telling medium film requires an application of nuance, performance and timing that we do not yet have the AI to replicate on the fly. This tool is great. But right now it is just an alternative to green screen, and one that requires a huge up front expense of asset creation and then a FURTHER VFX clean up after use, essentially doubling the amount of VFX needed in comparison to how things are usually done. It has very specific benefits in certain circumstances, but it is not the vex panacea it is being pushed as... yet.

[redacted], Hollywood Director

You could follow any number of the characters and witness their path independently of the main story arc. It would be incredibly complex granted, and a bit like Bandersnatch from Netflix on steroids set completely in a virtual environment. Like a more developed The Invisible Hours, available on Steam.

It doesn’t stop there though. Already (definitions of what a metaverse is aside) the MMO Star Citizen already hosts ADRIFT, a story realised fully within the game itself.

The transition to virtual worlds has resulted in a similar and profound shift in the 'grammar' of storytelling. This shift builds off of the profound advancements in game-based storytelling and other immersive arts. And it translates it through the lens of highly concurrent experiences.

These shifts in media create a cascade: changes in media are the results of advances in technology. More advances in technology provide new tools to storytellers. The storytellers get better at their craft, which attracts wider attention from the distributers, (whether movie theatres, cable channels or Playstation).

Doug Thompson - Epic, Bored Apes and the Story of the Metaverse

Essentially you'd be 'in' Toy Story rather than watching it at the cinema, the cinema becoming the movie itself with you in it.

The next decade is going to be very exciting indeed as we watch movie makers and musicians discover what is possible in the metaverse. And that will bring a whole new generation of creators and developers into the industry.

Especially if metaverse viewing figures equate to box office receipts.

Also published on: https://www.metapunk.co.uk/metablog/7-2021-music-movies-and-the-metaverse

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