Universal Monsters Presents: Bride of Frankenstein holoride
Universal Pictures
Issue 56 | September 2020
Agency
REWIND
Production Team
Exec Producer: Greg Reed, Universal Pictures Holly Goline, Universal Pictures Producer: Neil Evely, REWIND, Lindsey Townley, Universal Pictures, Tatum Rehorn, Universal Pictures Pam Peterson, REWIND Director: Crash McCreery, Universal Pictures, Daryl Atkins, REWIND Head of Studio: Justin Manning, REWIND Assistant Producer: Aimee Melmoth Bennett, REWIND Technical Director: Sam Birley, REWIND Senior Programmers: Adam Thorn, REWIND, Ross Beardshall, REWIND Programmers: Muneer Fergiani, REWIND Lead Artist: Jamie Fields, REWIND Environment Artists: Keiko Kasai, REWIND, Ignacio del Hierro, REWIND Character Artist: Carles Gonzalez, Universal Pictures Sean Ray, Universal Pictures Designer: Bob Hands, REWIND Audio Producer: Micheal Hill, Universal Pictures Audio Designer/Engineer: Steve Lane, Universal Pictures Audio Engineer: Mirren Malcolm-Neale, Universal Pictures Animators: Eoin Loughrey, Universal Pictures Aron Durkin, Universal Pictures VFX Artists: Klemen Lozar, Universal Pictures
Other Credits
Tech platform: holoride Chief Executive Officer, co-founder: Nils Wollny, holoride Chief Experience & Partnership Officer, co-founder: Marcus Kühne, holoride Chief Technology Officer, co-founder: Daniel Profendiner, holoride Head of Marketing & Communications: Catharina Wollny, holoride Junior Project Manager: Lena Rieger, holoride Lead Engineer Localization Research: Simona Nobili, holoride Senior Software Engineer: Jakob Schweißhelm, holoride Working Student Winfried Baumann, holoride Director Product Design: Patrick Dahms, holoride Senior Marketing & Communications Manager: Rudolf Baumeister, holoride
Date
October 2019
Background
Automatisation of vehicles will unlock the potential for cars to evolve beyond a simple means of transport. When a driver no longer needs to keep her eyes on the road and hands on the wheel, the in-car experience can be transformed. Suddenly windscreens can be turned into projector screens, video streaming will take over from the radio, and VR content will change vehicles into moving theme parks. With the entertainment experience for most drivers largely unchanged from 1930, when the first dashboard radio was installed, a media revolution is on its way.
Idea
Realising that the autonomous car is one of the next entertainment frontiers, Universal Pictures partnered with German startup holoride, and immersive content studio REWIND, to shape the in-car entertainment consumer experience of the future.
holoride has defined an entirely new media category—“Elastic Content”—for passengers by connecting XR content with data points from a vehicle in real-time. These data points include GPS travel route and time, along with driving data from a car, such as steering, acceleration, and braking.
Combining this technology with iconic Universal Monsters IP, a pioneering experience was created, set inside Ford Explorer vehicles. During the 2019 Halloween period, a special activation took place in Los Angeles at Universal Citywalk. Riders were given the opportunity to try the world’s first publicly available in-car virtual reality experience. Once inside the vehicle, passengers buckled their seat belts, put on their VR headset, and were transported to the mysterious re-imagined world of The Bride of Frankenstein. Participants joined the iconic monster on a special mission. Along the way, riders encountered interactive monsters and obstacles in a fully immersive, elastic VR experience, complete with sound effects and visuals that reacted and adapted to every twist and turn of the journey and every nuance of the car’s movement.
The project showed the future of in-vehicle entertainment and introduced a new paradigm in storytelling—Elastic Content.
Results
The experience got a great reaction from the more than 3,000 riders who tried it. It also got extensive media coverage with titles such as The Verge, Venturebeat, Variety, Engadget, TechCrunch, Forbes, VRFocus, CNet, Trend hunter, and many more covering it, plus a piece on CNBC. “The feedback we received from all our riders was overwhelmingly positive, with many saying this was one of the most impressive VR experiences they have ever done. The combination of cinematic VR, interactivity, and real-life motion from a moving vehicle has opened up a new world of possibilities for immersive entertainment on the move. We look forward to partnering again with holoride, Ford, and REWIND on pushing the boundaries of what consumers can expect to see from the next frontier of entertainment.” Greg Reed, VP, Technology Partnerships, Universal Pictures