>> Narrator: From San Francisco, it's The Cube. Covering Samsung Developer Conference 2017, brought to you by Samsung. (upbeat music) >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. Live here, in San Francisco, for day two. We're winding down day two of two days of wall to wall coverage, The Cube's exclusive coverage of Samsung Developer Conference. I'm John Furrier the founder, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media (mumbles) the Cube our next guest Larry Cutler, co-founder and CTO of Baobab Studios. >> You got it right. >> And you're co-founder and CEO Maureen Fan was at our Grace Hopper event. >> Larry: Yes. >> Well thanks for joining us. >> Thank you for having me. >> So you guys are doing great. Love the story-telling, gaming, tech culture coming together here at Samsung. >> Yep. >> And seeing the future. The future, if you connect the dots, is augmented reality voice-activated, headphones that can be hacked and programmed and customized. You guys are doing some interesting things, you've got some good awards. Take a minute to talk about your studios. What are you guys doing, what's the aha moment for you guys. What should people know? >> So we at Baobab Studios, we're reinventing animated storytelling using VR. And so what we've, our aha moment was feeling that you could completely immerse yourself in the world in VR. And when we started thinking about well what is so special about an animated film, it's really about transporting you to faraway worlds, and making those worlds so real that you could like reach out and touch them. And then if you think about VR, that's kind of the same thing, where VR's promise is being able to transport you to incredible places and to make you really feel like you're in those worlds and you're part of those worlds. >> And to relax and chill a little bit too. >> Well relax and chill as well. >> Or entertainment or to be thrilled. >> So in our case we wanted to take all the experience that we have telling stories at places like Pixar and Dreamworks and apply that into this new medium. And so we found that VR is an incredibly powerful medium, and it really is one that's unlike film and unlike games. So, you're talking about bringing together the expertise of people from films, and people from games. That's critical to what we're doing, and yet at the same time, the experience is something that's totally different. >> Yeah we were commenting with some of our guys in our office how Twitch was experimenting with using the comments to drive the game behavior. You start to see new kinds of game systems develop around the storytelling as more of a behavioral dynamic, not the boring game I figured out, or the multi-player game with my same friends, or whatever that's going on, you're seeing a whole new level of creativity going on, one. Two, the other question is how much does it cost to make these things, 'cause Dreamworks and these guys are spending a lot of dough to do animation. >> Larry: Yes. >> I mean it's not cheap, so how do you guys crack the code on keeping it low, not low-budget, but low-cost and also intelligent is that the secret sauce? >> Yes well that's certainly super important for us. You know we're a start-up company, so obviously we need to be able to have a pipeline that if we run efficiently and you know for us, I think what we've done is we've brought together some of the best people, you know. So we've hired our friends, we've hired people who are really experts in the field, and we're really creating a next-generation VR platform so that we can actually create these animated experiences, be able to experiment in this space. You know, sort of try out different techniques and storytelling methodologies and at the same time do it in a way that we can, you know, sort of experiment as much as possible. >> John: Talk about some of the awards you guys had, I mean, you guys done some things. Share some of the accolades you've gotten. >> Yes, so, I mean what's amazing is that we started with our first piece of content Invasion!, and we premiered it last year in April at Tribecca Film Festival, and it's really gone on to, first of all, from a consumer standpoint, it's one of the most popular downloaded pieces of content on all the VR platforms, and at the same time it's been shown at a number of different film festivals, and it recently won an Emmy, so we're very excited about that, and, you know, what we realize is that audiences just fell in love with this bunny character Chloe. So Invasion! is this story about two aliens that try to take over Earth, and they're thwarted not by humans with powerful weapons, but by cute little woodland creatures. In the first episode in Invasion! they're thwarted by this cute little bunny Chloe, and what happens is that at the very beginning of the piece, Chloe like hops up to you, and if you look down you're a little bunny in the scene, you've got bunny legs, you can hop around. And audiences, you know, the viewer just reacted in ways that you would never do in a film, like people are waving at Chloe, a lot of people reach out and try to pet Chloe, a lot of people mimic what Chloe's doing, and in short people are just treating Chloe as if she's real. And it made us realize that there's something really powerful here that is really worth kind of leaning in and digging deeper into. >> And what was the next step after that, so you went what you went, some development, was it the game, was it the character development? How do you double-down on them, I'm just kind of curious on thinking about how the, on the thinking behind it. >> It was really interesting because we, in Invasion! we were kind of the first to make you a character in the story, but at the time there really weren't hand controllers, or any of the devices so that you could actually really have sort of a more like increased role in the story. And so at the same time, people really felt that they were front and center, and they felt this sense of protecting Chloe from the aliens 'cause you're placed right in the center of the story. And so with Asteroids! when we started, we just wanted to dive deeper into that idea of you playing an active role in the story. And so in Asteroids! we focused on the two alien characters Mac and Cheez and their relationship, and you're a helper robot on the ship, so you have. >> So how do I get involved and get these stories, do I have to have a VR kit? So I don't have, I haven't bought anything yet VR-wise, so for me, how do I engage with you guys, what do I do? Do I buy Oculus Rift, or certain headsets? >> So our stuff is meant to be available for everyone. We really want to have as many people be able to see our content as possible. And so first of all, if you have a VR headset of any type, our, Invasion! is available on all those platforms, so that's the high-end headsets like the Rift and Vive, the PlayStation VR for Sony, as well as if you have a mobile phone like a Samsung phone, you can plug it into your VR. At the same time, we also have a Baobab Cardboard app, so you don't even need to have VR to see our product. So you just get an IOS or Android app, a Baobab app. >> So I'm in the market to buy a headset, I'm not price sensitive, what should I buy? What would you recommend? (Larry chuckling) >> Well there really are so many options, so you know obviously at the high >> John: What would you get? >> Well at the highest end, you know, getting a Rift or Vive really gives you the full VR experience because it's really tracking your position and orientation so you can actually walk around a space, the characters can react to you in believable ways, and it's all happening in real time. And on the other hand, the Sony PlayStation VR's are really affordable if you've got a Sony Playstation, you just buy the PSVR headset, you plug it right in and you're ready to go. I'm really excited looking forward to a world where you're not tethered to your computer, and so it's really exciting to see these stand-alone headsets that are going to come out that basically there's no tethering to a computer and yet you have that same inside-out tracking so that >> And this is the Samsung vision, right? The Samsung vision is to use their displays. >> Yes, exactly. See right now what you have, which is, which is already really exciting, is you take your Samsung phone, you plug it into a Gear VR, and the one thing that's missing is that you're not able to track both the position and orientation of where you are, and so the next generation headsets are going to have that. And the experiences will be much higher feeling. >> Alright cool, so then I, I'll actually download all of this stuff. So as the CTO of the venture, your job is to kind of look over the landscape. You have to have the 20 mile stare of the future, not screw it up, but you've got to win the present. >> Larry: Yes, we're all about being able to deliver in the present and look forward to the future. >> And that's the key, and you have that unique skill as an entrepreneur. What are you guys doing now technically and with the product, what are some of the key things that people should know about, because I mean I look at the CG and the animation world, and you see the Moore's law kind of coming that way, right, so you go wow, as someone with a live video, I would love to have a bunny and the cube set right here, right? So we see a future where I want to immerse myself with characters, not just stickers. >> We of course see that as well, so you know, obviously. >> John: Is expensive I mean it must be, 'cause in the old days what, you had the artists, monster storage, tons of compute, what's it like now? >> Well we're a really small start-up company, so we are not a, you know, 300 person organization that is producing a full animated film. We're a small team of artists and engineers working together in the same way that we had that same excitement in the early days. I started my career at Pixar in some of their earlier films, and it was that same >> John: Power work stations, you had that high-end gear. >> Yeah so it was that same excitement in those early days, like we just had to figure out like how are we going to actually create this shot, how are we going to like, you know, build this character, how are we going to like finish this on time. And we have that same exact excitement in the office. >> When were you at Pixar, were you there for the Toy Story kind of thing? >> Yeah, so I worked on the Toy Story films, and A Bug's Life and Monster's Inc., and then I went over to Dreamworks and headed up all of their character technologies on their various films. >> Okay so you guys do anything different than those guys, or are you guys more focused more simple? >> Yeah, I mean what's interesting is that this is really a new medium and it's a new skill set, because what's happened is that you are part of the world, and for us the thing that's most exciting is that by you being a character, first of all, the other characters are not just able to have, you know, sort of high-quality animation, but they're able to react to you, and so there's there A. a number of technical innovations that you need to overcome so that we can have that same high-quality character performance that I would expect from a Pixar or Dreamworks film happening, running in real time at 90 frames a second on my headset, and at the same time also be able to have those characters react to you and respond to what you're doing. And you know, so we've scratched the surface on that. So one of the things that's really interesting is how two people will actually have all these subconscious communication cues, you know, whether it's eye contact or whether it's two lovers sitting across the table and mirroring each other's behavior, that's the type of thing that we can add into our animation. And at the same time, we have stories where depending on what you do, whether you choose to participate or not, that actually affects the outcome, and affects the way that characters respond to you. And so having much smarter character performances is certainly one area that I think is really exciting. >> And that's going to be interesting for you guys because you have some structured ways to do that, and then some unstructured ways to do it with community data, machine learning, and then you can use bots in a way to help you get data, but you almost could have character developments be dynamic. >> You definitely could, and you know for us I think the thing that is always the biggest point that we come back to is story. And so on one hand we want to tell one story that's really told well, not ten different stories, and on another hand, because you're part of that story, depending on what you do, that's actually going to affect how the characters respond to you, and that could be in a really nuanced way, and so, you know, building up AI systems, and building up the smarts so that you can actually have that type of response, and yet still feel like these characters are alive and breathing. >> Well the Chloe example on Invasion! is great example, you'd love to have that automated, so when you see those magical moments, the story could evolve, you can kind of give it that programmable policy-based taping. (John laughing) >> Yeah exactly so you know, so this is the type of thing. >> We're geeking out here on the set, Larry, great to have you on, super informative content, and I love the world you're in, I think the world's changing, I think you're going to see some interesting dynamics coming, you certainly have the historical view, Pixar and Dreamworks, old school, if you call that old school. >> That's right. >> Now the new school's coming in, certainly AR looks good too. >> Yeah, we're really excited about AR as well. When we think about stories, you know, VR is about transporting you to a different world and having a story take place there. AR is about the characters being alive in your world, both are really exciting. >> Have you seen the Magic Leap demo? >> Larry: Yes, yeah. >> What's it like, can you tell us? >> I'm not allowed to tell. >> John: Is it good? >> Yes, yeah. >> So it's worth half of another half a billion, oh I can't wait. >> That I can't say, you know. I can't comment on their business, but. >> It's a freaking award chest. >> I think there's a lot of exciting things you know, AR. >> They must have a killer demo, I want to find out, I want to see this demo. Magic Leap, I want to to see your demo. All seriousness, great to have you on, and certainly come down to our Cube studios. I want to follow your story, I think you guys are on the cutting edge of a new user experience that's going to bring computer animation, computer graphics, into a new persona as a storytelling, so congratulations. Larry Cutler, how do you say the. >> Baobab. >> Baobab, B-A-O-B-A-B Studios in Redwood City, California. It's the Cube live coverage from Samsung Developer Conference, I'm John Furrier, more after this short break. (peppy music)