In this episode, we explore the legendary world of Star Wars, the future of story-telling using XR, and learn the secrets of working in Lucas Film and Disney from a seasoned veteran of the industry, Chief Executive of ILMxLAB, Vicki Dobbs Beck
For the full transcript of episode 2, download here.
Vicki Dobbs Beck and The Most Cutting Edge Form of Immersive Entertainment
Teaming up with Accenture XR to bring you a series of eye-opening podcasts on the current state of XR and the future it holds, we take you on a journey of discovery and innovation. Through the eyes of our special guests, Field of View explores the wonderful world of immersive technology.
In the second episode of Field of View, we explore the legendary world of Star Wars, the future of story-telling using XR, and learn the secrets of working in Lucasfilm and Disney from a seasoned veteran of the industry, Chief Executive of ILMxLAB, Vicki Dobbs Beck. From graduating business school at 28 and facing a conference table filled with 15 of the biggest names at ILM in what Vicki Dobbs Beck describes as an unbelievably daunting interview experience and then working in Lucasfilm Learning and pioneering the first CD-ROMs.
I think we were like 30 years ahead of our time. But it is such a perfect sort of metaphor, if you will, for where we are today with VR.
Nick: So pioneering a new medium that still has to explode, but it has incredible potential for what it can do for the masses.
Vicki: Exactly. That experience really – well, first of all, I had no background in education, no real background in technology, but it was one of those things where I was in the right place at the right time. And you know became somewhat of an expert by virtue of being there first. And it was a really exciting time and it really defined my path to this day because I was really then watching for the time when we could combine those three, storytelling, high fidelity imagery and interactivity, when we could do that with a device that actually made it possible to deliver all three of those things and we finally got there.
Our hosts and Vicki delved into the birth of ILMXLAB where the talents from both ILM and LucasArts games converged and produced some of the most ground-breaking work in the industry.
Vicki: And what happened really was, again, as the technology was advancing and there were a number of us within the company who were really always looking for opportunities to sort of combine the talent of – or
leverage the talent from both ILM and LucasArts games and that it was those two worlds started to converge. And there is a guy who you might know, Kim Libreri, who’s the CTO –
Daniel: I was going to ask – I was going to say I heard that you worked with him and did a lot of work with him as well.
Vicki: And he inspired me a great deal and he really brought together this small sort of almost gorilla-like team, meaning it was a little bit kind of hidden away, that was a combination of ILM artists and LucasArts. And
what they were doing is really trying to do some groundbreaking work in high fidelity real-time graphics to see how close to cinematic quality we could get. And that really became the foundation for ILMxLAB. Based on that work, we felt that we could build a production studio essentially on top of that with that as a key element of how we would create and what was possible.
In this inspiring second episode, we dive into the creative mind of one of the industry’s top veterans who led the way for huge projects such as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and it’s immersive adventures. And we discover just why good stories make lasting impressions? the emotional storytelling in Vader Immortal and the impact of VR.
What is Field of View?
The world of immersive technology is always in a constant state of flux, continuously advancing with the rule book being written by the second. We’ve teamed up with Accenture XR to explore this wonderful world, with specialists from across the world providing their insight and view on where we are heading next.
