Departure Lounge is volumetric studio based in Vancouver, Canada that is collaborating with the Monstercat music label to experiment with XR technologies in making both 2D music videos and more volumetric immersive experiences that they were showing at SXSW. The 2D music video for WHIPPED CREAM, Jasiah & Crimson Child - The Dark debuted on February 1st, 2023, and there was a more immersive and interactive translation of this video that debuted at SXSW this year.



It was only after I had watched the 2D video when I got home from SXSW that I fully realized why they made some of the experiential design choices in the immersive that they did. As an example, there is a stream of rose pedals that you're instructed to follow in the VR translation, but at one point the volumetric captured performances start showing up behind you and it's ends up being a better experience if you ignore the rose petals. It was only after watching the 2D music video that I realized that they were creating those pedals more as a background context for the 2D video rather than optimized for what would make the most sense in the immersive experience. Also, the more interactive experience tries to make a delicate balance between user agency to move around where ever they'd like versus guiding attention towards the pre-recorded performances that are showing up in specific locations. In many ways, the music video is able to more deliberately guide attention through cutting in a way that was more emotionally-evocative than my immersive experience where I had to navigate being slightly confused, lost, or feeling like I had missed some important story beats that would help to contextualize what was happening. The affordances of film cutting allowed for some more robust and deliberate worldbuilding that I had missed within the immersive translation.



So overall, this piece is an experiment in user agency, environmental exploration, and how to seamlessly tie in some of these volumetric assets into a more embodied experience. In some ways, using this type of volumetric capture is a bit overkill for a 2D video production, especially as sometimes the fidelity or quality of those 3D captures projected into a 2D space have even lower resolution and fidelity than what a dedicated 2D-optimized capture pipeline would produce. But the upside is that you have an even more powerful volumetric experience of these performances within the virtual context. So there are a number of tradeoffs between embodiment, agency, emotional valency from more deliberate direction, as well as how to handle the user choices.



For the most part there were not very many interesting things to explore in this experience outside of the performances, but I also experienced the immersive version before fully understanding that there was a 2D version that had already been published. There were some behind-the-scenes types of objects laid out in the house before the music video began that I had little to no context for what those objects were or why I should be interested in looking at them. Again, it wasn't until I saw the 2D music video that I realized why they had constructed it in the way that they had. Also, some of the decisions made in the immersive version of the experience made a lot more sense after seeing how they were reusing some of the assets. It's actually a really interesting use case in exploring the affordances of the film medium of the music video versus the immersive version, and how one or the other mediums are prioritized in how it was all put together.



I was able to break down the design and creative design of this piece with Brenda Medina (Virtual Producer at Departure Lounge), Yie Hua Chee (Art Director at Departure Lounge), and Will Selviz (immersive director and Partner at RENDRD Media).















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Music: Fatality