February is here, and we are a bit frozen, thus small delay in the newsletter. So let’s start with some freezing news! 🥶
January is the month of Women’s March, and we of course were there. And. It. Was. Extremely. Cold. Check on the pictures here.
But also: look at them, is it not great?
Seeing them made me stop whining and keep marching! 🔥
January is also anniversary of our Kickstarter campaign last year! This was both crazy and wonderful time, and that’s why you are all here! Thank you once again for all your support! It was exhausting, but having all of you sending us so many messages, and sharing with your friends everywhere - it was awesome! I am not sure if you know - there is some urban legend about mystical “shadow ban” on various social media. And various people will tell you that it doesn’t exist. Well, let me tell you: it DOES exist. We were banned from Twitter twice, 2 different accounts. One ban came seconds after one of the most important Polish politicians retweeted our tweet. And it ended up in one black empty void… Because this is how the ban works. Nobody can see - unless this person is already following you. But their followers will not see their retweets. So yes, she has a following of ~80k people, and nobody saw her tweet… In the middle of our campaign… Kind of - cutting our wings completely, we thought we are gone, the project is gone - as there is no Kickstarter campaign without social media presence...
But we did it!
And yes, if you have more detailed questions about how twitter’s shadow ban works, how to get out of it and all - don’t hesitate, happy to share more info! And if we are on this subject - do you know that just in November our account was completely removed from Instagram? Like: completely. All media removed, everything. Three times within few weeks. Yes, I have small heart attack whenever I open any our channel and there is any “error” - I instantly think that it's happening again… 😅
Ok, moving on - to some great news, news that show that it’s all worth it, and that we are moving forward, and our project is gaining more and more attention.
I couldn’t believe when I’ve read the inviting email. Do you know GDC? Games Developers Conference? One of the most important (if not the most) events for interactive media. I was there last year (thanks to DMG scholarship), and it truly helped me with shaping narration for The Choice. GDC is really amazing - huge amount of great lectures and presentations, thousands of people, hundreds of companies. And great atmosphere! I was stunned when I’ve read that we are invited with Tom to speak there this year - about the project, and about our technology that we are using to create it. This is AWESOME! I wrote a blog post about my last year’s experience there, so jump in and read more.
And here is the link to our GDC presentation.
If you will be at Bay area mid-March, let us know! No matter if you are VR-professional, women’s rights activist, or long time no see old friend. Let’s grab a coffee!
And that’s not it, January was a busy month!
We were invited to present at VRTO’s meetup at their event about PIMAX headset.
I cannot say it’s amazing, extra field of view does not seem to give the viewer much. But it’s surprisingly light and comfortable (for how it looks… ;)). Also, some distortions on the edge, kind of annoying… So yes, not impressed.
And on that subject: we decided to write a bit more on our blog, and start to bring VR closer to you, our audience - both VR-geeks and people coming from completely different fields, as you are all here. We want you to know more about this technology, who and how uses it, and how it works (in general and our special capture tech) for The Choice. So (slowly) we will be posting more, and now you can read my (JP) short piece on VR experience about rape survivors, Testimony. I wrote some general info, and comparison with our approach to our (different) subjects. Hope you will find it interesting.
And from similar field, although much less technical, and more about the subject per se: you can find our sum up of 10 movies that talk about abortion. I asked you on our social media channels, and expected mostly documentaries, and you gave me so many answers! And so many different movies, wow! Comedies, dramas, modern and from 60’s or 80’s! I don’t know when I will have time to watch it all 😉 So the first part is 10 titles - not to overload you (and me ;)), also you can watch the short sump-up in video version here:
Ok, that’s all for now, and February will be all about preparing to GDC. We are working both on our presentation, and also updating our demo - which will hopefully bring us much closer to the final version.
Keep warm, and have a lovely day tomorrow! 😍
Joanne-Aśka and Tom
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