PARK CITY, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chocolate, a brand-new Virtual Reality music video experience presented by executive producers Viacom NEXT, the emerging technology group at Viacom and Director Tyler Hurd, creator of renowned, award-winning VR experiences Old Friend and BUTTS, premieres tomorrow at the 2017 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival, running through January 29. The VR experience is named after the song by Giraffage, a San-Francisco based electronic music producer. While festival goers can dance to the beat in the eye-popping chrome-cat filled world, a new trailer can be viewed by all here, www.thechocolatevr.com.
Chocolate is one of 15 unique VR experiences showcased at the New Frontier VR Palace; tickets are required for entry. “Our goal this year in putting together our VR slate was to bring audiences the cream of the crop of the current explosion of VR production,” said Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival Senior Programmer and Chief Curator, New Frontier. “Chocolate stands out in the lineup as a gleaming slice of pure joy, wonder and delight. Like a glass of champagne, it goes to the head like frothy bubbles of ecstasy, radiating merriment throughout the body, then sending us back into the real world with our human capacity for conviviality beautifully ignited.”
“Chocolate aims to extract childlike giddy feelings of awe and wonder from the participant,” said Tyler Hurd. “You know, like when you look at sparkly shiny things and cute ‘lil kitties made of reflective metal.”
“As a technology-focused media company, we embrace VR as an exciting new medium with unlimited potential for novel experiences that the world has never seen before,” said Chaki Ng, SVP Viacom NEXT. “We enjoy collaborating with talented artists like Tyler who are at the forefront of designing experiences that lift us up just like the gravity-defying, wide-eyed jovial cats in Chocolate.”
Chocolate is one of several new VR experiences that Viacom NEXT is helping bring to life this year as part of its exploratory and collaborative work in future entertainment. Viacom NEXT recently launched Smash Party VR on Steam, a hell-raising Virtual Reality collaboration with Titmouse, the Emmy award-winning animation studio. Following Sundance Film Festival, Viacom NEXT heads to SXSW for the world premiere of The Melody of Dust, a highly interactive musical VR experience appearing in SXSW Film's new VR/AR sidebar.
About Chocolate
This VR music video experience for the song Chocolate by Giraffage sets you in a cat-centric world of sparkling, colorful chrome with a tribe of people doing a ritualistic dance just for you, their robot god, to provide them with their precious resource, cute lil' chrome kitties. Chocolate will be available the first half of this year for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift; more pricing and platform details are coming soon. Images are available for download at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sundanceorg/albums/72157675557391262
About Viacom NEXT
Viacom NEXT is working on the future of entertainment. We explore, prototype and commission novel projects for our brands (which include MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and BET). Our partners include startups, academics (e.g., MIT, CMU, and major NYC universities via the NYC Media Lab) as well as creators, artists, and musicians. With a focus on Virtual Reality, we are making room-scale interactive music experiences, narrative worlds, games, and exploring live-action capture techniques. Visit us online at http://viacomnext.com
About Tyler Hurd
Tyler Hurd is an experienced, award-winning 3D Animator and Tech Artist from San Francisco creating fun animated VR things. After working at the video game studio Double Fine Productions and freelancing in advertising, Tyler combined his gaming and non-interactive animation experience to enter the Virtual Reality world in 2014. His short film BUTTS is widely recognized as the first animated short film in VR. His solo animation project Old Friend, premiered at Tribeca 2016. Presented by Wevr, Old Friend is a room-scale VR music video to the song by Future Islands which puts you as a wiggly puppet into an overwhelmingly joyful psychedelic dance party. Chocolate, another room-scale VR music video to the song by Giraffage, presented by Viacom NEXT is debuting at Sundance New Frontier 2017. Tyler is exploring the powerful emotional response of VR, and the joyful effect of interacting with fun animated characters. For more information, visit tylerhurd.com.
