Blackthorn Media VR Dragonflight demo with Lyndon and Michael

I ain't doing nothing but talking shit. Y'all gotta like, you know, encourage me the whole way along. Ow. I ain't doing nothing but talking shit. Y'all gotta like, you know, encourage me the whole way along. Ow. What did you say, nigga? Fuck off, so you can just suck my cock. Yeah, boy! What's going on? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I got it. I got it. Yeah! Yeah! That's what I'm saying. Y'all, it's Thursday night. You haven't paid your cable bill. You got expired rice milk in the fridge. You ain't got nothing to do with your life, but you tuned in to Nestorius Public Radio to get your ear holes waxed. Yo, check this out. So we're live, man. And there's an 800 number, 800-893-9562. If you're listening live, feel free to call in. We have a great show tonight. But first, let me introduce my main man, Ginger Rich. Hey, that's a nickname I got in New Orleans by this cute, cute little British girl. Ginger Rich. Hello, Ginger Rich. Will you marry me? She said that. Ginger Rich. And I said, no, baby. I can't do it. Yeah. Not yet. So you went to New Orleans to meet British chicks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. She met me. Yeah, I like that shit. Because there's no British bitches here in LA. Anyway, so who you just heard there is my main man, Lyndon Barber. Wah. What's up, man? What's happening, bro? And his partner, Michael Connelly. What's going on? How do you do? Yeah, so. I just got to say, nice starting with Lawanda Page. Yeah, that's classic. That's classic. That's classic. Lawanda is hot. Yeah. That's Sanford and Son. You can't. I was not expecting that. You got to integrate that somehow in modern day society. Not too many people are comfortable doing that. We at Nestorius Public Radio, you know. Yeah, there is no comfort level. Yeah, there's no comfort level. Anyway, so. So. So, Lyndon and Michael, I've been trying to get you guys on the show for a couple of months. Last time I went to your office, your AKA the smoking lounge, I'll back. You broke this shit down, boy. So, I don't want to fuck up what you do. And, you know, so why don't you tell me what you do. Like, I know you guys. Well, first of all, you guys met doing special effects. And animation and stuff like that for major, like, blockbuster films, right? That's right. Like, Happy Feet. That's one of them. Like. Right. Like what? Life of Pie. Snow White and the Huntsman. Okay. Alvin and the Chipmunks. A lot of movies like that. Babe. Yeah. Babe. Okay. So, Life of Pie. That was heavy duty, man. Yeah, we were doing a pretty good job on that. Did you do a lot of the. Well, so, actually, the movie I was working on at the same time was Snow White and the Huntsman, which, you know, we got an Academy Award nomination for. For that. Nice. And then we, you know, so we split our own vote and we still won. Nice. Nice. Because your bio says that you've supervised the creation of characters that have grossed over $2 billion at the worldwide box office. If I didn't know, I would have thought that you were a major drug kingpin and all your workers were, like, blacks and Latinos in East Harlem, and so you supervised them and got the cash. But that's not the case. No. I've been working on my public image. You've been. Okay. Okay. So, all right. So, so, Lyndon. Yes. So, you, you know, I always, I always thought that you were an, I mean, I always think, oh, you're an animator, you do special effects, but you don't just necessarily do animation. You do computer architecture for animation. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I should, I should, I should end it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Lyndon does animation. All right. All right. All right. I should just end it right now. Then, okay. Scratch that from the. He draws with a computer. No. Well, he's a director as well. Scratch that from the set. Yeah. No. Well, first of all, you're. I thought he fucking knew me. Yeah. Well, I mean, when I went to, when I went to your house, when I went to your office, you were like doing some like fucking three dimensional like skeletal. That would be called stop motion animation. Okay. Got it. That was a, look, dude. I thought I was breaking it down for you. No, you did break it down, but that was a lot. Then I showed you the computer. You did. Right. But that was a lot. That was a lot of information. But I also showed you I was animating it. Okay. Now, now he's going to beat the fucking dead horse that I'm retarded. Okay. I have to. That's cool. The word of the day is animation. Okay. So, so. All right. So you're an animator, but you're also a director. Yes. You directed a feature, not a short. Yeah. Live action short. A short live action short. And you're working on a couple of other film projects. Yes. Currently I'm doing a stop motion short. Uh-huh. And then also. I was committing time to this. Well, we're going to, we're going to get into this, this, uh, uh, Blackthorn venture that you guys are part of and the reason why you're here. Uh, uh, but, but I just, so, so you're doing a stop motion, uh, another short. Yeah. Based on. With my miniatures on Jack Johnson. Jack Johnson. The boxer. Right. Which I got to see some of it. You did see some of it. It looks dope. Thank you, bro. Very nice. I appreciate that. Very nice. And you're also doing another short film or another film project that you were telling me about. Uh, about a young girl. That's something I'm pitching. I'm developing. Got it. So we won't talk about that. All right. So unless you want to. Catch out of the bag now. No, we're good. Unless you want to, man. No, no, no. So, okay. So Michael, you're what? You're not just a supervisor. You, you've, you create characters. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. So I was a digital effects supervisor. Right. All right. I was a digital effects supervisor at, uh, at a company called Rhythm and Hues Studios for a long time. And, um, yeah, no, we, we did everything. We did everything from character design to, you know, we, uh, you know, basically like fully, fully CG animated, you know, shorts and huge chunks of movies that were all CG and you might never have known. And, um, yeah, so did that for the better part of 20 years. And then, uh, it was really sad actually that, you know, we were winning the Academy Award for Life of Pi at the same time the company was going bankrupt. And, uh, yeah, just an incredible turn of events. And, um. That's, that's what it felt like. I think I made that very clear. That was very, very sound. Well, if you didn't, you felt it. Everybody did. There's a reason why that sound was made. There you go. Yeah. So, but, you know, walked out the door after a long spell at Rhythm and Hues and said, okay, I know what to do. Let's start a company and work on these things that, uh, you know, been developing projects the whole time I've been in, in California. And this is the company you'd call Blackthorn. And this is, this is Blackthorn Media. Yeah. Awesome. And so we started with a slate of three projects and the first one is Dragonflight and that's the, uh, the project you guys saw the other day. Oh my God. Okay. So, so the reason. The reason why these guys are here is because Linda's been telling me about this shit for like almost a year. So this, this project that they, that they have called Dragonflight and it's a virtual reality, uh, project, uh, that you, uh, use with an Oculus, which is a virtual reality, uh, uh, glasses, headset, whatever. I mean, you need something to, to fuck up, you know, your state of being. Yes. And so, so in this case. That's what it says on the box. Yeah. So. So. So basically they've been telling us about this shit. And so Rich and I had the pleasure and, and the honor really. I mean, who, who the hell gets to, you know, check something out like this, you know, before it's even. This is secret backroom stuff. Exactly. Exactly. So basically what it is, it's, it's a dragon. It's a real dragon, uh, that you're riding and, uh, you have 360 degree, uh, uh, visuals left, right, all the way around the back. You can see the tail. North, south, east, west. North, south, east, west. You're a thousand feet up. Yeah. A thousand feet up, a thousand feet down. Right. You control. Air rights. How the, how, where the dragon flies into, how it flies up, how fast it goes down. And seriously, it's a fucking trip. It's like, yo, that's wild. So. Thanks. So I let Rich do it first. Cause I was like, you know, I drove all the way down from, uh, the valley to, to. San Marcos. No, no. El Segundo. El Segundo. We're off it. And that, that's, that was probably, that was probably worse than the virtual reality. Well, that's what I'm saying. So by the time I got to your office. No, no. I mean, worse than being like good. I don't mean I'm not talking down. No, no. Driving down there. By the time I got to your office, I was like, I was virtual reality out, dude. I was like, anyway. So I let Rich rock it and Rich was cracking me up. He was like, Oh shit. Oh man. You guys, you guys made our day when you saw this stuff. I got, I got off seriously. Just watching him. You got goosebumps. Oh man. I got to tell you, I was just thinking about it too. Another way I was trying to figure out what, what, what, you know, like, Oh, the first time you're on a roller coaster and all that stuff. But you know, also like, uh, you know when you have like a dream that is incredibly real. That's what it's, that's what it's like. It's like when you're falling and you're like, Oh shit. That's what it feels like. It's very cool. It's that, that realistic. When you wake up, you're like, did that happen? Oh my God. Thank God it was a dream. That's what it's like. And if you've had pissed yourself, then we know we've just gotten over it. No, no. What, what, what, what? I've definitely had the pleasure of tripping on LSD mushrooms. So I've tripped on blotter, LSD blotter. I've tripped on a micro dot mescaline and I've also ingested magic peyote buttons. So I've actually experienced virtual reality without an Oculus. And I know exactly the fucking look you had. You were like, you know, you, you were moving up and down like, Oh shit. It's actually my, my favorite react. It's like one of the best reactions we've gotten to this thing. It's like you put the headset on. And then somebody just starts yelling and you're like, yes, it was crap. I felt, I felt like I was five years old. Really? I mean, it was like just complete and utter joy and happiness. It was, it really was. I cannot wait. I will get one of those. I will go buy your games. I'm, I'm sold. Seriously. That's all you. So you guys have two other projects. I mean, this, this is dope and we're going to get into, into dragon flight. Uh, hopefully, uh, Jenny, uh, our beautiful engineer or, and, uh, uh, uh, uh, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy. I'm telling you, I fucking forget my own name. Did he just, did you just wake up? Jeremy? Didn't I just tell you that I swallowed the peyote buttons? So many virtual games for you. What's that? I said too many virtual games for you. In the form of tablets. Yeah. So no, Jeremy is probably going to come in and check it out also, and maybe even, uh, hook up the computer. Inside of the engineering room that said, uh, we can actually get a chance to look at, uh, uh, the actual, uh, program, the game of dragon flight, uh, so that you get somewhat of a, of an idea. But you also have two other projects, which I also found, uh, very interesting. Um, tell me about those. Uh, you have a film project and another, uh, uh, game. Yeah. Interactive game. Yeah. So the, uh, yeah, what we expect will be the, the second project is called the Abbott's book. It's a Gothic fiction story. And, um, yeah, it's just like a, you know, a really spooky story about, uh, how four generations of this family respond to corruption, um, in the form of this book and, uh, that's dug up in the catacombs underneath their estate takes place in Renaissance Italy. And, um, you know, so it sounds, it sounds a little highfalutin on the front of it, Renaissance Italy, but no, it's really a story about a family and how it goes bad over four generations. Trust me, you have this shit down. You have like the dude's grandfather. There's name. I mean, this shit is well thought out. I mean, this is not just, I have a game about Renaissance Italy and there's some spooky shit going on. No, it's just, you know, the whole idea is to make an environment that, that people would want to go to and just be like, man, that's a beautiful world. And then when they get there, they're like, man, this place is dark. Okay. What's going on? But I got monsters and stuff. It's cool. Yeah. But at its core, it's a universal fucked up father and son story. It's a family story. Yeah. And it's, uh, it's very emotional. You know? So. Let me go, let me go to dragon flight. So, cause, cause let me just go back and do something. So, so, so Abbott's book is, it's, you told me it was based on a story that you wrote a long time ago. 1989. And, and you told me like, you broke it down to me and, and like, I love, I fucking love the illustrations of the characters and the world and all that stuff. I mean, I love that. I love that. Um, that Gothic dark, you know, uh, environment and you guys, you know, the illustrations are dope. And you also have, you know, the beginnings of, of the virtual reality of it. You get to walk down into the, into the castle, which is pretty dope also. Um, so, but that, that, that has a story and you get to be an interactive part of that story. I'm, I'm assuming. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Whereas dragon flight, what's the deal with that? Is it more than just riding the dragon or will that be a story? Will it be like, you have to collect some coins and, uh, um, um, uh, save the princess type of thing. I mean, I'm right. It's fancy. It's fancy. It's fancy Mario Brothers. Is it? No. Well, I was, hold on. I wasn't going to say that. You're going to say the sprinkles and shit. I wasn't going to say Mario Brothers, but I was going to say anything that I mentioned to you would be Zelda. Actually, our training level does have some little sparkly training, like stars floating in space. I'm just curious. I'm just curious. That was true. I'll get you into it. So, so, but, but. No, but there is actually a story behind it all. There is a story with dragon flight as well. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There are rewards and an end game and all that. Got it. So right now. Save the world. Right now you're, you're just, you're at the experiential phase where people can experience riding it and then you're developing the story. Right. Yeah. I mean, we're looking at the VR side of this thing right now, really as, you know, it's our, it's, it's what we're leading with, you know, we, and we just want to get you on the back of the dragon and, and riding around and having this experience. Yeah. But, you know, we're building something bigger than that where there's, you know, there's backstory and, you know, if you check out the iPad or the iPhone version of the game, there's like a, you know, it opens with story and we learn about. You know, the, the bones of this ancient dragon are buried in nine different castles all around the world. And this new race of dragons that nobody's ever seen before has appeared in numbers to come and destroy one of the first castles that are, that are containing these bones. And so this, this indicates a threat and we're recruited as the player of the game to go and figure out what, what on earth is going on. Who's stealing these bones? Who's the force behind these dragons? Nobody's ever seen before. Wow. And. You didn't get into all this shit when I was there. Yeah. That's what you're saying. You didn't steal them? Just a flood of questions. So you're, you're, are you going to be able to get off the dragon, go through, you know, go through the castles? Can you get on a horse? Can you jump on a, you know, duly noted. We would, we would love to, you know, it kind of depends on how, on how the first part of the work is received, you know? So, I mean, we, we started this whole thing just cause we love the work and, you know, at some point here we're going to have to kind of, you know, hotwire it all and figure out how to make a living doing it. And we hope, we hope we're off to a good start. But, you know, we're going to have to kind of, you know, hotwire it all and figure out you know, if we, if we do this right, we will, you know, continue to build these, each one of these worlds out. For short answers, yes. We want to do that. Yeah. That's awesome. I think there's obviously potential to make a lot of money in this. We're going to get into all that stuff. Tell me about your film project, Goblin, what do you call it? Goblins of Forest County. Yeah. I see. Now that was that. Now you told me the story, the elaborate story on that. And I thought, wow, that's again, I love the illustration. Thank you. Love the illustrations. Thanks, man. The characters are like really nice. And I like the, I like the fantasy world that the kids, you know, create. Yeah. That mashup of fantasy and reality. Brendan, you want to take this one? Take it where? Well, you know. Just explain. Expand on it. Take it home, man. Take it home. Expand on it. I mean, it's a bunch of kids and some, I'm going to fuck it up when you correct me. How's that? No? No, no. Oh, God. Well, I'm kind of used to that anyway because we boys. Of course. Of course. It's all fucking wrong. Oh, boys. Lyndon and I know each other for like God knows. We hit it off day one. Right. All right. No, it is a story about these kids who are really just trying to find their place in the world and what they need to do to protect their, basically their playground, which is this park. Because there's a whole, it's got a fracking backstory to it. That is basically the spine of the story. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. the cranes and the tractors and all the guys working it. That's the reality of what's going on. That's the reality. The augmented reality is in their imaginations. What they see are these goblins and these orcs and these dragons that take the shape of the tractors and are destroying the world and all this stuff. These towers and castles. And the whole idea of it is that from the kid's point of view, it's not a real stretch to say, boy, the silhouette of that backhoe really looks like a dragon. Yeah, and it's like looking at clouds. You see clouds, you see different things in clouds. You see creatures, you see cute things. These kids see dragons because, and they just see creatures because it's what's destroying their environment. And so there's this whole, you know, environmental bent to the story. But at the heart of it, it is a kid's story just trying to, and then the main character himself just trying to find his identity and his relationship with his father. It hopefully has a lot in common with a film like Stand By Me. Right. So it's, it's kids trying to recover their self-esteem that they've lost for different reasons, different family problems. That'll do very well in the Puerto Rican community. Mira papi, don't touch me like that, okay? I'm not touching you. Yeah, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. Anyway. So, no. So, but that's a film. That's a movie that you guys have developed. Originally wrote the, yeah, wrote the script for an animated CG feature. Right. Yeah. So are you looking to do this into like, because I don't know where virtual reality is yet in the moving picture, the film arena. You know what I mean? It's very early stages. Right. I mean, I did some, I did, I did some research on the, on the history of virtual reality because who the hell knows what virtual reality is for real? You do now. You know everything about it. Well, I mean, no, no, no. I knew who some of the pioneers were and I also know that, you know, well, first of all, the origin started like, in the late 50s into the early 60s. Okay. It goes that far back. There's a band of sagacity. But, but, but, but, and I'll go into it. It's predating us. But then it goes, it goes into like, you know, the boom of it, the height of it was like in the 90s, like with the video games and all that shit. And then, and then it went to, went to crap. It disappeared. Well, I guess in terms of what you're describing. Yeah. I'm just. Or what they tagged as virtual reality. Well, well, well, put it this way. In the 80s. Closest they got. In the 80s, you had virtual reality gloves, boots, and all this other stuff that they were in development that, you know, it didn't cross over. It missed the mark. It missed the mark. It missed the mark. So, let me, before I get into all this stuff, did you guys want to set up either Jenny or, or, Jeremy. Or Jeremy. His name is Jeremy. Let me see. Cause, cause we got to time this right. I have about 29 minutes. So let me just do this and then one of them can come in here and then they can just rock that for a minute. Cause once they rock that, they're not going to want to get off. It's just going to be. But we can, we can fuck around. Anyway, so, so obviously, like, like when I think of virtual reality, because when you, if, when you see the, the program that you see without the Oculus, it's just basically two images, like three dimensional, like the same image, an image on the right side, the same image on the left side. Right. Yeah. With slight differences. Cause it's a stereoscopic view. Okay. Yeah. So what's the difference between two images, left and right? Well, it's just what's geared to the left eye and to the right eye. Oh, so they're slightly different. Right. Oh, interesting. Interesting. So when they're together. Interesting. So you do this, that's the difference. Okay. All right. Close your left eye, close your right eye. And you'll see a slight shift. Yeah. Okay. All right. So it's adjusted for that. Yeah. Got it. Okay. So, so the reason I mentioned that is because most people are, are familiar with the, the 3D slides, the, the view master. Yeah, the view master. Those things, right. Those were great. Which, which I just got into collecting again, right? Yes, right. I did. Yeah, I got my wife like a, I got, first of all, the original view masters were made out of bakelite, right? In the thirties. And the, and the guy who invented that company later on sold it to Sawyer. Well, actually they go way back before that. Well, you're talking about the Victorian stereoscope. I'm not talking about the view master. Oh, I got a, I got a stereoscope. Oh, so you're talking about the trademark. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but the stereoscope is, is like fucking dope. I mean, that's amazing. Fucking things are awesome. They're awesome. They always work. Yeah. Cause it's the technology. And, and so that's the principles of it. Won't change. That's the origin of the 3d thing. And so, and so, um, I just thought it was wild, but anyway, uh, virtual reality as we know, it was, it was created by a handful of pioneers in the fifties and sixties. So you're reading that shit. I'm reading it. Do you know that shit? No, no, I'm reading it just, but you just, you just fucked it up. I was going to like read it conversationally, you know, like in 1962 and shit, after years of work, filmmaker, Morgan, Morgan Haley panted. What might be the first true VR system. Now check this out. The sensor. I feel like we should have a campfire. Do you, do you know, do you know the sensor Rama? No. Okay. Okay. Well, I'll show you pictures. Is that where they like brought in smells while you're watching? No, no, no, no, no. The sensor Rama. that's smell a vision. No, no. Sensor Rama is an arcade style cabinet. Think of one of those miss Pac-Man. Oh, I've seen this. Right. With a 3d display, a vibrating seat and a scent. That's the key. That's the key. The vibrating. I mean, this is a 1962. Then, um, um, this dude, Ivan Sutherland, another guy, that's three, three dudes that, that are pretty, pretty much, uh, started this stuff, like as where, where you're, you're, you guys are at, but, uh, but he, he, this guy, Ivan Sutherland, already known as the creator of groundbreaking computer interface, sketch pad conceived what he termed the ultimate display, or as he wrote a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. He demonstrated an extremely preliminary iteration of such a device, a periscope like video headset called the sword of Damocles, which include images of images of images. And so he invented some of these images. And so he invented some images. And so he invented some images. And so he invented some images. And so he invented some images. It has to be supported because it's so heavy. But it's pretty wild because it's pretty much the predecessor, you know, antiquated predecessor of this Oculus thing here. Sure. I mean, these guys were onto this, right? And then the last guy I'll mention is this guy, Myron Kruger, right? Who will begin creating a new kind of experience he turned artificial reality and attempted to revolutionize how humans interacted with machines. But while this is going on, this dude, Thomas Furness, was designing a new generation of flight simulators, working on a multi-decade project that eventually became the hallmark program known as Super Cockpit. Why are these dudes taking all the credit? That just sounds like a really short moment. That sounded like a super cockpit. Back then, the super cockpit and the sensorama and all that, like, if you watch how people reacted to monster movies like Frankenstein and all that, they shit their pants because that's what they were used to. And they're like, oh, God, it's so real. And there's, like, makeup peeling off their face and shit. Like, you know, like, it was easy to fool people back then. But as we get along, that was state of the art back then. When movies first arrived, you'd get people in the audience and, you know, they'd set up a locomotive coming towards the camera and people in the audience were afraid that the damn train was going to hit them. Because that's the level of sensory. You know, that they were used to. They had never experienced anything like that unless they actually stood in front of a train. And that guy wasn't scared. And what's amazing to me with this stuff now is, you know, in a sense, we are as antique as what this technology, you know, is going to be just a few years from now. So the kinds of tech that are in R&D right now are going to make what this thing does look like that black and white locomotive in a movie. What do you think? Like, I was just thinking maybe they're going to have VR contact lenses. I mean, well, you know, I mean, this is going to turn into something that's more like the size of a normal pair of glasses. Right. Yeah. You're going to start to integrate things, you know, stuff called like light field technology. Why would you want to do that? I mean, people can't even deal with regular reality. Now you're going to fuck around with glasses with virtual reality. Porn, baby. Porn. If they can't deal with regular reality, we need to treat it somehow. We need to give them the reality they want. Put it in your porn hole. So this is, this is, no, no, no. This is a good discussion, right? Because, because it kind of fits into, the history of what I was just talking about. Right. So like in the eighties, all this technology was going on in the nineties. It just disappeared. It's like no one, no one dealt with the virtual reality. I mean, the thought of virtual reality in the marketplace, for instance, was gone, so to speak, for a while. The idea of it, it had, it had. A lot of it just comes down to bandwidth and all this. And I mean, back then the bandwidth wasn't accessible as it is now. No, it's not just bandwidth. I'm talking about like practicality. Like, like. I guess back then, most people, for the exception of flight simulators. But back then a lot of people didn't have home computers. That's what I'm saying. It's, it's just. And the ones that they did had. And the ones that technology involved. Pentium, P2, you know. Well, that, well that. Yeah, they were as big as this room. Well, that was another one of the reasons why, because, because the, because the, the home computers and the, and the PC pretty much took whatever path video games are going on into a completely different direction, right? Right. Because now you didn't need a fucking Atari 400 or, or whatever. Right. And plug it into your television now. Mm-hmm. You can take your laptop and you can play video games wherever the hell you want. It's incredible. Well, and now the things you can do on your cell phone. On your phone. The cell phone. Yeah, yeah. The cell, the cell phone. But, but the thing is, here's the thing I have, right? And soon you're what? That's right. So, so, so back then, like, I guess the idea. You're walking around with two watches. For consumer, for virtual reality applications for consumer would be, you know, I guess video games and stuff like that, right? Mm-hmm. Because, like I said, aside from flight simulators and, and. Actually, I think, I think the, the armed, armed forces uses, has been using virtual reality create. Absolutely. Like battle to practices and stuff like that. Yeah, so military and then, you know, automobile manufacturers. So, so they've always. Medical applications. Right, right. It's wide open. And dragons. No, no, it's completely wide open. It's just, it's, it's just that. And dragons. It's just that for, for regular consumers, it's like, what is the application? You, you just mentioned these glasses. So now you have these glasses, you're walking around with them. And aside from porn, like Lyndon mentioned, what would be the purpose of me having VR glasses? I mean, I'm just, I'm just, I'm, I'm just asking a, a, a. Well, there's, so there's two, there's two branches here. Mm-hmm. And one is virtual reality, which is what we're kind of talking about. Mm-hmm. The other is augmented reality. Okay. And both of these things are going to happen at the same time. So augmented reality, they're actually saying, let's, let's, let's inject something into the environment that you're looking at now. So here we are in a studio having this conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then maybe there's like a little dude here running around on the table that doesn't exist, but we can all see him. And maybe that dude is like some guy in Belgium who just wanted to come into the radio show and have a chat with us. Right. Or, you know, whatever it is. Maybe it's some storytelling thing. Maybe it's. And that guy could be actually a real guy that's just, not a real guy in the sense of you and I being real, but. But it would. Somebody like calling in from Belgium that you just like transposed his voice and everything on. I guess the lack of a better term, a hologram. A hologram. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, all we're doing in the end is making it possible to transmit ideas into your head in a more efficient way. Before we start teleporting. Right. I mean, personally, I can, I can, I can see a lot of, well, I can see some important applications for something like, like a conflict resolution. Right. For instance. Absolutely. No, no. No, no. I'm serious. It's true. It's true. I'm serious. I know you think it's a joke. I'm not joking. I'm serious. So like, so like for instance, so like for instance, and I'll, and I'll just break it down to like a smaller scale. Right. You got two dudes. They want to beat the shit out of each other. Take them into a room in an elementary school, give them some oculuses and let them virtually beat the shit out of each other. Learn that maybe it wasn't worth all that. These are the fields here are huge. You know, so you got people doing things like, you know, dealing with post-traumatic stress. You got people dealing with fear of flying. That's what we're doing in dragon flight. Yeah. No, but the, but the applications are gigantic. You know, it's not, it's not just entertainment. It's not just education. It's, it's, you know, it's healthcare. It's, it's, it's a stunning. I mean, a few years ago I came up to Silicon Valley. This is before I came to Los Angeles. And there was a company that was pioneering robotic surgery, right? Intuitive surgical. That's correct. Yeah. Intuitive surgical. They're great. Now intuitive surgical. When I first heard of them, I think life magazine hired my boy who was a photojournalist to come down here and photograph the, the actual robot. Call it a robot. It's really a mechanical thing with two contraptions that would make two small incisions in between the rib cages. One would cauterize the skin. The other one could actually, you can do bypass surgery. Sure. Minimally invasive. And the interesting thing about this is that the doctor, this machine can feasibly be connected to the internet, right? Right. So that the surgeon, right? The best fucking cardiovascular surgeon in the world who's in Belgium. Right. Can produce, could do the surgery in California without being there. Exactly. Through, through this little contraption where he puts his fingers in and, and, and he's simulating the actual, it was, it was mind blowing. I hope they don't have Time Warner cause that. Shit will go out halfway through the surgery. Oh, sorry. So it was bizarre. I mean, I got, I got a chance to be in, in, in, in these rooms while they were doing, they were doing some of these tests. Right. On, on. On cadavers, right? Yeah. No, I've seen, I've seen this stuff. So it's funny you said, I'm sure you, funny you said intuitive. So here's the kicker, man. So I said, fuck intuitive surgery, man. That shit's going to blow off the roof, man. I should buy some stock in that. Oh yeah. You should have. I should have. That was in 1999. Oh my God. Fast forward. They had not gotten, I guess they got their, their approval of something cause they have to get how many, so many hours and stuff. You fast forward like seven years later, right? I was thinking, man, whatever happened to intuitive surgery? Oh, it went through the roof. Like $600 something dollars a share. It was like, and, and, and if I was to go back at that point, it was like fucking $4. Oh, you'd be done. Yeah. Dude, it was like $4 a share. I was like, fuck, what the hell am I doing? Drop that acid. You weren't buying stock. Well, obviously. Yeah. Obviously. But you know, there it is. You live and learn. There you go. So what are we going to do? Are we going to get one of our. We need to buy stock in Blackthorn. We got to get somebody in here. Right. Do you want to come in here, Jeremy, and check out this Oculus? Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. And, and, and. First victim. And, and, and just check it out so you can describe what the hell's going on. Does he need a seat? Yeah, that's probably a good idea. That's probably a good idea. Yeah. Give him, get, do me a favor, Rich. Yeah. Oh, actually, you can take one of those seats and sit over there. Me? Take that seat. No, no, him. I was going to ask you to bring it. No, no, you're going to take that seat and you're going to bring it over there. So you can sit down. And then I'm going to put my cell phone underneath your seat so it vibrates as you're, as, as you're riding the dragon. Sounds like something. Sensorama. Sensorama. All right. You can use your glasses. You can keep them on. Yeah, I may want to do it. Yeah, you can keep your glasses on. So, so the interesting thing about the Sensorama is that there's actually like five of them left in the world. Yeah, is that right? Dude, they're pretty interesting. Which, by the way, this article is from The Verge. T-H-E-V-E-R-G-E. Theverge.com. There, I'll do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's called Voices from a Virtual Past. So if you want the link to the article, give me a jingle on email at nestorius at yahoo.com and I'll send you the link. It's a pretty interesting article about the history of virtual reality. Very cool. Oh. We've switched into demo mode. We've switched into demo mode. We've switched into demo mode. So Jeremy is rocking the Oculus and he's riding the dragon. How's it going there? Amazing. It's bizarre. Yeah. Sorry, you're looking at this dude. Hey, look down. Look down, Jeremy. Hold on, hold on. Is he on camera? You can see him. Look behind you. Look behind you. Oh, that's very cool. So basically, Jeremy's on this dragon, which you can't see right now. And he's got this Oculus over his head that actually gives him the impression of the reality that he's on this dragon. And what you're hearing right now is the dragon breathing fire. Blowing shit up. Blowing shit up. And he's actually flying on the top of the dragon. Let's go blow up some trees. That's the tower they're falling. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sit down, Jeremy. Wait, wait, wait. Sit down. He's just fucking this dude. Looks like he's on acid. He looks like he's on acid. We don't want to hurt people. Okay, so listen, guys. You guys can't really be here to watch this. But this episode, you can download the video version of it because this is recorded live on audio and video. So there's a video feed. Do me a favor. You have to at least check out the video section of this. This is like towards the end of the episode. If you're listening to it. If you're listening to it on iTunes and you downloaded it live, check out the video shit because this shit is bizarre. It's just hilarious because my man Jeremy looks like Brendle Fly with the fucking glasses on. And he's acting like really erratic because he's on this dragon. And this is a total virgin flight. Yeah. He's never done it before. I love it. Yeah. It's a trip, man. It's a fucking trip. It's a trip. It's a trip. It's a trip. We got to get Jenny in here to check it out. Yes, we have to. Jenny, you got to get on here. You love it, Jen. And then what we'll do is we'll set up the computer into the room so you can at least get some sort of an idea of what it looks like. Oh, neck bite. Neck bite. Neck bite. You got to attack. Dragon attack. Yeah. You got to attack. You got to attack. Dude, you didn't have me get attacked. I didn't tell you. I wasn't acting like that. You know what? These dragons actually have their own brains now. They control their own destiny. But check this out. We got to do this shit while we're smoking cigars later and fucking bug out. Yeah. Do some mushrooms, dude. You'll be bugging the fuck out. Would they cancel each other out? Jenny, come inside. Okay, here comes another one. I want to see how you look. Bam. Nice. Jeremy, I'm going to get Jenny in here. Okay, bring her in. Just, just. That's amazing. Did you take your glasses off? Oh, you did. Okay. Oh, I needed my glasses. So Jenny, who's our engineer here, even though she doesn't like calling herself an engineer, she's the engineer. Hey, Jeremy, so after this, maybe we can put the computer on with the HDMI. Yeah, we'll have to bring it back there. Yeah. Okay. Okay, cool. Ready, Jam? It's all pumped up now. Yeah, man. Was that wild? Hold on a second. Hold on a second. So, so as she's doing it, say something, man. Oh, my mic's not on. How was it? Please. I'll have to share your mic. Please. Yeah. Oh, that one's not on? No. Go for it. Yeah. So, so, you know, it's because it takes your entire field of vision, you know, it does that trick where you really feel like you're, you're flying and moving and, and it was pretty amazing. Very cool. Thank you, man. It was very cool. You guys did a great job. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, they did such a great job. He's on red. He's on red. They did such a great job that last week I met Shari Freelo, who is one of the programmers of the Sundance Film Festival, and I told her that I had just come back from riding this dragon, this virtual reality thing. And Sundance, the Sundance Film Festival, they're doing a whole, they have a vested interest in this virtual reality. They're doing a lot of virtual reality stuff for film and all that other stuff. Anyway, I told her about Lyndon and Blackthorn and all that. For some reason, we were trying to get it coordinated so that she can come on this show and have Lyndon and Michael on. Anyway, it worked out that they got to go to the Sundance Film Festival headquarters, show them this stuff. Look all around you. And they gave, they gave them an opportunity to bring some sort of content to next year's Sundance Film Festival. That's fucking, that's amazing. Yeah. That would get, I mean, Shari was, she was awesome. She was such a great and fun leader, just to get that kind of response. Did she, so how was she? Oh, she wore it. She loved it. She was bugging out on it? It was exciting. It was, you know, I mean, look, we haven't been making any money on this stuff yet, so our only payment is good reactions. Of course, of course. That was a good reaction. But was she, she was like, like, like. Oh, she was into it. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy, man. That was very cool. She was actually, while she was riding the dragon, she was doing that, trying to hang on to his neck. Oh, really? Oh, really? It was awesome. I was like, wow. Oh my God. I was like, I guess my animation works. That's awesome. No, the shit you guys do, man, and have done is like unbelievable. Thanks. It's like, I, I, you know. Oh my God. Jenny's bugging out now. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. We should give a shout out to Paula Fairfield as we're talking about this. Oh, yeah. Paula is awesome. Paula Fairfield. And she's the one who's been doing our sound effects on this stuff. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. We'll give her a call. And she's... Big up Paula Fairfield, man! Your bomba-clod sound effect-making holla! Nice. That's what the air horn is for. Thank you. There you go. Any shout outs, I'll bang them all out at the end. She'll dig that. All right. Yeah. Speak up. Sound effects. Are you supposed to be driving? Uh, yes. Did you want to try flying the dragon yourself? No. So we have about seven minutes. So we have like seven minutes left. So why don't we take the Oculus off of Jenny. Jenny, you want to say a couple of things about your experience there? He's bugging out. Look at him. He's like, Yo, man, can I get another hit? No. You got a cigarette? Oh my God. Yo, you got a cigarette? I want you to bring the... Or a dragon to Guadalupe. I want you to bring the com... Or a dragon to Guadalupe. I want you to bring the computer to Jeremy. See if he can set it up. And you're more than welcome to come hang out with us and ride the Oculus again later on. I'll do it. No, not yet. But you're going to do it later. Later. Because we got about six and a half, six, seven minutes. And so does that computer need to be powered still? Thank you, Jim. Or is there enough battery on there? The frame rate will drop a little bit if you unplug it. But we can give it a shot. Okay. You want to put it on sleep mode and then he can take it? No, no, no. Just leave it as it is. Okay. Hey, Jeremy, you want to come and get the computer? All right. Nichols, we have a... It'd be cool to show the NPR world out there. What it looks like from the monitor. How does the Oculus connect to the laptop? Is it USB? It's right through the HDMI port. It's HDMI. Oh, okay. Nice. Nice. So, okay. So now you have this. You have this thing going on. Obviously, you have to further develop the story of the dragon, which takes endless hours. I mean... I mean, just... I don't know what it takes for... When you say stop motion animation, like, I know what that means, but to do something like this, like you're doing, you know, north, south, east, west, up, down. I mean, you got to animate every single movement. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Completely. So... So, excuse me, man. Just because it's... Yeah, the computer doesn't make it any quicker. No, no, no. No, no, no. So, you're actually... Those performances, you know, just done over time. Just over and over and just massaged to it for it to get to that point. Yeah. You mean the articulation and all that stuff that you're working on? Yeah. Yeah. No, because I did see some of that. I think you call them rigs. Yeah. Right? Yeah. You take a digital model that's just at default that has no controls on it whatsoever, and riggers will apply the controls to it. And so then I will take it and bring it to life, give it all the performance. Got it. Got it. So, there's a few stages to it. And there are different people who actually touch it before it gets to that dragon, you know, that animation. Someone will build it. Someone will rig it. I mean, sometimes you'll have one person who can multitask and do it all. But when it's... It just depends. Right. You know, my specialty is performance. So, I understand rigging and modeling, and I know what a creature or character needs to look like to be able to move properly. So, I can communicate those things and work with those people. Mm-hmm. So, when it gets to me, it can do what I need to make it to do. Uh-huh. Yeah. And then what do you wind up doing after, like, you know, the rigging is done and the controllers are put in and all that stuff? What do you do? I do that. I bring it to life. Everything you guys were experiencing and riding it, that's me animating it. Yeah. I am Blackthorn's animation department. Got it. Got it. I mean, you know, it's... Look, as a concept... Who are you going to date? Oh, shit. That was just... This is me. I just hit the exciter button. Right. So, I mean, as an animation standpoint, you know, no one knowing about... Someone not knowing about animation, right? Mm-hmm. So, you have a multiple amount of images that are drawn slightly different so it looks like something is moving. Right. Right? So, you... Right. What was that thing that we called before? A zoetrope. A zoetrope. Yeah. So, but at this point, when you're talking about computer animation, it's like more fucking complex. And... Yeah. I mean, the same principles are in there. It's the same principles. There's a lot of weird science going on because what a computer does, it interpolates movement between frames. But within that interpolation, that's where you... The art is building the performance. So, it's not just moving linearly. Interpolation meaning it kind of fills in the gaps? It fills in the gaps. Got it. Got it. It's highly technical. I mean, when I went to your pad, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot of information to take. I mean, even for somebody who understands some of it, you know what I mean? Because you're talking anywhere from hundreds to thousands of controls on one character. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you have to know... And when you say controls, those are like different points where something can move. Yeah? Yeah. Joints and all of this stuff. Those are... Yeah. Those are controls. Everything down from, yeah, fingers, toes, eyelids, eyebrows, everything. Right. Right. Right. Interesting stuff. So, these guys are trying to hook up the computer so that at least you can get a couple of minutes, hopefully, of looking at this. This thing. So, do you guys... We talked briefly about you guys getting to be invited to do something at Sundance. At Sundance, right. Do you guys have... I mean, it just happened yesterday. Congratulations on that. Or today, actually. Oh, today. Yeah, it was today. That's right. Today's Thursday. That's right. At 11 o'clock. Yeah. That shit is awesome, dude. Thank you, bro. That's fucking awesome. That's exciting, man. It's going to be fun. So, like, did you guys have something in mind? Like, when she said... Do you... I'm sure they asked you. Do you have something that you can actually... Oh, yeah. And I talked... I mean, Shari and I talked story things that we have in mind that we want to do to, you know, the short narrative form to present and showcase. Like a five-minute thing or less? Yeah. Five minutes. Because Sundance is January. Yeah, I know. I know. You don't got that many months. Yeah, we can do it. Oh, I know you can do it. Oh, I know you can do it. We're ready. I mean, you know, the whole thing is about being ready for opportunities. Oh, no, no, no. I know you can do it. That's not even an issue. I get it. Yeah, but, yeah, clock's ticking. Yeah, yeah. But, hey, man. So, all right. So, we have, like... That's what we're ready for. We have, like, a minute left, which is good because my computer's about to die. So, let me give it a backup plug-in so that we can do the last shout-outs. So, okay. So, obviously, we weren't able to put the monitor on. No. It sounded like we might be able to run a camera straight onto the monitor here. Oh, okay. Is that what we're going to do? Yeah, it's up now. Okay. All right. So, we got 40 seconds. No, we're good. We're good. Jeremy's here. I usually get kicked out by Jenny because we're on a time. We're on a time. The show's a timed. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? But this is fucking... This is fucking amazing stuff, man. Thank you. I am so excited for you guys, man. Dude, thanks for having us. I'm glad we finally got to do it, man. Yeah. And, you know, we... Yeah. Hope we weren't boring. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. It was fun. Too bad. Too bad people out there aren't in the room to see it. You know what I mean? Right. So, I guess the most important question for me would be, how could somebody experience this? I mean, you guys are not getting paid, right? And you get paid in, like, you know, hallucinatory movements by people using this fucking thing. Right. Where do you expect to be releasing this on what's called Early Access? Yeah. Through Valve's channel. Uh-huh. You know, so if your listeners are familiar with Steam, for instance, which is a big channel for video games. Okay. We expect we'll have the mono eye and the VR version of this up and running on Early Access on Steam pretty darn soon. Pretty darn soon? Like months? Maybe. No, maybe even as soon as a couple of weeks from now. Really? Yeah. Interesting. We're pushing, man. So, let me ask you a question. So, all right. So, if you look at the video monitor, there's a simulation of the dragon that Jeremy just put a camera on. You guys, you really need to check out the video version of this podcast. Definitely have to do it. It's worth it. So, black, yeah. So, if you look at the bottom of my, of the Nestorius window there, Nestorius Public Radio window, this should be their website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. Jeff's website. for more updates. Is there any, like, do you guys have a way for people to contact you guys? There's contact. Yeah, we've got a link on the webpage. Yeah, everything's there. So if anybody wants to contact Lyndon with naked pictures of yourself that you may want them to animate for future virtual reality stuff, email Lyndon, not Michael. I shouldn't have mentioned porn. Not Michael, because Lyndon is the guy who does the animation. Michael creates characters. So if you're already coming on board with, you know, your own character, he doesn't need to deal with that. Just contact Lyndon. That's right. And if I'm going to guess, it'll be, like, Lyndon at Blackthornmedia.com, something like that. Oh, my God. But just get him on that. Just make sure, seriously, go to Blackthorn-media.com. Check out what these guys are doing, man. This is pretty cutting-edge shit, man. And 55 minutes is not a long time. Yeah, it went fast. Oh, no, it went fast. So now let me ask you something, Jenny. You still, you're still focusing on the dragon? Did we get enough coverage on the dragon? Yeah? All right. Do you guys want to give any more shout-outs to anybody? Everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Just everybody, generically? Chris Cassani, Joe Mancevich. I don't know, man. Hold on. One at a time. I'd like to thank more hellic, Will Taylor, for another part. Kim Kardashian. Big up! Hold on a second. All right. That was, I had to do that. Mm-hmm. I had to do that, because she's like, no, no, don't do that. I had to do that, because, because you know what happens? I had it. What did I do? I'm going to tell you what happens. When I put the power thing on my computer, it creates this hum, so I just took it off. And then, of course, when I put it back in, it causes this god-awful hum. So forgive that. So, okay. So shout-outs to... You know what I mean? We'll just mention our other partners. Just say Keith Goldfarb and Will Taylor. Hold on, hold on. One at a time. Hold on a second. One at a time. Keith Goldfarb, man! Who else? Will Telford. Will Telford! Okay. That's it? And then our wives. Got a shout-out to Janine, bro. Come on. Yo, Janine! Yo, Janine's my homegirl, man. I got to have Janine in here. I got to have Janine up in here. And Rosemary for making the connection with Sean. And Rosemary. Rosemary's a sweetheart, man. That's right, man. You know, that's how it is. I know. All our peeps. And the wonderful people at the Sundance Film Festival offices, Ruthie, Shari, and whoever else you met, big up to y'all. That was large to hook these guys up and give them an opportunity. This shit is amazing. And that's it, man. So make sure you go to iTunes and subscribe to the show, Nestorius Public Radio. Tell your people, man, to go to facebook.com forward slash Nestorius Public Radio. Like the fucking page, man. Come on. The fuck, man. You're bullshitting. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your time. Your boss is fucking dollars and the time. At least he could be useful and add more likes to the Nestorius Public Radio page. You know what I'm saying? How could you not respond to that? You know what I mean? A passion to please. You know what I mean? And while you're at it, man, if you're on iTunes... I like that thing. If you're on iTunes, man, go to Nestorius Public Radio. Go to the reviews section. Give us a five-star review. Say something, man. Say something nice. You know what I mean? Email me that screen grab to Nestorius Public Radio. Send Nestorius at yahoo.com and, you know, Uncle Nest may send you something. You know what I'm saying? So, pick up, y'all. Pick up. Set it off. Get it off. Let it off. Set it off. Get it off. Let it off. Set it off. Get it off. Let it off. Set it off. Get it off. Let it off. Uli, it's me. Uli, it's me. Uli, it's me. Uli, it's me. I ain't doing nothing but talking about you. I ain't doing nothing but talking about you. I ain't doing nothing but talking about you. I ain't doing nothing but talking about you.