Up until this point, there has not been much information about the LA startup, Dreamscape Interactive. The Dreamscape history was revealed slightly from a Forbe’s Article, Dreamscape’s Big Dreams for Immersive VR. The article explains a little of whom Kevin Wall and Walter Parkes are and what his ambitions are.
One of the first, and most important of his accomplishments was partnering with Artanim, a Swiss research think tank focussing on motion and motion capture. Artanim burst onto the VR scene two years ago when they displayed their groundbreaking, immersive VR for the 2015 Siggraph. I may be a CGI snob but I have to admit the folks at Artanim have the real head start in the immersive experience game. The Void has spent millions but only gets to the point where Artanim starts.
Relying on Hollywood serendipity and a powerful rolodex, the Wall nabbed as CEO the Disney Chief Creative Officer behind the massive Shanghai Disneyland project, Bruce Vaughn, who had planned to take a well deserved sabbatical, until Wall interrupted him with Dreamscape’s ambitious plans. Along with other Disney Imagineers recruited for the effort, Vaughn’s job is to spearhead development of both the experiences and the venue, which is being designed by Yves Behar, who Forbes described as “the most influential designer in the world.”
With this high powered team Wall and Parkes have enlisted a prime crop of heavy huitting investors including Westfields Malls, three movie studios, and Parkes’ former boss Steven Speilberg. Because of their strategic alliance with the multiple studios, the group claims to be movie agnostic. While they have given no clues on what their first experience will be, it will be fairly safe to assume the experiences will coincide with the release of major films. With their focus on the most recent feature film IPs, I believe there is still plenty of room capitalizing on the infinite number of theme worlds which have already proven themselves.
The group plans on opening their first experience at landmark Century City Mall in Los Angeles this fall. When they’re sure the venue can be operated profitably, they’ll explode into hungry malls around the country. I’ll have to admit, this is a solid plan. iMyth plans on doing the same.
Dreamscape Immeresive really seems like they have a good plan with a strong team to boot. It looks like I’ll need to be making a trip to Los Angeles this Fall to check out the new iMyth competition.
