Fang Gan, CEO of Jaunt China: Pay attention to the length of the video and the charm of the story

On the 25th, the GCC Imagineer Series Salon opened in Shanghai for the first time in the new year. At the salon event, Fang Gan, CEO of Jaunt China, shared some of Jaunt's achievements in 2016 and some experiences and help for VR content developers.

Fang Gan said that at present, Jaunt has 120-150 works, and the number of viewers has exceeded 30 million. In addition, there are cooperation with some sports companies, sports leagues or sports channels in the United States. At present, Jaunt can have three major advantages, including 24 multi-lens devices, cloud services to stitch videos, and rapid release of multiple platforms to help VR content creators better produce content.

"Don't lose sight of the charm of the story for the sake of experience." Fang Gan shared some advice for content developers, "Pay attention to the change in video time, and also consider the experience from the perspective of the audience." In terms of content production, Fang Gan revealed that in addition to jaunt having its own studio to produce content, jaunt will also cooperate with third parties on the device and cultivate more VR talents for China.

At the end of the speech, Fang Gan believes that even the directors of Hollywood in the United States are groping for VR film production, everyone is on the same starting line, and Chinese entrepreneurs have the opportunity to become the world's leading entrepreneurs.

The following is a transcript of the speech:

Fang Gan: First of all, Jaunt is an American company that has been in the VR industry for nearly four years. At the beginning, the purpose of the founders was not to make technology, but to make VR movies. Four years ago, they went to different devices on the market to shoot VR movies, but they never found what they wanted. Given this situation, they chose to make one of their own. After the camera was developed, we started thinking about how to sew up the film in the clouds. Then we produced our first commercial product, the Jaunt One, which was connected to the cloud.

So from the very beginning, the company's DNA is that we want to bring the best VR experience and story to the audience. This was our original and most important mission.

Three features: 24 multi-lens, cloud services stitched video, rapid release of multiple platforms

Next, I will introduce the technology of VR. As mentioned earlier, our camera is connected to the cloud, it has 24 lenses, while the average camera only has 6 or 8 lenses, which can be said to be the most advanced camera in the industry. Then we now produce 75 cameras worldwide and start to introduce some equipment in China. You can visit it later, and we have some content for everyone to experience.

The other one is our cloud service, because we have 24 lenses that need to be sewn up, and all of this work is done in the cloud.

To share some data with you: if you shoot a minute of VR content, it only takes 10 to 20 minutes to stitch it up in our system, which is a very fast speed, and the accuracy of our cloud stitching video is also very high. And our cloud is a platform that not only supports our cameras, but also NOKIA OZO. So users can completely upload the original content to our cloud and sew it up according to the needs of the lens. We want to provide a better service for VR content creators to help them produce better content.

The third block is our workflow. First of all, depending on the user's different platforms, we support different tools to process the material. In addition, we have a distribution feature that can be released to at least 35 different PC and mobile platforms. So from a creative point of view, you don't have to spend more time thinking about how to land on more platforms, we will automatically help deal with this problem in the background.

It is worth mentioning that our platform is distributed globally. U.S. content can be published domestically, and domestic content can also be sent abroad simultaneously.

Produce your own content, help third parties on your device, and cultivate domestic VR talent

In terms of VR content production, we have a studio in Los Angeles, Jaunt studio. The studio has done more than 100 different categories of content: sports, music, travel, etc. We also recently worked with a Hollywood director on a VR film. This studio produces a very wide range of content types, and I will set up a similar creative studio in Beijing, China.

Our studio features a few points. First, make your own content. At the same time, we will also cooperate with third parties to produce content, which may be from the aspect of equipment. The last one is to cultivate domestic VR resources and talents, in the United States we are working with film festivals and some film academies, in China we will take a similar approach.

To share with you some of the data we have made, we already have 120-150 works, and the number of viewers has exceeded 30 million, which is still a big data in VR. In sports, we also cooperate with some sports companies, sports leagues or sports channels in the United States, and then we also cooperate with brands.

Pay attention to the change of video time, consider the experience from the perspective of the audience, and do not ignore the charm of the story

Here's what we think about 2017, and I hope to bring you some help. The first is deeper immersion. The special reason for VR is because of the sense of immersion, so the immersion experience needs to be well grasped, although there is a lot of VR content on the market, but how many can really shock you? From my point of view, not much. Because I think it's rare to make a good work, which is different from ordinary movies and television network dramas.

Because there is a time limit first, up to 10 minutes an episode. Because if the video time is long, wearing a VR headset is very uncomfortable; the content is less, and a story of 3 or 5 minutes is incomplete. However, in the future, due to the improvement of the helmet, it is possible that the duration will be extended to 20 minutes. Such a change in time requires the content production team to control.

Second, focus on experience. Entering the VR environment, what kind of reaction will the audience have? We need to think in terms of the audience experience.

The third is not to ignore the charm of the story for the sake of experience. No matter how good the experience is, it may be OK in a short period of time, but the length of content will continue to increase in the future. At this point, it is not enough to rely on the feeling of being amazed, because such an exclamation is only once? But good story users will keep looking and pondering. In my opinion, your VR content is not only for today's audience, but also for tomorrow's audience.

Finally, I would like to share with you some of my personal thoughts. First, being an entrepreneur is a very hard and lonely road. When I switched from technology to film, I learned this. Because of technology, you can prove that your technology is good through market research and in different scientific ways. But artistic concepts are one that requires personal judgment.

But I think the VR industry is a particularly new industry, and people who can survive in this industry must be full of optimistic confidence in this industry. Don't let the market start wintering, everyone first chooses to give up their ideals. On the contrary, at this time, we should work harder to move forward, because the people who have no faith and persistence in this market have been eliminated, and the rest are top people who can develop this industry together.

And, in terms of VR, I think it's a subversive technology and concept. Sometimes we go to Hollywood and talk to some directors, and although they've been in the movie for more than 100 years, you ask him how he makes VR movies, and he'll tell you he doesn't know, and he's groping for it.

So, this is a great opportunity for Chinese entrepreneurs to become the world's leading entrepreneurs. Using our minds to transform the world, I think, is very possible. That's why I threw myself into VR. Because I think this is a great opportunity, a Chinese opportunity.

According to my observation, we are different from foreign content development, we are very curious Chinese, there are many VR experience centers in China. At the New Year, a friend told me that we all have VR experiences in third- and fourth-tier cities. But in the United States, there are not many experience centers except in the big cities. Their VR concept is to look at it lying down, while Chinese VR experience is interactive. I think this situation is worth considering, and I hope that you can make more efforts in this regard and use China's VR method to drive the development of VR in the world.