Sphere Entertainment, James Dolan’s MSG Entertainment spin-off, has opened Sphere Studios in Burbank. The 68,000-square-foot compound will output immersive entertainment for Sphere venues. The flagship Sphere in Las Vegas opens in September with a series of U2 concerts designed to show-off the 580,000 square-foot display that Sphere says is “the world’s highest-resolution LED screen.” The company has filed eight patents, including for the ultra-high resolution Big Sky camera, unveiled this week. Sphere says Big Sky has “the world’s sharpest cinematic lenses,” capable of delivering edge-to-edge images for the 16K x 16K immersive display at Sphere Vegas. Continue reading Sphere Launches Burbank Studio, Immersive Camera System

If you were looking for a break from CES this week, DreamlandXR offered a wide range of social and professional events with a focus on immersive entertainment, music and eSports. The festival included an insightful two-day conference of immersive media panels and demos at the Alexis Park Resort. Industry leaders discussed the logistics, management, business models and marketing of XR experiences in location-based entertainment, casino spaces, VR theaters, and more. We were told that videos of all panels will be posted on the DreamlandXR site in the near future. Continue reading DreamlandXR Festival Brings the XR Community Together

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier, VR financing/distribution company CityLights purchased “Spheres: Songs of Spacetime,” a three-part virtual reality series that explores the depth of space. The exact purchase price was not revealed, but it is reportedly in the seven figures, and is being hailed as the first VR film to be acquired for such an amount. The series, presented by Oculus Studios and Protozoa Pictures, and directed by Eliza McNitt, is slated for release on the Oculus Rift sometime this year. Continue reading VR Series ‘Spheres’ Sells for Seven Figures at Sundance Fest

During a two-night event hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists met with filmmakers to discuss their impressions of viewer attention and perception. Scientists have studied the mental and physical responses of audiences through eye-tracking experiments and analysis, while filmmakers have relied more on intuition and experience. Both groups are interested in what maintains an individual’s attention during the movie-going experience. Continue reading Cognitive Scientists, Filmmakers Explore Cinematic Perception