Forty years after "Tron," storytellers are moving to the metaverse

“To create engagement, you need to have a story. In the metaverse, creators will create community, and the stories they tell will create community, just like in the beginning of time. The King's Storyteller kept people engaged, Shakespeare kept people engaged,” said American producer Donald Kushner, whose 1982 film “Tron” is considered the first-ever cinematic depiction of the metaverse.

Kushner, who is also president and founder of Junction Films and head of Gumbotron, spoke with industry players this week at Red Sea 360°, the Red Sea Film Festival's industry talk program, on storytelling in the metaverse, emphasizing the importance of creating universal narratives while responding to the particular dynamics of the medium.

"['Tron'] was the first movie to use computer animation. When we We were producing the film, there were four companies in the United States doing computer animation, and we booked them for an entire year. Today, someone could create this in an afternoon. is how far we've come."

Maurice "MrMoe" Gallegos (left), Yat Siu (center), Donald Kushner (right)

The producer was joined by Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands in Hong Kong, the offshoot behind leading decentralized gaming virtual world The Sandbox, which introduced names like Snoop Dogg to the metaverse.

"Data is our most valuable resource. The problem with data today is that we are not able to measure the value of this data that is in Facebook and Amazon. We don't know what it's worth to them. The metaverse makes this transparent and open,” Siu said, adding, “We are all data generators, so we are all creators. Each conversation adds to the creative process."

So what does storytelling look like in the metaverse? For Siu, the trackable nature of the medium will allow content creators to truly understand their fandom and who their engaged supporters are, allowing artists to speak directly to their most eager audience to consume. “A paying fan now has a direct relationship with the artists. Now you can identify your true fans."

"And now we want to use A.I. programs to create the characters and environments. But the important in entertainment is that you always have to tell an engaging story and you always have to create engaging characters, so that's what interests me," Kushner said, emphasizing his goal of not just creating immersive experiences in the " real world," but that "translate into the metaverse as well." "I think that's the future. If we can make and distribute films directly to people, funded by people, we can create a whole other creative economy."

As the world becomes increasingly digitally connected, the barriers between the physical and the digital become blurry. ..