VR/AR/MR
BABA YAGA: TELLING A COMPELLING STORY WHERE THE VIEWER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER By TREVOR HOGG
Images courtesy of Baobab Studios. TOP: Baba Yaga in her hut with the boiling cauldron. OPPOSITE TOP: A storybook aesthetic was adopted for the visuals.
In Slavic folklore, a supernatural being associated with wildlife appears as a deformed old woman and lives in a hut; she provides the inspiration for Baba Yaga, an interactive VR experience produced by Baobab Studios in partnership with Conservation International and the United Nations ActNow campaign that is available exclusively on Oculus Quest. As settlers encroach a rainforest, their chief becomes deathly ill, leading her two children to embark on a journey to find a cure in the form of the mysterious Witch Flower. Serving as the writer, director and cinematographer on the project is Eric Darnell, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Baobab Studios, with the voice cast consisting of Glenn Close, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Hudson and Daisy Ridley. “While it’s about a mean old witch who lives in the forest and maybe eats children,” states Darnell. “Baba Yaga is also a story about recognizing our connection with the natural world. In doing so, perhaps we’ll be more inclined to live in harmony with it.” Since the release of Invasion! in 2016, the independent interactive animation studio established by Darnell, CEO Maureen Fan and CTO Larry Cutler has gone on to win six Emmy Awards and two Annies. “It has been an amazing journey for us,” remarks Darnell. “When we made Invasion! it became clear to us that VR is not like cinema. It’s a different medium. We recognized, which is obvious now, that our superpower is immersion. You can look around, but if you’re running in real-time then we can have interactivity. Characters can respond to what you do. It got us to think about how we can tell stories that make the viewer the main character and feel that their choices are meaningful and matter. I like to think of story as being primarily about characters making big decisions that reveal something about themselves.”
80 • VFXVOICE.COM SUMMER 2021
PG 80-85 BABA YAGA.indd 80
5/3/21 5:08 PM
