After many months of intensive research and development, planning, and hard work, we’re incredibly proud to announce our new company, Novo. Novo is a creative technology company with an ambitious vision to revolutionize location-based immersive experiences. The company was born out of a desire to improve upon current manifestations of virtual reality and to build the infrastructure that we need to empower successful virtual reality storytelling and beyond.
Novo has two divisions: a studio dedicated to producing original, high-end virtual reality content and a next-generation immersive entertainment platform which powers our experiences. The NOVOrealityTM Platform fuses professional-grade virtual reality equipment with robotic arm technology to create convincing and comfortable motion simulation experiences through engaging stories in fantastic virtual worlds. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. It delivers the highest quality virtual reality experience available anywhere else in the world, and entirely new experiences can be swapped in and out seamlessly on the same platform.
The NOVOrealityTM Platform is designed to offer a superior immersive storytelling experience. While a majority of attention has been focused on the virtual reality head mounted display market, Novo sees immense promise in location-based VR. Our out-of-the-home platform offers a significantly higher quality experience than consumer headsets at a price point that is far more affordable.
Novo also believes that motion simulation can direct viewer attention in the context of storytelling in a way that makes narrative experiences in virtual reality more engaging, comfortable, and enjoyable. Steven Spielberg has said, “I think we’re moving into a dangerous medium with virtual reality. The only reason I say it is dangerous is because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude not to take direction from the storytellers but make their own choices of where to look.” Imposing motion upon the viewer addresses this concern by restoring a degree of control back to the creative director without compromising the viewer’s ability to look around freely. It’s the three-dimensional equivalent of “shot framing”, enabling storytellers to suggest where attention should be directed. We’re exploring this massively valuable technique and much more through our world-class NOVOstudioTM, and we look forward to sharing more about this with the world.
Virtual reality is a new language. It requires new rules to be written and infrastructure to be built. Novo is on a path to introduce breathtaking cinematic virtual reality experiences to the world in a comfortable, accessible, and enjoyable way, and we hope you come along with us on this wild and crazy ride.
- The Novo Team
Justin Meltzer, Jordan Harvey, Chris Mauch, Jordan Blit, Scott Hubbard, Lee Wolland, Nicole Morciniec, Ben Cone