Christina Heller (Metastage) on Capturing the Humanity of a Live Performance for AR & VR

Christina Heller is the CEO of Metastage, an XR studio that brings live performances into digital worlds through volumetric capture and complementary tools.

The resulting 3D content can be experienced in augmented reality using mobile phones or high-end AR headsets, or using 3D displays. Metastage uses the Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture system and is located in Los Angeles.

Prior to leading Metastage, Christina was the CEO of VR Playhouse, an immersive content company based in Los Angeles. She is a recipient of the Advanced Imaging Society's Distinguished Leadership in Technology Award, and was named in the Huffington Post as one of 5 women changing the virtual reality scene. She has a long history in immersive media, having contributed to over 120 immersive projects. Christina comes from the world of journalism, radio, and television.

In this conversation, we dig into volumetric capture in general, and Metastage in particular. We explore a couple of the projects she and her team have done, along with some of the challenges and highlights along the way.

We discuss how people get to experience the end result, and the impact of the underlying capture technology. Christina also shares a new initiative to make it easier for creators to leverage volumetric content.

Christina share’s some of the lessons she’s learned from being an entrepreneur, including a lesson she picked up when she was young. She discovered the importance of envisioning the end state, and using that vision as a key motivator, while also recognizing the end result may look very different.

We go on to talk more broadly about trends in immersive content.

It’s worth noting this conversation was recorded in mid April, 2020, a few weeks after California issued its first “shelter-in-place” order in response to COVID-19. Some of the conversation reflects the newness of the crisis at the time.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.