Daniel Cheetham, CEO of Happy Finish, discusses how immersive technologies can provide a better experience for a user. If you’re interested in attending VRX San Francisco 2019 on December 12 and 13, feel free to follow our affiliate link to register.
3E: Can you tell us your name and the company you’re here to represent?
DC: My name is Daniel Cheetham. I am the CEO of a company called Happy Finish.
3E: What is Happy Finish?
DC: Happy Finish, we are a creative production company, 15 years old now. Our background is in post-production, so retouching, CGI, animation, stills, and we work for big global clients like Nike.
3E: How did Happy Finish move into immersive technologies?
DC: About six years ago, we moved into immersive technologies. We started with augmented reality on mobile. Vuforia-based, marker-based AR, and more recently interactive virtual reality, mixed reality, and we play a little bit with machine learning and how to leverage that in creative ways to help output content.
3E: How has Happy Finish used XR?
DC: We created a destination-based experience for a Chinese brand called Wanda. They’re tier one sponsors of the FIFA World Cup. So we created a VR experience where you don some trackers on your feet and enter into a virtual environment where you become a soccer star. And you had to take on some kicking challenges. That rolled out in Red Square.
3E: What trends excite you?
DC: Trends that excite me? The integration of machine learning computer vision to understand the user more discreetly. So understanding a user’s emotional state, how we can serve them better immersive content relevant to that user. I think that’s very exciting. It means we can create pertinent experiences to that end user.
