Former Jaunt VR exec Catherine Day and VR director Sam Smith join talent roster of Los Angeles-based new wave production and entertainment company.
m ss ng p eces delivered one of the first commercial VR projects ever made, Dos Equis ‘Virtual Masquerade.’
LOS ANGELES -- New wave production and entertainment company m ss ng p eces has announced the hire of Catherine Day as Head of VR/AR/360; she joins the company from Jaunt VR where she was Executive Producer/Head of Unscripted. The company is also adding visionary VR director Sam Smith to its roster. M ss ng p eces has become a leading force in virtual reality storytelling, from delivering one of the first commercial VR projects ever made, Dos Equis’ Virtual Masquerade, to bringing a president into VR with Bill Clinton’s Inside Impact, to creating Follow My Lead: The 2016 Finals, a groundbreaking VR sports documentary for the NBA and Oculus which was hailed as “the next step in VR storytelling” (UploadVR).
In her new role, Catherine Day will drive VR/AR/360 efforts from m ss ng p eces’ Los Angeles office, and oversee several original VR series that will be announced jointly with WME and partners in the coming months. In her previous role at Jaunt VR, Day led projects for ABC News, RYOT/Huffington Post, Camp 4 Collective, XRez, Tastemade, Outside TV, Civic Nation and Conservation International. She shares m ss ng p eces’ dedication to leveraging the limitless potential of storytelling and technology to create meaningful experiences and impact around the world.
“When you’re working at the bleeding edge of media and technology, it’s incredibly difficult to figure out how to tell powerful stories. It’s also challenging to use the latest, often intimidating developments like VR in ways that help us to be more human rather than less,” shared Day. “And yet consistently, m ss ng p eces has set the bar, on both of these notes, being the first-movers in every emerging medium - most recently, VR. Their approach as a creative studio is to handcraft clever, meaningful stories and experiences that capture and elevate the human spirit.”
VR director Sam Smith also joins the company. Smith is a creative director and VR director who previously worked with MediaMonks on projects for Expedia, Delta, Converse and YT. Smith also has an extensive background in commercial visual effects. His deep understanding of post-production and VFX gives him a unique edge in development of VR/360 projects, and as a technical advisor to m ss ng p eces.
These new signings build on other talent who recently joined the company’s VR/experiential roster including Ray Tintori who co-directed the 25-minute Follow My Lead experience, which transports the viewer through the 2016 NBA championships and redefined long-form for VR; Yehuda Duenyas aka Mindride, who is best known for his creative and technical work on the award-winning Love Has No Labels campaign and “Airflow” flying VR simulator; and Yung Jake who is part of Jaunt’s VR Residency and is currently developing a VR/360 experience for the 2017 Sundance Institute New Frontiers program.
As part of its expansion into developing original VR content, m ss ng p eces has also signed on with WME for representation. Earlier this year m ss ng p eces won an Emmy for its original series Videos 4U, a co-production with Ira Glass and This American Life.
Source: m ss ng p eces
