It has been announced today by
Nickelodeon that a groundbreaking new television series is in the works called
Meet the Voxels, though that is a working title.
Meet the Voxels is an original television, augmented reality, and virtual reality series created in a game engine, which marks a first for the television network in its usage of its cutting edge cinema tech, which includes a facial and full body captured performance to create a more innovative approach to immersive storytelling.
Meet the Voxels was conceived by Senior Vice President of
Nickelodeon's Entertainment Lab, Chris Young, which makes perfect sense if you consider that the entire purpose of the Entertainment Lab is to help spearhead long-range research and development surrounding emerging platforms and new technology. Young has a long history both in the entertainment intdustry and with
Nickelodeon specifically, having previously served as Executive Creative Director and a Producer for the television network while building his career.
Young has developed new entertainment experiences for kids over the past year alone, such as the multi-player VR experience
SlimeZone, The Loud House 360, and
Rise of the Teenge Mutant Ninja Turtles VR Interview Experience, the last of which debuted at Comic Con 2018 and immersed users in the Turtles' iconic NYC world, allowing them to talk to Donnie or Mikey, both voiced on the scene by their respective voice actors. These projects have helped usher forth the evolution and development of content creation using real-time animation technology that is represented by
Meet the Voxels.
"Our Vision is to take the real-time technology we've been exploring in the Lab and marry it with a creative concept that connects with kids and their passion for video games. We designed this next-gen animation workflow and filled it with characters who can exist naturally across multiple platforms from day one." - Chris Young, Senior Vice President of Nickelodeon's Entertainment Lab
This project is a big deal as it represents a significant expansion of Young's work as well as
Nickelodeon's Entertainment Lab's capabilities. Beyond that, Young will help to guide further development of a larger slate of animated projects for the network which are to be announced in the near future, while the pilot for
Meet the Voxels will be written by Jana Petrosini
(Henry Danger, Kid Danger, Game Shakers), and Sean Gill
(Henry Danger, Kid Danger, Game Shakers).
"Chris is helping lead Nickelodeon animation into a wholly new content creation studio. Meet the Voxels marks a significant development in turning that content dream into a production reality." - Chris Viscardi, Senior Vice President, Animation
Meet the Voxels takes kids behind the scenes of a video game world and follows a family of video-game characters, the Voxels, on their adventures on-and-off-duty. The family members (all names working titles) are: Hunter, the 13-year-old star of a laser tag video game; Maude, a 16-year-old fighting to pop as many bubbles as she can; their younger brother Cody who has not found his video game calling yet; Mom, a popular street fighter in her game; and Dad, a 90's-era classic console game character who quit the business years ago.
Meet the Voxels is being developed to air across Nickelodeon's channels globally. Will you be tuning in?