Tyler Hurd is quickly becoming known as the “weird VR guy.”
The young virtual reality filmmaker first broke onto the scene with Butts — which is a hilarious and whimsical musical romp about exactly what you think it is. His followup to that was Old Friend — another musical that combined hilariously animated characters, over the top colors (heck, over the top everything), and music that won’t leave your head no matter how hard you try.
Hurd is currently attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival where he is debuting his latest piece called Chocolate. It’s a gritty, in-depth look at what happens when money, status, and pride become more important than the people we hold dear. Nah, just kidding, it’s about shooting cats out of your hands.
Describing Chocolate to people that have not seen it may get you a one way ticket to a nice, quiet, rubber padded room. You take the role of a slightly robotic ancient deity surrounded by your tribal worshipers. The music begins and they dance. They dance to earn your favor so that you might bestow upon them that which they crave the most: cats, lots and lots and lots of cats.
Once the tribal dancing has adequately pleased you, your hands will become Mega Man-esque cannons that begin to fire scores of cuddly, adorable cats into the air. This happens automatically on the beat but the position of the cats launch is determined by where you’re pointing the Oculus Touch or Vive controllers at that moment. There are a few other surprises in store for you inside the world of Chocolate but we’ll let you discover those yourself.
The entire thing is exactly as insane as it sounds but that’s what makes Hurd’s work amazing. In an interview with UploadVR, Hurd explained the he originally conceived of this ideas while listening to the song Chocolate by EDM artist Giraffage. The synth in the song made him think of cats and the strong beats led him to a tribal setting.
Hurd was then asked what it is he thinks ties all of these seemingly random works of VR art together. “I love when I show people something I’ve made and they just have to laugh,” explained Hurd. “People come up to me and say this makes me so happy, this is a happy maker and that’s just perfect…I’m trying to get people to that place of joy, that ridiculous joy…my focus is on characters and animation so I try to use that to just make people giggle like a child. If I’ve done that then I’ve won. If they’re smiling, they’re happy.”
Though previously a solo act, Hurd was able to make this latest piece thanks to a investment from Viacom Next. With that additional capital he was able to bring in some fresh talent including an artist from Adventure Time to design some of the character
s, a character modeler from Double Fine Studios, and a visual effects designer from Blizzard. Hurd’s previous works have taken him up to nine months to complete. Chocolate was finished in only six.
Hurd says that he is planning to release Chocolate to the public in “the next few months” and that the responses he’s been getting at Sundance to the undeniably unique creation have been “overwhelmingly positive”.
Hurd says he will continue to work as a VR artist and wants to keep making pieces that give people that “ridiculous joy”.
