MLK: Now is the Time

Summary

“An immersive journey that explores key themes of Dr. King's speech and highlights systemic inequities that persist in our society.”

Explore

Time Magazine https://nowisthetime.time.com/

Flight School Studio https://www.flightschoolstudio.com/mlk

Play

https://www.meta.com/experiences/mlk-now-is-the-time/4790561384366997/

Production

While at Flight School Studio from 2021-2023, I worked on and helped to ship MLK: Now is the Time, an interactive VR experience for Meta Quest, to critical acclaim at SXSW 2023, The VR Awards, and a Primetime Emmy nomination. It was an incredible opportunity and I’m very happy to have been part of the team!

This was a multi-team project and efforts were split up between our team at Flight School Studio, an external audio team at Skywalker Sound, technical assistance directly from Meta, and our clients at TIME Magazine. I served as a generalist designer and developer, and while I can speak to what I and my teammates created, there was a lot of writing, preproduction, and ideating that went into this production that I cannot fully capture from my own perspective. So please keep in mind, while what we made is impressive there is still a lot of work that went into this which I cannot cover myself!

My Responsibilities

• Rapidly prototyped and polished player controls, gameplay elements, interactive objects, cinematic sequences, and level whiteboxes using Unreal Engine blueprints and C++

• Communicated directly with the client and digested their notes into actionable changes and tasks for myself and my teammates

• Communicated with artists, producers, and other developers and switched focus when someone needed help or when a higher priority task or issue arose

• Pushed weekly builds to the Meta Quest store, wrote build notes, and recorded playthroughs to send to producers & client

• Collaborated with artists and animators to create technical materials and Niagara particle effects which can be art-directed in sequences

• Optimized levels, assets, and gameplay by utilizing Unreal Insights and internal Meta Quest profiling tools to diagnose performance bottlenecks

• Upgraded the project from UE 4.26 to 4.27 by building the engine from Meta’s source branch and distributing to the rest of the team thru Unreal Game Sync

Accolades

• February 2024 - Producers Guild of America - Innovation Award nomination

  • https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/producers-guild-innovation-awards-nominees-list-2024-1235820921/

• September 2023 - VR Awards - AIXR winner for Social Impact

  • https://vrawards.aixr.org/finalists-2023/

• July 2023 - Television Academy - Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Emerging Media Program

  • https://www.emmys.com/shows/mlk-now-time

• March 2023 - SXSW Festival - Audience Award winner for XR Experience Spotlight

  • https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/sxsw-2023-audience-award-winners-jfk-memento-mlk-now-is-the-time/