Wolves in
the Walls
Winner of a Peabody Award and Emmy Award
“Fable Studio put a lot of work into making Lucy believable as an interactive character. This included teaming up with New York’s immersive theater company Third Rail for choreography and motion capture” – Janko Roettgers, Variety
About Wolves in the Walls
VR, Fables Studio, Oculus (2018)
In this Emmy and Peabody Award-winning virtual reality experience based on the book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, the audience is transported into a stunning immersive fable, where only they can help Lucy discover what’s truly hiding inside the walls of her house. Third Rail Projects worked with Fable Studios on story development, experience design, and choreographing this experience which asks, What would it be like to interact, have a relationship, and go on a quest with a character inside a virtual reality movie?
About Third Rail Projects Involvement
Third Rail Projects Co-Artistic Directors Zach Morris and Jennine Willett collaborated with Fable’s creative team to help craft a visceral audience experience by sharing the tools, processes, and perspectives we utilize when devising and rehearsing our own immersive performances. We helped with script development, sharing perspectives learned from creating multidisciplinary performance to ensure the work was utilizing the unique possibilities of VR, creating a story that could only occur in that medium. We worked with the directors to help craft the experience design to create intuitive, embodied engagement with the narrative, folding the audience into the story and placing them in the center of the action. We shared our tools as creators of immersive theater and applied them to this project, helping to build organic, interactive moments between audience and characters. We brought in company members from our critically acclaimed show Then She Fell—virtuosic performers who are able to improvise fluidly— to physicalize some of these key moments, sharing choreographic principles from our own immersive theater work to aid the directors before they then went on to finalize the script and staging to fully realized the VR piece.
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Wolves in the Walls
Image courtesy of Fables Studio & Oculus
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Wolves in the Walls
Image courtesy of Fables Studio & Oculus
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Motion Capture for Wolves in the Walls
Image courtesy of Fables Studio & Oculus
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Location-Based VR Experience
Image courtesy of Fables Studio & Oculus
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Wolves in the Walls
Image courtesy of Fables Studio & Oculus
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Wolves in the Walls
Image courtesy of Fables Studio & Oculus
Credits
Credits:
Created by Pete Billington & Jessica Yaffa Shamash
Written for VR and directed by Pete Billington
Based on the book by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean
Produced by Jessica Yaffa Shamash, Chris Hanson, Andy Wood
Executive Producers Edward Saatchi, Saschka Unseld, Kim Adams, Max Planck
Voices by Jeffrey Wright, Noah Schnapp, Elizabeth Carena
with Isabella Rossellini as Nana
and Cadence Goblirsch as Lucy
Interactive Supervisor: Ben Peck
CG Supervisor: Justin Schubert
Animation Supervisor: Jamee Houk
Production Designer: Kendal Cronkhite
Head of Engineering: Chris Wheeler
Technical Supervisors: Ben Peck, John Ballantyne
Rigging Supervisors: Chriss Wheeler, Todd Taylor
Character Supervisors: Bernhard Haux
Previs Supervisor: Jeff Brown
Art Directors: Goro Fujita, Carlos León
Technical Art Director: Megan Stifter
Interactive Design Lead: David R. S. Palumbo
Editor: Vanessa Rojas
Layout and Technical Animation Lead: Lizz Kupfer
A Fable + Oculus Story Studio production
STORY
Story by Pete Billington & Jessica Yaffa Shamash
Original VR concept by Saschka Unseld
Additional story by Saschka Unseld, Katherine Rundell, Jennine Willett, Zach Morris
INTERACTIVE
Interactive Supervisor: Ben Peck
Preproduction Interactive Supervisor: Marc Fletcher
Chapter One Interactive Supervisor: Kent Hudson
Interactive Design Lead: David R. S. Palumbo
Interactive Designers: John Ballantyne, John Bernhelm, Erin Tomson, Kathy Yuen
Interactive Intern: Jake Chiang
ART & ASSETS
Art Directors: Goro Fujita, Carlos León
Production Designer: Kendal Cronkhite
Technical Art Director: Megan Stifter
Set Designers: David Huang, Vlad Bina, Kory Heinzen
Concept Artists: Ken Pak, Kory Heinzen, Adrien Merigeau, Annette Marnat
Lead Environment Artist: Matt Burdette
Environment Artists: Megan Stifter, Lenora Acidera, Akin Bilgic, Josh Michael Tyler
Lead Shading Artists: Megan Stifter, Sabrina Reigel
Character Supervisor: Bernhard Haux
Character Modeler: Ardie Johnson
Rigging Supervisors: Chris Wheeler, Todd Taylor
Character TD: Dave Otte
ANIMATION
Animation Supervisors: Jamee Houk
Preproduction Animation Supervisor: Ramiro Lopez Dau
Layout and Technical Animation Lead: Lizz Kupfer
Animators: Eric Degner, Jenn Emberly, Kirsten Yamaguchi, Tim Soman, Ricky Lua, Thierry Didonna, Melanie Cordan, Kristen Willsher
COMPUTER GRAPHICS
CG Supervisor: Justin Schubert
Graphics Architect: Martin Mittring
LIGHTING & EFFECTS
FX Lead: Robert Chen
Lighting Leads: Ronman Ng, Rachel Donnelly
FX TDs: Michael Catalano, Chris Hamilton
Lighting Support: Lenora Acidera
EDITORIAL
Previs Editor: Brian Berringer
Editor Radio: Vanessa Rojas
Play Editor: David Whited
ENGINEERING
Head of Engineering: Chris Wheeler
Senior Engineer: Ben Peck
Senior AI Engineer: Alexis Palangie
Principal AI / ML Researcher: Frank Carey
ML Engineer: Carson Sestili
Pipeline Engineer: Tony Barbieri
Additional Engineering: John Ballantyne
PRODUCTION
Producers: Jessica Yaffa Shamash, Chris Hanson, Andy Wood
Development Producers: Shannon Ryan, Angela Petrella
Marketing Producer: Jonathan Gleit
Senior Production Coordinator: Terence Wan
Production Assistant: Arif Khan
Additional production support: Matthew Chadwick
Music and sound design by Facebook Sound+Design
Sound Design Director: Will Littlejohn
Sound Design Manager: Andrew Boyd
Sound Design: J. White
Lead Composer: Paul Gorman
Audio Producer: Eleanor Thibeaux
Associate Audio Producer: Qiao Xue
Sound Designers: Hunter Brown, Yannis Brown, Scott Dugdale, Kent Jolly, Sang Kim, David Levison, Jon Ojeda, Mike Patterson, Ethan Schreiber, Lucy Sheils, Spencer Selmon, David Urrutia, Sean Vora, Alex Wilmer
Music Production Manager: Jonathan Dodge Mayer
Music Producer: Justin Hunt
Music Engineer: Ciel Eckard-Lee
Tuba: Jonathan Seiberlich
Violin: Andy Leftwich
Additional Violin: Yuri Kye
VO Recording Engineers: Robert Kessler, Andy Taub, Sami Perez, Matthew Voelker, Andrew Scanlan Terry Yervez
Wolf Sounds: Jon Olson
Foley by Wabi Wabi Sound
Foley Artist: Chris Julian
Foley Director: Ken Felton
Foley Engineer: Dave Nelson
Special Thanks: Tom Smurdon
Choreography and motion capture performance by Third Rail Projects
Artistic Directors: Jennine Willett & Zach Morris
Mom performed by Elizabeth Carena
Lucy performed by Elisa Davis
Brother and Dad performed by Kim Fischer
Additional performance by Andrew Broaddus, Brighid Green, Joseph Harris
Motion capture services provided by Activision Capture Studio
Senior Visual Director: Mike Sanders
Motion Capture Producer: Evan Button
Motion Capture Supervisor: Michael Jantz
Performance Capture Lead: Andre Lopez
FABLE
Leadership: Edward Saatchi, Pete Billington, Jessica Yaffa Shamash
General Manager: Kasey Morrison
Head of Operations: Megan McDonald
Chief Financial Officer: Truc Hoang
Financial Controller: Maureen Gottschall
Studio Accountant: Tim O'Connor
Executive Assistant: Heather Tahl
Studio Assistant: Cora Jaeschke
Additional support: Ryan Thomas, Ric Carrasquillo, Priyam Parikh, Florian Bernard, Philipp Maas, Maryyann Landlord
Business Development Consultant: Pouyan Afkary
Entertainment counsel: Chris Spicer, Vanessa Roman, Penelope Glass
Additional production services: R.C. Baral & Company Inc
OCULUS STORY STUDIO
Heads of Studio: Max Planck, Edward Saatchi, Saschka Unseld
Financial Controller: Maureen Gottschall
IT Department: Ryan Hoster
Office Manager: Christina Tanouye
Facilities Manager: Matt Doherty
OCULUS STUDIOS
Executive Producers: Colum Slevin, Yelena Rachitsky
Render engineering support by Disbelief ®
Programmers: Asher Norland, Scott Resnick, Alan Villani
President: Steve Ellmore
Associate Producer: Eleanor Robinson
Quality assurance services by Elevated Play, Babel - A Keywords Studio
Quality Assurance Manager: Danny Oleson
Quality Assurance Analyst: Jeff Custis
Special Thanks
Chris Horne, Shari Frilot, Yves Nougarède, Loren Hammonds, Myriam Achard, JJ Wiesler, Chris Horvath, Nick Whiting, Ryan Vance, Tyler Mah, Jordan Thomas, Mike Sanders, Jason Rubin, Dorian Dargan, Kat Bachert, Eric Cosky, Ichha Arora, Tyler Hurd.
Unreal Engine, SAG AFTRA, Powered by Wwise
Awards & Press Coverage
“There’s a depth of precision to Third Rail’s choreography that few others dare match, and that’s on display here in abundance.” – Noah Nelson, No Proscenium
Awards
2023 Peabody Awards
Lucy and the Wolves in the Walls wins a PEABODY AWARD in the new category of Immersive and Interactive.
The citation reads: ‘Lucy and the Wolves in the Walls’ is at its heart, a celebration of wonder. For its invitation to be curious at every corner, ‘Lucy and the Wolves in the Walls’ receives a Peabody.
2019 EMMY Awards
Wolves in the Walls: It’s All Over wins a 2019 EMMY Award for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Media (Juried) - 2019.
Press Coverage
VARIETY | Review | January 19, 2018
VR Review: ‘Wolves in the Walls’ By Janko Roettgers
“Fable Studio put a lot of work into making Lucy believable as an interactive character. This included teaming up with New York’s immersive theater company Third Rail for choreography and motion capture…”
No Proscenium | Review | April 25, 2019
Behind the Scenes: Making ‘Wolves in the Walls’ VR with Third Rail Projects (EXCLUSIVE); Fable’s Peter Billington writes about their collaboration with the immersive theatre company By Peter Billington for No Proscenium
”Many months later, through a combination of luck, timing and mutual friends, Jennine Willett and Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects arrived at our studio. After showing them an early prototype of Lucy, Zach asked, “What’s the major dramatic question?”
We weren’t prepared. We didn’t even understand the dialect. We knew about narrative arcs and proprioception, cognitive overload and color theory, but we had no clue how to answer his question. The next 48 hours was a period of thought expansion previously reserved for scenes in The Matrix. By the end, we knew that we desperately wanted to collaborate with them on this project.”
The Verge | Review | January 19, 2018
Wolves in the Walls is a virtual friendship wrapped in a detective story By Adi Robertson
”Wolves director and Fable co-founder Pete Billington says visiting Then She Fell was a pivotal moment for the team. Despite being dropped in the middle of a moving world, “you never felt like you needed to try and figure out where you should be looking. Your focus was always [on] where you needed to be, the moment it needed to be,” he says. “We realized that was exactly what we wanted to do in virtual reality.”
VR Geschicten | Review | July 26, 2019
Wolves in the Walls: Immersive Theater Goes Virtual by Pola Weiß
“Wolves in the Walls was created by an interdisciplinary team—which isn’t unusual for VR. However, next to the filmmakers and game designers, a third type of expertise joined the fray: no less than renowned theater group Third Rails Projects, who have become a success in New York through their widely-acclaimed play, Then She Fell”.
Meta | Feature | November 20, 2020
VR Films for the Whole Family: ‘Wolves in the Walls’ and ‘SPHERES’ Join ‘Gloomy Eyes’ and ‘The Line’ on Oculus Quest By Blog Meta Quest
”Based on the award-winning children’s book written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean, Wolves in the Walls blends an AI-powered protagonist and choreography from immersive theater company Third Rail Projects to create a uniquely compelling and emotionally engaging experience unlike what’s come before it in VR.”
Animation Magazine | Feature | April 14, 2023
‘Bob’s Burgers,’ ‘El Deafo,’ ‘Wolves in the Walls’ Among Peabody Nominees By Mercedes Milligan
“Through the endearing and earnest narrative of Lucy and her quest to find the source of mysterious happenings in her house, this wonderful interactive VR fable based on the book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, which continues in Lucy’s extended life across platforms, invites us along to explore the fine line between imagination and reality and reminds us of that liminal space of possibility that we occupy as children.”