At the heart of an industrial revolution is an innovation that changes everything. Building AI Boston sees artificial intelligence as a renaissance. From the heart of innovation and the mecca of tech learning, we bring you AI for real people. A conversation for everyone. Our guest today is Jason Parks. He's the CEO and founder of ROTU Entertainment, which leads the digital storytelling revolution. This media company is sought after by everyone from Disney Plus to Meta to Hollywood Legends, as well as global philanthropic organizations. ROTU is multifaceted, specializing in creating real-time worlds, and offers extensive production support across films, TV, advertising, live events, simulations, and games. Jason is also a musician and composer, and today we break down why AI makes this local legend a tour-de-force storyteller from Boston and beyond. Hey, Jason, welcome to the show. Oh, it's nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Hey, for such a tech guy, I have to brag about your background. Tell us where you are and why that is not a virtual background. It's real trees and grass. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm in the home office here, and when you put a lot of hours, especially in tech in front of a screen, you want to feel like you're in nature at least. You want to have a big open windows. And so I went ahead and built myself a small office here facing a state park here in Massachusetts, and I got to say I absolutely love it, one of the best decisions I ever made. That's good looking out for your mental health, my friend. Thank you. And did I get that right? Of all the rules that you played, do you like to be known mostly as a storyteller? I would say so, absolutely. My whole team at ROTU at our core were storytellers. We come from Berkeley College of Music, so we had this experience where we were impromptu, like we had international students from around the world, and we would improvise and play music with each other, and that led into more than just music, but storytelling, and that really drove where we are today. That's cool. What were you like as a kid? Were you into tech? Were you into sci-fi? What were you like? All of it. I think some of my first words were try describing Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game, and then I went, you know, if I wasn't doing this, I'd probably be a marine biologist. I just absolutely love and grew up near the water and just fell in love with snorkeling and surfing and fishing down in South Florida, in Jupiter, Florida, where I grew up, and on top of that, though, I fell in love with movies as well. I have a major in film scoring, so at one point in my life, I thought I would be writing music for movies, and it's only helped me grow and be able to do what I do, but really as a kid, though, I think the number one thing was planting and growing and nature, getting out and having the dirt in my fingers. As you can sort of tell it, it still lingers today. I just have to be near it at least. That is so cool. I have to say that's the best mix of for an origin story that I think I've heard, and it makes me excited because sometimes I think that people that specialize in tech are looking to kind of, I don't know, pretend that the natural world doesn't exist, kind of try to block it out or block out maybe some of the bad news, or rather than what I feel like a lot of your projects go to is which is enhancing and preserving nature and storytelling and culture. So this is going to be a story near and dear to our hearts. I want to, for non-technical people like me, one of the things that I noticed though in looking at your reels that I'm super impressed with is everybody from these Hollywood moguls to gamers, everybody at the top of their field mentioned something about your team that you're able to create fast in real time, that you can just pop this image in here or you can, you know, why is it so important to you that you guys shave off weeks and months and get into the creative collaboration process so quickly? Why does that feel like it's part of your DNA as a creative person? That's a very good question and it's a multifaceted answer, but to be specific about it, it really comes from how we evolved as a company and as a team of creatives. It sort of just happened where we started as musicians, as I mentioned, out of Berkeley College of Music. We wrote a song where we brought 90 musicians from 90 different countries together, wrote a song of peace, and we then had a sold out show at Symphony Hall where we performed it live. And after that we started working with nonprofits and all sorts of really interesting companies. And we started with doing live shows. You might remember Flash Mobs. We used to pop out from under tables. We did the Harvard's Public Health Department's 100th anniversary where we popped out from the tables and AmeriCares. We did that for them too. And ultimately we started by realizing, oh, we got to put on these big live productions quickly at that time, a very small budget. And we learned how to just do more with less. And that slowly evolved into realizing, okay, we're doing live shows. Now we need to create content for the back of the screen. What are we showcasing behind us? We then start to get better at some video editing skills. And outside of me spilling the whole beans on exactly what our history is, it just allowed us to propel quickly, to find ways to utilize what we know and do it faster because we were forced to. And then when we got into technology and when we got into using real time graphic engines like Unreal, it just was already a part of our DNA where we're a small team that wants to look like what a team of 10, 20, or 30 does, that ultimately what a team of 500 would look like. So we wanted to always push the boundaries of what we were capable of doing. And that just eventually led and infiltrated into every part of our development cycle. Wow. It reminds me of Industrial Light and Magic. Hey, Chris, I mean, who wouldn't want to work with that? Right? Yeah, absolutely. So hearing all that, hearing what your background is and sort of what you're passionate about, what are the projects that resonate the most with you that you've done? Oh, oh, good question. So I always like to think of ROTU as having sort of this split off point where it's almost in three segments. One, we lived as far back as 2012 doing live shows and music videos. If anybody here in Massachusetts might remember, outside the box, which was in the Boston Commons, we had over 200 performers representing over 100 different countries on stage doing three-hour show in the middle of the Boston Commons in front of, I believe, 20,000 people or so over the course of the evening. Wow. And so that was a monumental moment in the beginning of the company. And then at that time, too, we were invited to travel to the Peruvian Amazon and film the illegal gold mining happening there and in the deforestation as well. And we worked with the Amazon Aid Foundation to do this, and we produced a music video in a documentary that was seen at COP20 and COP21, the United Nations conferences. And that was very monumental, too. But then soon after, we tried virtual reality for the first time. And we were at the time thinking, hey, which direction do we want to take one of our big stories at ROTU, which is Rhythm of the Universe, the acronym of our company. And we were like, OK, what do we do then? Maybe we go down the Cirque du Soleil route. Maybe we do live show routes like we were doing. But then we tried VR and we're like, oh, wow, we were also all gamers and entertainment lovers. And we just realized, OK, this is what we want to do with the rest of our lives. I actually put on the HTC Vive when it first came out. I saw the whale go by and an experience called the blue and I was like, oh, this is what I'm doing with the rest of my life. And I've said this on stage many times. And ultimately, our first VR game was probably one of the most memorable and most important. So it took years to eventually get to a place where we produced and released our first VR title. But when we did, it was Ionia, which is, in our world, we turn music, theory, musical instruments, everything that encompasses music to a musician. We turn that into the lands, people, game, game arts, game mechanics. Like ultimately everything that encompasses a story and a game, we had that evolved from this music mythology rhythm of the universe idea we had. And our first game, Ionia, for any musicians out there, that's the first mode of music, Ionian mode. And it was Mother Earth and it's about saving the wildlife and the Locrians. One of the harsher of the modes of music. They were an industrial group that was coming in and deforest basically clearing the land and the animals. And this is all told in our first VR game and it's the first VR game to have a public nonprofit partnership. And that was why I believe both the history of ROTU and forming into this VR game and with the partnership with the Wildlife Warriors, the late Steve Irwin's organization, that that made it probably the most monumental project for us, even though we've gone to do even more insane things since then. Amazing. I know, it's incredible. I love the passion behind it. As you were talking, it kind of reminds me of the unexpected backstory of Tolkien. Like you wouldn't expect that this guy had this rich creative life and wanted to create a different language. It's almost like you use tech as a different way to express language and certainly as a creative. I don't know about you, Chris, but I just want to dive in. Oh, absolutely. Cool stuff with this guy. And I want to ask you now a little bit about your Boston connection, because obviously Berkeley School of Music and you've described that you came from Florida, but why did you stay there in Boston? I mean, what is it about that tech ecosystem that really appeals to you as a creative and really fuels what you do? You know, where a lot of people stay in Boston for the sports, I stay in Boston for the culture and the people in the history, right? It's just, how do I put this? Here in Boston, it's one of the few places I've experienced where I can meet people from around the world that are here because they're brilliant and they want to do better. They want to grow. They want to bring their skills to the world. And wherever else I go, of course you can find those people anywhere, but they are en masse here, right? They are aggregated here and I've just had a career of meeting those people and working with them for them. And I also love the history. I love the fact that Boston feels like a combination of old and new, where you still have buildings that feel like it's from a colonial time, but then also you have MIT, right? And you have architectural marvels that are absolutely beautiful. And so I could go on forever about it, but ultimately those are some of the reasons why I love Boston, why I stay here. Not to mention that I started a family here and we've decided to stay here and I have this, right? So I'm definitely not leaving anytime soon. It's that accessible. Oh, that's true. And I've seen that architecture cruising by MIT and all those funky, curvilinear buildings. And I think, yeah, it's pretty stimulating top to bottom. Exactly. And really, first and foremost, it's the people. This place has wonderful minds, both analytically and professionally, but also emotionally and spiritually. It's a wonderful group of people in Boston. True that. So you've told us, Jason, that how you came to be in this world and how your journey evolved what you're doing. If somebody's starting out in the world of digital creation today using AI, what sort of tools do you think would be best for them to sort of familiarize themselves with? Like, are there programs that you enjoy working with more than others, things that were easier for you early on? That's a great question. And I find that we're still in the wild, wild West and that any particular one that I mentioned now, I might not necessarily recommend even six months from now, right? Right. That's the incredible part about it is that I've used and stopped using tools that have only existed within the last year already. A great example of this for anybody who's in any type of 3D modeling or in real-time engine work is MESH. If anybody was at GDC this year, there was a giant booth there. They were the limelight for anything AI related. And this is a tool where it's web-based. You go in, you can, through a text prompt or through image prompt, be able to generate absolutely incredible three-dimensional models. Now, at ROTU, I find limitations in everything. So, for example, those models, even at their most limited capabilities, still can't really fit into virtual reality yet. They just have too many in for the audience, right? The more triangles, the more angles you have on a model, the harder it is for it to work on a VR headset is a way you can think about it. And so, even the VR tools still haven't been able to have an answer everything a developer needs. So, at ROTU, we look and utilize virtual, excuse me, AI tools in ways where they only enhance our capabilities instead of trying to rely on them. So, that would be my answer is that outside of a few examples that I'm using now, it's more about whatever you end up landing on, finding a way that fits into a pipeline and not necessarily trying to force a square into a round hole, right? Is that what is useful when is really the only way you should be using it. But then on a general level, getting very good at, you know, large language models and utilizing tools like chat GBT, the fullest extent capability of what they can do is probably where you would want to put any practice or effort into. Just because it helps iterate and ultimately allow you to figure out and get things done quicker, that, you know, pre-production is so important. And I find that tools like chat GBT are more helpful than almost anything else. So, it's like you're kind of learning the language of the tools that you use. Is that a fair assessment? How to approach it? Yeah, well, maybe I would use that analogy for the fact that we build out our own AI tools as well. Like when we build an AI expert, for example, we're looking and getting down to the bare bones and ultimately defining and learning the language that we can make to answer the questions we need, be it for a client or internal at road to. But for the case of what to use, it's more about, I wouldn't necessarily say language as much as I would say it's a really good question. I'm trying to think to be thoughtful here. The way that I'm saying it, I might have phrased it wrong, but when I'm saying the language, I mean, you're going to learn like whatever the nomenclature is, whatever the capabilities are of the tool that you're using, and then apply that to what it is that you are setting out to do. You know what? Yes, I will agree with that, but I'll add the caveat that a lot of the times these tools, what they advertise is the way they should be used is only a fraction of the way you actually can use them. And you find incredible ways to use tools that should have no place or business doing what they do for us. That's one of the brilliant things about AI, right? Is that it's just so incredibly expansive and capability. Absolutely. Wow. But okay, so I'm happy we stumbled upon you because I feel like you're one of the cool kids. And as you guys are talking, I'm like, why do you teach classes? Are you a mentor to anyone or are you just so immersed in creative projects that you don't have time to teach? Actually, I am a faculty member at Berkeley College of Music while I'm the CEO of ROTU. And I teach one class, and the reason I do that is because personally, I need practice speaking like I am right now, right? I find myself on stage or in front of a camera, almost on a monthly basis. And I find that if I don't practice outside of this interaction, I start to stumble over my words as I already have done a little bit in this call. And I've been way worse at it, right? So I use the opportunity personally to be able to think and speak in a way where I have control over what I say. But at the same time, I also at my core love being a teacher, and I don't want to give it up. And I tend to bring a lot of what I learn on a professional level to Berkeley College of Music, where I feel that musicians especially are, how do I put this? They aren't given the right credit where a lot of musicians are expected to just be a guitar player or a studio session player or a composer. But really what they are is a multifaceted and what I like to call creative polymaths. Like they are the seed to being able to do everything from video editing to working in a real-time engine like Unreal to working in Blender or Cinema 4D and be able to then tie all those skills together. I find that artists because of things like improvisation and having these concepts, like they lean toward this. Not to mention most artists now are also heavily involved in technology for what are called DAWs, digital audio workstations. I would agree with you and I'm going to put Chris and I both in that category. Chris, you have no choice. You have to follow my lead on this one because I think of what, you know, I think of podcasting as somewhat of an art. But just, you know, creative storytelling, which is something Chris really does well. And we were co-writers, we played off each other well. But, you know, I appreciate the analogy of music because I've plunked myself into places where I'm songwriting on an instrument like a guitar that I don't play. I know I have all my background in piano playing, but when someone sticks a guitar in my hand and says, this is an open tuning and it's not even going to sound like a guitar you've heard before, go ahead and figure some stuff out. It's the beginner mentality that I'm not afraid of. And I would say that about Chris, he's an improv warrior and we're very wildly creative to just get out of our own way and say, it's in the beautiful oops, it's in the mistakes, it's in the willing to just not be an expert that all that creative magic happens. So I'm going to ask you another AI question. When you think about the future of world building in immersive media, how do you see AI transforming how we generate characters or scripts and environments? Oh, the future is incredible. I mean, it's destructive, incredible at the same time. Paradigms will fall apart like we are going to change the way in which we even imagine a game or a film can be. And I believe that right now there's a lot of fear involved and rightfully so in some cases it is certainly destroying jobs and I don't think we should hide away from that. Ultimately, there are a lot of people, especially in the game industry right now that just flat out especially, you know, something as straightforward as what's a good example, concept art. I mean, right now what a company would spend tens of thousands of dollars on can be done in an evening by a single person. It's bridging a lot of the capabilities but like an intern is now capable of doing what someone at a mid-level development can do overnight. And that's going to be destructive, but at the same time it leads to a beautiful way of as we talked about at the beginning of this, like being able to do something. It's like being able to quickly iterate and a small team be able to do so much more quickly. And on top of that, farther in the future, we're not going to necessarily be building environments, asset by asset, scene by scene or game mechanic by game mechanic. That the next pixel, the next scene, the next frame will be drawn right before the frame just occurred, right? That ultimately it won't be manufactured ahead of time, it will just be developed. So a lot of what we will see will be people having their own experience even though it's the same film or the same game. It will be such a dramatically different telling of that story or that direction of story that a lot of storytellers are now going to start thinking way outside the box and that we won't necessarily have linear content. Or, and actually I take that back. I believe that we will have linear content. I think there's room for both. And a lot of people feel and are threatened, but the world is bigger. There's 8 billion people on the planet right now. There was half of that in the 70s. You know, there's more people than ever to consume. There's more things to consume. And so I believe that we're not going to lose traditional media, but we are certainly going to see it supplemented by immersive media in ways where you're watching a movie. And my experience by the end of that movie is probably going to be personalized to me alone. And no one else will be able to ever see the end of that movie the way I did. Okay, that's 2.0 of a conversation because you just blew my mind. Chris, I know. Chris, I want to tell you this. All the conversations I've had with Jason, I don't know what you can share, but you have told me friend that you literally have more incredible projects going on than can go into your reels because of NDA, because of things you can't say. And I'm mucho impressed. So, you know, I know Chris has a question about that, but I've seen behind the curtain and I don't know what you can talk about. Maybe we can wrap with something. Wow. But okay, so I know that you as Anna said, there's a lot that you're working on. What you can't talk about. Is there a project that's like a dream project for you that hasn't popped up on your radar yet? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh, I have a lot of vision as to where I want to go. The biggest of them are not even possible with the technology we have yet. It's what I believe will happen. I'm just happy that one of the reasons I love virtual reality so much and I got on board very early is because it's the straight up holodeck. It's the beginning. It's the seed of the holodeck from Star Trek. You know, especially like for me, next generation or Voyager, it is. Yeah. Actually, you go in there and children can learn from it. Adults can entertain themselves for it. And ultimately, it can, you can have someone design it or it can auto design for you. Right. And do we not have that seed by having the ability to dimensionalize space with virtual reality and augmented reality mixed reality to and then also have AI, which then can help build those stories in the future in a way that is more meaningful than anything we've ever seen. And so right now, my biggest project ideas are not possible, but I'm trying to work and make my way toward them on the more realistic side. You know, I'm building out a mixed reality title right now that is starting to push on some of those aspirations to where and actually I'm happy to share it here where we're creating a title called healer. And this is a mixed reality title. It's not the biggest mixed reality title in the world, but what it does well is has a beautiful modular environment to where and when you play your choices are ultimately building an environment around you that will never be seen by someone else. It will be customized to you and ultimately never be seen by you again. And so every time you play your environment will change and look different. And so this is a seed again of something I really see us moving forward with. And then the last way I would answer your question to is that I'm waiting to get a huge opportunity to do a and then of course the word is going to leave me as I need to say it, but Transmedia. I want to do one giant project where it all lives in Unreal Engine and I've done this to a degree in multiple ways, but ultimately it has a master project that drives a game that drives a film that drives the marketing and media requirements and then drives other forms of immersive media as well. And so that ultimately there isn't this thing where your main character has to be designed in this software and put into this film and then redesigned and put into this game, but ultimately one and I've said ultimately like 30 times now. 30 times now. I was going to do it again. You have this master project and is the beginning of what all projects and all media will operate as in the future and that there won't be this idea of isolated teams working on the same stuff. It'll just be one amazing. I want to live in that world. Chris, what about you? I don't know. I don't know. Right. He's trying not to say ultimately. Ultimately. I don't mind. Listen, I know we could break this down further. I know we're short on time. I just I can see a future where audiences co create experiences. It sounds like that's really where you're thinking along with that with AI and like real time immersive worlds. How close are we to that? What do you think? We already see small steps and stepping stones of it now. We are going to see great leaps and bounds for the tools developers will have over the next two, three years. And I think that is going to be consumer level in the way that I'm speaking in the next five. And again, this is me just guessing who knows right. Yeah, but ultimately I don't see it happening any. Yeah, let me say it like this. I see it occurring within the next five years and I would be shocked if it takes longer. Well, I want to live in the world that you live in, friend. I can see Chris is excited too. You give us a lot of and here's what I'm going to leave the audience with because I know this about your DNA too. I've been to your website, road to dot com. Any other shout out will put it in the liner notes because I literally think everyone should follow you. But what I appreciate most friend is that you are amazingly ultimately a positive guy and your team is ultimately positive, which I think is fantastic in today's environment. Thank you very much. And I, you know, I'd love to maybe hop on again and we can talk about all the philanthropic stuff we like to do here at Road to. We would love that. Stay tuned. Like and subscribe our show because people like Jason really really highlight why building AI Boston is a pleasure to moderate to see into the future and to participate in. We hope it's not the last time we see you friend. Come back. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for joining us on building AI Boston. Stay tuned for more enlightening episodes that put you at the forefront of the conversations shaping our future.
