Crow: The Legend
Larry Cutler is Chief Technical Officer of the Emmy award winning and leading VR animation studio Baobab Studios, whose mission is to inspire you to dream by bringing out your sense of wonder. Started by industry leaders Maureen Fan (Zynga VP of Games, Farmville Franchise), Eric Darnell (Director of all 4 Madagascar films), and Larry Cutler (Dreamworks’ Head of Character Tech, Pixar TD Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Oscar tech judge), the company’s Emmy-award winning VR animation, INVASION!, starring Ethan Hawke, launched to substantial critical acclaim and has become the top downloaded VR app. In a first, Hollywood is taking IP from VR to become a feature film: Roth Kirschenbaum Films (Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman) has signed on to adapt INVASION! into a big screen feature film flattie.
Baobab Studios first VR experience INVASION! garnered laurels from film festivals globally including Sundance, Toronto, Cannes and is currently a top ranking download on major VR platforms including Oculus, VIVE, PSVR, Samsung, Within, Hulu and others. Their follow up experience ASTEROIDS! starring Elizabeth Banks was an official 2017 selection for both Sundance and Cannes and recently won the “Outstanding Interactive Media” 2018 Daytime Emmy. Crow: The Legend, their most recent production, stars John Legend, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Eagle Heart, Randy Edmonds, Liza Koshy, Tye Sheridan, Diego Luna, and Constance Wu and world premiered at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival.
Baobab was named Most Innovative Company for 2018 in the VR/AR category by Fast Company. Baobab has raised $31M to date making them one of the largest independent VR studios today. Baobab’s vision is to create experiences with the empathy of film, the agency of games, and ultimately the motivation of real life.
Larry brings deep technical leadership over the past 20 years in the area of animation creation and development. Larry currently serves on the Digital Imaging Technology Subcommittee for the Oscar Technical Achievement Awards. He was most recently the Vice President of Solutions at Metanautix, a big data analytics startup company (acquired by Microsoft). Previously, Larry was Global Head of Character Technology at Dreamworks Animation, leading character development, animation workflow, rigging, and character simulation. Larry began his career at Pixar Animation Studios as a Technical Director on the films Monster’s Inc., Toy Story 2, and A Bug’s Life. Larry holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.
