By Mohammad Gorjestani
This last month, Volio, the company I co-founded 2 years ago and head creative for, launched in a partnership with Esquire Magazine.
Volio is an interactive storytelling platform that basically feels like a “facetime” or “skype” experience except the person you’re talking to isn’t live. We take pre-recorded scripted video segments of a talking head and let you engage in a bit of a choose-your-adventure re-imagined type of way, powered by your voice.
Volio is another product and example of the merger between tech and creative thats happening around the current innovation renaissance we are a part of. One of my mission critical objectives is to get volio in the hands of writers and filmmakers and just see what they do with it. What we did with Esquire is just one example of what this platform can do, I’m itching to see what others come up with.
Sometimes as a filmmaker its easy to get a bit narrow on what your skillset really is. I think i had an “aha” realization when i understood that before I’m a filmmaker I’m really a storyteller. Don’t get me wrong theres nothing I love more than film and the thought of making them, but theres innovation happening around storytelling and I don’t know if there are better storytellers qualified to engage in that innovation than filmmakers.
Volio was my portal into this realization and I’m excited to share it with all of you. Check out the esquire app here: http://appstore.com/TalktoEsq
PS. You might have already read about Volio here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/volio-esquire-app-expert-human-siri_n_2923789.html
Here a video of esquire’s editor in chief talking about volio and the launch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9UI43seL3Q
Mohammad Gorjestani is a is an Iranian-American filmmaker, creative director, and entrepreneur currently living in San Jose, CA. He is currently in the writing phase of his first feature film, “Somehow These Days Will Be Missed”, which has received the prestigious KRF Grant from the San Francisco Film Society.
