Mr. Anthony Brown reports

AMPD AND SHOCAP ENTERTAINMENT PARTNER TO ACCELERATE DEVELOPMENT IN LIVE REAL-TIME VIRTUAL PERFORMANCE AND DISTRIBUTION

AMPD Ventures Inc. has partnered with Shocap Entertainment Ltd. to conduct a number of joint projects and R&D (research and development) initiatives focused on innovation in virtual production technologies and high performance computing infrastructure for live performance.

Shocap is a Vancouver-based company that produces cutting-edge, live cross-reality entertainment harnessing real-time visual effects technology and on-stage human performance to create unique shared experiences for in-venue audiences and on-line participants simultaneously. The company was formed in April, 2020, by Brett Ineson, president and chief technology officer at Animatrik Film Design, a leader in virtual production and real-time filmmaking for films, games and XR (X reality), alongside Athomas Goldberg, president at Lifelike & Believable Animation Design, an expert in interactive 3-D character tools and technologies for triple-A games and virtual reality experiences.

With financing from the Epic Games MegaGrant program, and support from the Canada Media Fund and Creative BC, Shocap's first project, LiViCi, for live and virtual contemporary circus, is a real-time blended reality theatrical and virtual on-line performance in partnership with Montreal's Les 7 Doigts de la Main arts collective. LiViCi aims to advance Shocap's mission to create new and exciting shared experiences that combine the visual expressivity of computer animation and visual effects with the emotional immediacy of live performance. Shocap utilizes a range of professional real-time virtual production tools, such as the Unreal Engine, Optitrack, Ncam and Pixotope, alongside internally developed proprietary systems to generate the awesome power of 3-D animation and believable CG (computer graphics) avatars in real time. The company also recently announced that it is employing its advanced technology to bring Vancouver's historic Palomar Supper Club back to life in XR, with a live-streamed show featuring Jill Barber and her Phantom Jazz Band on Nov. 20, 2020, in collaboration with Live Nation Canada.

AMPD's technological expertise across animation, visual effects and on-line game development and distribution means that it is ideally positioned to help Shocap in a number of areas, from designing and refining its in-studio tech pipeline, through to the challenges of distributing Shocap's blended reality performances to thousands of users around the world.

"AMPD has been working with digital creators for nearly 20 years to help them design, plan and budget the technical components of their complex digital media projects," said Anthony Brown, chief executive officer of AMPD. "Shocap is innovating in an exceptionally exciting way, and we are pleased to support them where we can through our recently announced AMPD lab initiative and beyond. A hands-on approach to problem solving is totally aligned with our project-based approach to innovation, and we expect the outcomes of this partnership to have broad application as we explore the fringes of the metaverse with both entertainment and enterprise applications."

"AMPD's involvement will contribute in a meaningful way to Shocap as we explore the technology and infrastructure components of our road map," said Athomas Goldberg, executive director at Shocap Entertainment. "Our platform fuses real-time virtual production and VFX, along with the interactive components of on-line games. AMPD's dedication to eliminating latency with their high performance, compute-at-the-edge approach, along with their understanding of the multiple technologies we're combining represents a huge advantage for us," added Mr. Goldberg.

One of the first direct outcomes of the partnership is a joint initiative at the leading edge in virtual production, and in expanding XR for arts and entertainment. Working with researchers at Simon Fraser University in big data, visual computing and machine learning, the umbrella project includes exploring predictive motion capture technology in low-latency, high performance computing pipelines and distribution networks. The debut project is supported by provincial and federal programs.

The parties expect to continue to explore initiatives to the mutual benefit of both, as well as the broader digital media industry and creative ecosystem.

About AMPD Ventures Inc.

AMPD specializes in providing high performance cloud and computing solutions for low-latency applications, including video games and e-sports, digital animation and visual effects, and big data collection, analysis and visualization.

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