Baobab's Bonfire VR episode
Baobab's Bonfire VR episode
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Inside the making of Baobab’s latest VR short, Bonfire

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Baobab Studios took the wraps off its next original virtual reality creation yesterday, debuting a trailer for the short VR film Bonfire. The full episode will debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York this week. I was able to play the episode on the Oculus Rift headset, and I talked with its creators about how this cute and interactive story came together.

Baobab’s VR tales stand out as masterful storytelling, which has enabled the company to win two Emmy awards and lots of kudos for its previous VR creations — Invasion!, Asteroids!, Jack, and Crow: The Legend. I’ve come to expect good things from the creative team that includes Eric Darnell, cofounder of Baobab and the creator of the animated Madagascar films. Headed by CEO Maureen Fan, the company raised $25 million in 2016, largely on the promise of what these film properties could become.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.