In The Room with Nile Rodgers

Meeting a Music Legend

In The Room with Nile Rodgers is a web and VR experience that enables fans to uncover insights from a lifetime in music as they meet Nile Rodgers face to face in this virtual encounter. From personal challenges to public triumphs, fans can ask Nile over 300 handpicked questions that uncover his remarkable journey to becoming one of the world’s most influential songwriters, artists and producers.

Inspiring and engaging, this voice-interactive experience for music lovers includes extensive exclusive footage, bringing audiences closer than ever to the man whose career stretches from the advent of disco and hip-hop, to Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna, Daft Punk and beyond.

A Digital Portrait

This ambitious project was created as a world first immersive and truly multi-platform digital portrait of a living artist. Our aim was to create a meaningful and authentic experience where visitors could actually interact with Nile and get a real sense of him as a person.

We worked in partnership with Universal Music Group, his fans and close associates at Abbey Road Studios to develop a question set that encompassed his life, his interests and his character. Nile was filmed Nile over two days in a London recording studio, using state of the art technology to capture footage in 8k resolution, 3D.

We created two core experiences for audiences to enjoy. The first was an online experience, enabling fans to access the content directly via a browser on mobile devices or on desktop. We also created a high definition VR experience, using the full 8k media and high resolution HTC Vive headset for the best possible quality experience.

The digital portrait is personal and rich, enabling you to delve deep into his wit, wisdom and life story.

Working Partnership

The experience was developed in association with Universal Music and the National Portrait Gallery, and with the involvement of Abbey Road Studios where Nile is Chief Creative Advisor. We worked closely with InnovateUK, and the research, design and delivery taken forward by a consortium led by In The Room, including Bright White Ltd and Manchester Metropolitan University School of Digital Arts. Our film partner, Pollen Studios managed the recording and post production processes of the media.

Innovation

In The Room with Nile Rodgers contains within it a number of firsts. Not only is it the world’s first multi-platform voice driven experience featuring a major recording artist, but also contains a range of cutting edge technical processes, combining voice recognition, AI, and exclusive video content.

From a production perspective, innovation ran through the whole project lifecycle from initial prototyping and data structuring through to filming two days worth of 8K stereoscopic video of Nile, with bespoke workflows created to manage large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.

Success

As well as the positive critical response In The Room with Nile Rodgers has enjoyed, the results have surpassed expectations. The equivalent of 8% of Nile’s digital fanbase have engaged with the experience, with an average dwell time is twice as long as a standard website. For the VR experience, 50% of people who tried the immersive encounter checked out Nile’s music in the two weeks following.

"With music fans' ability to attend live shows temporarily halted, In The Room’s digital experiences can provide something special for audiences, and a new tool for artists to connect individually with the fans worldwide who support them."

— Universal Music UK

Visit the In The Room with Nile Rodgers website.