Buzz, Woody, Little Bo Peep, and the rest of the toys are back in the film Toy Story 4. This time, they’ve got a new friend, Forky joining them in their adventures! ARPost chatted with Jason Yim, CEO and Executive Creative Director at Trigger. He discusses working with Disney, Pixar, and Regal, and how mobile phones with AR can use the Regal Cinemas App on iOS to bring the characters to life.
Juanita: Share a bit with us about your role with the Toy Story 4 Augmented Reality App.
Jason: Trigger worked directly with Disney and Pixar to create and integrate an augmented reality experience into the official Regal Cinemas app. Fans can place their favorite Toy Story 4 characters into the real world, where they will strike their favorite poses. Fans can even tap a “Bonnie’s Coming!” button to have the characters fall to the floor and pretend to be inanimate objects when humans are nearby.
Juanita: Tell us a bit about the Trigger, Disney, Pixar, and Regal collab for Toy Story 4.
Jason: 10 years ago, Trigger was the lead agency on the Toy Story 3 digital campaign and official franchise site for Disney and Pixar. We are also the developer for Moviebill, which is Regal’s current AR channel in their app. So the stars felt very much aligned, and we were honored to get to work again with some of our favorite characters of all time. The Regal app has millions of users who already engage in AR content, so it’s the perfect vehicle to deliver the Toy Story 4 experience to a receptive audience.
Juanita: Is the AR experience interactive?
Jason: Yes, fans choose from 7 different characters to bring to life in AR. Fan favorites such as Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Bo Peep, along with Forky and a couple other new characters from Toy Story 4, animate into several favorite poses. Users can also scan three different Toy Story 4 movie posters to see them come to life in AR — from animated backgrounds to Woody leaning out of his poster in 3D!
Juanita: That’s so cool! We can’t wait to see it!
Working with iOS, was ARkit used to create the experience?
Jason: Yes, we used ARKit to bring Toy Story characters to life in augmented reality. Trigger has over 150,000 hours of experience developing augmented and mixed reality experiences.
Juanita: Is the app available worldwide?
Jason: The Regal Cinema app is currently a US-only app.
Juanita: Will it be released for Android too? If so, when?
Jason: At this time the experience is only available on iOS.
