Félix Lajeunesse
The Virtual Reality Pioneer
As the co-founder of the Emmy award-winning immersive entertainment studio Felix & Paul Studios, Félix Lajeunesse has created AR, VR, and MR originals like Space Explorers with NASA, Traveling While Black with Roger Ross Williams, and The Confessional with Judd Apatow. His studio calls both LA and Montréal home, which perfectly reflects its unique blend of creativity (hello, Hollywood) and technology (Montreal’s VFX, AI, blockchain, and VR scene). Félix met the studio’s other co-founder, Paul Raphaël, while studying film at Montréal’s Concordia University; after school, he teamed up with Paul to produce the world’s first VR film, Strangers with musician Patrick Watson. “The main struggle was to ‘make the leap’ from the established world of film and television, to the totally uncharted world of virtual reality,” Felix told Voyage Houston. The rest, as they say, is VR history. For the past decade, the duo have been trailblazers in the field, working on immersive cinema for franchises like Jurassic World and Wild, and collaborating with the likes of the Obamas, Eminem and Wes Anderson.
Projects
The studio’s focus for the past few years has been on the human space experience. An official NASA partner, the duo first worked on the virtual reality series Space Explorers. Now, brave guests with strong stomachs can climb aboard the International Space Station (ISS) via THE INFINITE, an immersive space experience in Houston. It’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. In 2019, Felix & Paul took us on an intimate ride through Eminem’s hometown in Marshall From Detroit, and in 2017, they won an Emmy for Original Interactive Program for The People’s House: Inside the White House With Barack and Michelle Obama. Their most recent project, an AR version of 1987’s Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: The Seven Ravens, premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival in summer 2023.
