Barbie Doll Adventures | The Cookie Disaster

A full VR production from blocking, rehearsing, shooting, & directing performances with MoCap actors. Some days all the new things I was learning in the headset & with the software had my head spinning. I’d go home and have dreams I was a Barbie or I was flying around dreamland with the camera tool. I had to be intentional so as not to let the technological learning curve get in the way of my creativity.

Episode 7 of Barbie Doll Adventures is called The Cookie Disaster but all the script said was “the Girls scream.” I had an idea to pull from the Indian blockbuster RRR and make an interior cave out of cookies that would block out the sun and split all the Barbies into their own claustrophobic cookie nightmare. I was almost certain it’d get shot down, but the higher ups love the movie I referenced and thought it was hilarious.

It would have been easy to watch a bunch of Barbie movies and regurgitate the references & style but it was a worthwhile challenge to bring inspiration from the most outlandish places & make it work in this context; to try things I’ve never had the budget to do on shoots with real cameras and locations. To my surprise— the iPad kids are eating it up and The Cookie Disaster is the most watched episode in the series.