Cory Stillman
The TV Academy first began awarding an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Television Programming in 2002, but the category’s options were slim. HBO’s Band of Brothers took home the trophy for its incorporation of onscreen factoids, beating out, well, zero other nominees. The category has since been renamed “Outstanding Emerging Media Program” and has grown into a legitimate yearly competition amongst the ever-increasing array of VR projects created for such technologies as the Meta Quest and the Apple Vision Pro. Owners of such a device are therefore encouraged to check out the mind-blowing work from composer and executive producer Nadeem Majdalany, whose La Pandora’s Box is among the most innovative concert films in entertainment history.
La Pandora’s Box is an immersive cinematic concert featuring live performers and musicians, conveying its story through sound and an evolving array of musical stylings.
“I conceived this idea of a box that has many doors,” says Majdalany of his creative vision. “There are 21 doors around it, and behind every one of those doors is a different artistic venue. In the case of La Pandora’s Box, it’s 21 different music scores.”
Majdalany, whose credits range from the 2025 thriller Deadly Vows to the hit MTV series Catfish: The TV Show, lends a deep philosophical sense to La Pandora’s Box, drawing from his own fundamental belief that “everything is random and chaotic, but in the chaos there is beauty, and in the dissonance there is harmony.”
The experience of watching Majdalany’s immersive concert film is profoundly chaotic, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions and immerse themselves in their own favorite parts of this sprawling ensemble.
“VR changes music and art by allowing you to sit inside a performance, to see firsthand and up close how everything is interacting,” says Majdalany.
La Pandora’s Box features such iconic percussionists as MB Gordy and Cory Hills, as well as the singer-songwriter duo Carmen and Camille, who performed on the Jewel Marimba, which is a brand-new version of the instrument making its world premiere here. The film also features William Close, creator of the Earth Harp, playing a violin jacket, among countless other notable talents bringing unique instruments to life.
Majdalany hopes projects such as his inspire a greater variety of immersive experiences moving forward.
” I really enjoyed Gloomy Eyes, but most of what I’ve experienced has been games,” Majdalany says of the cozy horror co-op. “So it’s great to have some non-gaming VR experiences.”
Check out our full conversation with Majdalany below as we dive deeper into this one-of-a-kind project in the thick of the Emmys race!
Hi Nadeem! Could you first explain to our readers what La Pandora’s Box is and how you conceived of the idea?
Well, it’s an immersive cinematic concert. It’s an XR immersive cinematic concert featuring live performers and musicians, where you are sitting inside an immersive world that changes around an evolving story. The story itself is the musical score taking place around you. I love chance. I love the idea of randomness and the universe just having fun with us. I thought to myself: what if I could do that with music? Because that’s what I love. I love writing music. It’s my passion, it’s my career, it’s everything to me. So I conceived this idea of a box that has many doors. In fact, there are 21 doors around it, and behind every one of those doors is a different artistic avenue. In the case of La Pandora’s Box, it’s 21 different music scores. Everything is random and chaotic, but in the chaos there is beauty, and in the dissonance there is harmony. That’s my philosophical take on our lives. We come into each other’s lives randomly and sometimes chaotically, sometimes harmoniously. Sometimes we cause dissonance and friction, and ultimately everything ends up being resolved one way or another.
With that philosophy in mind, how do you believe VR or XR technology changes an audience’s experience of music and performance?
Well, when you’re watching this, you’re fully immersed inside of it, so you’re not escaping anything. It’s around you 360 degrees. I think the way VR changes music and art is by allowing you to sit inside a performance, to see firsthand and up close how everything is interacting – the musicians, the environment, all of it.
Do you find that it also changed how your artists performed the music?
Oh, I did not tell them they were performing for VR. I told none of them that.
Really?
Yeah…I didn’t want them overthinking what was going to be happening around them. I just wanted them to execute the music perfectly.
When I first learned about this project, the thing that boggled my mind was its technical prowess, like the 12K raw true-360-degree visual quality. It’s pretty unprecedented. Could you talk a little bit about how you achieved that, and what made you want to pursue that level of quality?
When we wanted to do this, I asked my technical director and DP, David, “how can we shoot this?” He said the only camera that would work for something like this was the Kandao Obsidian Pro.
So we went about figuring out how to acquire the camera. The whole process was basically learning by trial and error. As we went along, we kind of wrote the book on how to do this, because there really wasn’t a manual for us to reference, which was really difficult.
Radiant Images had the camera. I just walked into their office and introduced myself. We had a very pleasant conversation. I ended up sitting with the CEO, Michael Mansouri, and told him what we wanted to do. He said it was really bold and that we would run into a lot of problems. He was right, but we did it. It was a very difficult road, because even after production, post-production was a mountain. But we had the best rotoscopers and compositors – a whole team of amazing VFX people – and David really held the post-production together.
Let’s talk a little more about the music itself. What was your overall sonic vision for how you wanted it to sound and feel? Who were some of the key collaborators?
The score is composed in a unique way. I drew the staff as a circle when I was initially writing and beginning the composition process. I don’t want to give away all my secrets, but I worked with some very unique formulas to come up with the primary melodic row. Once I had that composed, I built a room of mirrors. I put the circle with all the music written on it inside the room of mirrors, and looking into the mirrors gave me many, almost infinite, scales, materials, and melodies from that one circled melody. Then I composed the piece from there.
The unique thing about the score when it’s performed is that no one starts at the same time. One person starts, then a ballerina brings a score to another person, and another person, and another person. They’re all layered on top of each other.
Sometimes the music is harmonious and sometimes dissonant. That execution of the score represents the philosophical idea I was talking about earlier.
You mentioned a ballerina…what other instruments and performers were prominent?
We had Devin Taylor on cimbasso and tuba, a very fun instrument.
One of my favorite human beings, Ryan Glass, is a clarinetist extraordinaire. At one point, he felt so moved during his performance that he stood up mid-performance and started dancing while playing the clarinet, then sat back down and continued where he left off. I absolutely loved that spontaneity.
On percussion, we had MB Gordy, Cory Hills, and Carmen and Camille, who are an amazing songwriting duo. They performed on the Jewel Marimba, which is a brand-new marimba from Marimba One, and we were the first to premiere it. We also had Matt Scott performing an aerial routine with Amanda Ruth Ritchie. Lena Fumi played what I call the “floating gamelan,” which she performed while bent backward, using both her hands and feet. And we had William Close, creator of the Earth Harp, playing a violin jacket. Lots and lots of noteworthy humans.
As someone who has now put together a monumental project in the immersive/emerging media space, where do you see the technology going from here? What excites you most about the state of emerging media today?
I think it’s really going to take off in cinema and concerts. If we start producing more immersive concerts, whether it’s a pop concert, a coffee shop-style performance, or a string quartet, I think concerts are definitely the way to go. And I’d love to see cinema designed specifically for 360. I think that would be amazing.
Have you experienced much immersive cinema yourself?
Not really. I really enjoyed Gloomy Eyes, but most of what I’ve experienced has been games. So it’s great to have some non-gaming VR experiences.
If you had to identify a few favorite moments in La Pandora’s Box, what would they be?
One of my favorite moments is in Act One. There’s a fish floating through the sky. It’s really beautiful and magical. I love that scene with the music. Another favorite is the end credits, where you can see all the different worlds we created passing by. That’s really fun. And my absolute favorite is the choir at the end of Act Three. It’s just so peaceful and haunting. I can’t really describe it. It just feels beautiful to me.
Is there anything else you’d like audiences to know about the project? Also, how can audiences find and watch the film?
It’ll be available on the Meta Horizon Store at the end of this month. That’s where people can find it for now, and then we’ll expand to other platforms later.
As for what audiences should know, I would just say experience it. I don’t want to say “go enjoy it,” because that sounds like I’m telling people how to feel. It’s an experience, something surreal and spiritual that may awaken something in you.
It is available on the Meta Horizon Store now.
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