The Woman Behind the World’s First Road Trip Gets the VR Treatment in Emmy Contender ‘Trailblazer’ - Next, It Becomes a Feature Film
Daisy Ridley narrates the singer Studios-created VR project, soon to be a feature from executive producer and “All Quiet on the Western Front” writer Lesley Paterson.
Sixty-six miles might not sound like a long road trip, but in 1888, Bertha Benz’s drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany was a historic journey. Bertha, the wife of automobile inventor Karl Benz, made the first long-distance drive in history, back when the vehicle was still a prototype, and the roads were barely there, and such a voyage was a revolution.
That journey is the subject of Singer Studios’ virtual-reality (VR) experience “Trailblazer: The Untold Story of Bertha Benz,” directed by Eloise Singer, who wrote the project with Jedidjah Noomen, and narrated by Daisy Ridley. The immersive project became available for users to try for themselves this past May via Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3, after playing at the Venice, Cannes, and SXSW film festivals, among others. “Trailblazer” is now a contender in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category at the Primetime Emmys; Singer’s “The Pirate Queen,” starring Lucy Liu, received a nomination in 2024. The category launched under its current iteration in 2023, previously existing under different names for projects spun out of series like “Mr. Robot,” “Westworld,” “For All Mankind,” “Stranger Things,” and more.
“Trailblazer” uses an escape-room-style puzzle environment to put you in the head and at the wheel of Bertha as she embarks on her journey, guided by Ridley‘s narration. The 20-minute experience walks you through her workshop, inviting you to help assemble the world’s first motorcar, and take a drive through a recreated landscape of 1888 Germany. Her road trip was fraught with challenges that “Trailblazer” allows you to experience firsthand, all while coming up with the novel solutions that Bertha devised to complete her journey.
Sixty-six miles might not sound like a long road trip, but in 1888, Bertha Benz’s drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim in Germany was a historic journey. Bertha, the wife of automobile inventor Karl Benz, made the first long-distance drive in history, back when the vehicle was still a prototype, and the roads were barely there, and such a voyage was a revolution.
That journey is the subject of Singer Studios’ virtual-reality (VR) experience “Trailblazer: The Untold Story of Bertha Benz,” directed by Eloise Singer, who wrote the project with Jedidjah Noomen, and narrated by Daisy Ridley. The immersive project became available for users to try for themselves this past May via Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest 3, after playing at the Venice, Cannes, and SXSW film festivals, among others. “Trailblazer” is now a contender in the Outstanding Emerging Media Program category at the Primetime Emmys; Singer’s “The Pirate Queen,” starring Lucy Liu, received a nomination in 2024. The category launched under its current iteration in 2023, previously existing under different names for projects spun out of series like “Mr. Robot,” “Westworld,” “For All Mankind,” “Stranger Things,” and more.
“Trailblazer” uses an escape-room-style puzzle environment to put you in the head and at the wheel of Bertha as she embarks on her journey, guided by Ridley‘s narration. The 20-minute experience walks you through her workshop, inviting you to help assemble the world’s first motorcar, and take a drive through a recreated landscape of 1888 Germany. Her road trip was fraught with challenges that “Trailblazer” allows you to experience firsthand, all while coming up with the novel solutions that Bertha devised to complete her journey.
“During the awards circuit for ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ which I co-wrote and executive-produced, I was doing a lot of publicity, and Netflix hooked me up with Eloise,” executive producer Lesley Paterson, who co-wrote the quadruple Oscar winner with director Edward Berger and screenwriter Ian Stokell, told IndieWire at Cannes. “We did a big podcast with her, and it was pretty wild. We hit it off immediately, and, of course, I said to her afterwards, ‘We have to do something together.’ And she was like, ‘yeah, bloody right.'”
“I thought she was just being nice. This woman had just been nominated for a million Oscars, and I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely, for sure.’ I at that time didn’t know Lesley as well. She is the most honest, transparent person, so when she says something, she genuinely means it. Cut to: Les goes on, wins all of the Oscars and the BAFTAs, I’m there sitting on my sofa being like, ‘Go Lesley! I met her once.’ A year later, I was nominated for the Emmys for ‘Pirate Queen,’ so I was flying back to LA, and there was this blond woman sitting in front of me,” and it was Lesley Paterson. “We went to dinner the next night, and I told her about ‘Trailblazer,’ and that was it.”
“It’s such a good story, and integral to both our DNAs, untold stories especially [about] women. I think Eloise just has such a lovely way in, using the VR experience to attract top names, build relationships with that, to be able to parlay that into feature films and TV series, which she’s done with ‘Pirate Queen,'” said Paterson. That VR project featured Liu as the 18th-century Chinese pirate leader Cheng Shih, which Singer expanded into a podcast.
Ridley’s arrival as the narrator in “Trailblazer” started with Eloise Singer’s experience as a food stylist on Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 Agatha Christie film “Murder on the Orient Express.”
“When we were planning on casting [‘Trailblazer’]… we spoke to [Ridley’s] agents, and Daisy fortunately came back and said ‘yes’ in two days,” Singer said. “She loved the story. She loved the narrative. When we started recording, she said, ‘I remember you from “Murder on the Orient”… because the food on that project was so good, and I remember it so well… She’s an amazing human and amazing artist and in it because she wants to tell amazing stories.”
Now, Paterson is set to write the feature film version of “Trailblazer” on the heels of her Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front,” as The Hollywood Reporter announced during Cannes. It’s a rare VR-to-feature evolution that should hopefully signal more in the future as the technology becomes more accessible and hopes to find reach beyond film festivals. Will Brosch serves as the lead artist on “Trailblazer,” which is now available on the Meta Quest platform.
“We’ve been developing out the treatment, and hopefully we’ll go to script pretty soon,” Paterson said of the feature film version. “We’ll be looking for the right kind of director. The idea is for a VR project like “Trailblazer” to serve as a proof-of-concept for a feature rather than the traditional path of a short film doing the same.
“Eloise is really strategic in going after Emmy noms and stuff like that… it’s just kind of building the I.P. source and building the momentum behind this,” Paterson said.
“It’s really exciting that this is technically one of the first VR projects to be turned into a feature film. That’s an amazing opportunity,” Singer said. Paterson added, “And to show that that pipeline works.”
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