Blackbox Infinite founder on designing positive futures and the FUI-to-real-world pipeline

What's happening, fellas? How's uh not too much? Welcome to the pod. We're potting in the pod. Welcome to Config, man. This is uh this is wild, right? Uh is this your first one? This is my first time coming here. I I knew it was a big deal, but uh my face was melted when I got here.

Like the street shut down, the block was taken. Yeah, you kind of expect it with Apple because they've been doing these these big releases for decades now, but it's not every year that we see a company graduate to this scale. And so, it's really shocking in that way.

And then, of course, I was talking to Jordy about this, like Dylan is not the type to be like, "Oh, it's all about me. I gotta throw this massive thing. " It just kind of clearly happened because there was demand and there's partners and there's lots of people. It's a community too.

Like it's a epic scale community as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Um so can you give us a little bit of background? Introduce yourself for the stream for those who might not know. Sure. So my name is John Leapour. I'm the co-founder of a practice called Blackbox Infinite. Cool.

Um the so I'm here at Figma to present in about an hour upstairs on the mezzanine stage and I'm going to be talking about my weird little corner of the world uh which is this bizarre journey that I took towards working in tech and product design which actually started through working in film. Yeah.

And I had this background of making the fake gadgets and technologies that you would see in science fiction and superhero movies. Y and is that specifically like FUI like futuristic UI or or product design that would be done by the art department?

So for me it started as FUI which was typically implemented into the film as a visual effect after the fact but also started evolving into like really rich world building and creating deep technology concepts that might affect the plot of the story and help to move the narrative along in any of these films.

And I love that space. I thought it was a really fascinating world to work in.

And then I got really excited because at a certain point um pretty early on, real world tech brands started popping up and saying, "Hey, can you help us close the gap between these aspirational visions of technology that we see in film that sometimes are just they're they're just sort of, you know, beautiful images on screen or stuff that like doesn't make sense if you know anything about tech.

Like real tech doesn't say access denied from one side of the screen to another. is being hacked. There's a hacker and all the code is spewing out. They're in my computer. Yep.

But you get to do these other fun things where you're like you you find yourself prototyping different concepts that are a little more applicable to the real world.

And so, uh, two years ago, I started my practice because we had hit this inflection point where it felt like the real world technology was not just like catching up to science fiction, but in some ways it's fully surpassing it, right? And science fiction is still just showing us the same glowing blue bleepy bloops.

And there's this whole other world of of things that you can get into. And so what I'm going to be talking about is this concept of what it takes to design a positive future and how you do everything that you can to not get too caught up in the science fiction of it all.

Especially No, I've talked I mean if if you want to change the future, one of the best ways would be to travel back, you know, maybe to the 50s and make a bunch of, you know, positive science like solar punk over cyber punk. doesn't always have to be, you know, these dark, you know, glows.

Sometimes it can be a more, I don't know, grounded in nature vibe even for the future. I mean, we we know that the near term is going to be pretty disruptive on a technological perspective or landscape, but we also have been seeing nothing but the future portrayed as like mega dystopian. Totally. Right.

Like it's it's the darkest imaginable all I refuse to watch the new Black Mirror. Yeah, I'm just not going to put it in my brain. And it's, you know, and I mean it's and it's I I still love that stuff. Like I I I enjoy it and I I appreciate cyber cyberpunk aesthetics and whatnot.

I mean, we got some cyber punk going on here, but we should we shouldn't be making our real products and our real experiences, you know, they shouldn't be influenced or driven by that because it's like, yeah, yeah, that would look perfect after the apocalypse, you know?

It's like, well, in order to get there, we have to live through the apocalypse. Exactly. Exactly. Maybe we could avoid that. Uh, yeah. I I'm I'm interested to know, uh, back on the FUI thing, what was the what was the typical software stack back then?

Was it a lot of like After Effects and like were you getting into like Cinema 4D and Houdini?

Yeah, I I went to CG a couple years ago and there was a ton of cool like FUI projects, but and then I want to know like how has that evolved uh as we get into more generative projects and there's just so many more things you can do even even robust tools are more accessible just because you can search for what you want to do easier.

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh you nailed it. When I started out with this stuff, it was After Effects, it was Cinema 4D, it's Houdini and Luke and Blender and, you know, a lot of these traditional platforms.

And even even when not working in film, our team finds ourselves using some of those tools and those approaches just to kind of like pre-prototype certain concepts or ideas. But also, I'm seeing now there's a lot more new tools and approaches. And of course there's all the generative stuff.

There's, you know, uh, designing things, but designing things while you're in VR or in Apple Vision Pro or whatnot, so that you have this sense of scale and you get this very different way.

Like I I've been obsessed with Vision Pro since that came out just as this thing where How many How many hours a week have you used it since launch? Um, so I know not not legitimately interested.

I'm not trying to do a gotcha, but I'm I'm genuinely curious around, you know, is it is it an hour here or there sporadically or it is it is at times like it's a very intentional choice to be like, you pull that tool out to get it out of the drawer.

Totally blow a little bit of the dust off of it, you know, uh, put it on and go in. Yeah. But I also find particularly being creative. Yeah. in that space.

Yeah, it reminds me of like the first time that I ever started using 3D tools or learning how to design on a computer because like it's almost like I've got a the world's fastest 3D printer in front of me that can just like, you know, I I was designing uh uh swag for our company and making, you know, a design that goes on a hoodie and then viewing the hoodie at human scale and immediately being like, "Oh, well, now that I see it like in my space like as if it's hanging on a hanger, in front of me.

I'm going to change this. I'm going to tweak this. I'm going to There's something about being in that virtual world that just makes the blank canvas more accessible. Like I remember I I had uh this was before Apple Vision Pro.

I think I had a Quest and went into one of the the modeling softwares that you could kind of just 3D draw whatever you wanted.

exported that as OBJ, brought it into Houdini, and then it was so much easier to to kind of tinker with and add like all the details on top uh as opposed to having to start fresh with just like a blank canvas. Yeah.

To me, so much of the excitement that I have around specifically Gen AI, yeah, is taking the timeline from that highlevel idea down to genuinely feeling what the end product could be like.

Maybe it's not 100% what what it will be, but uh but yeah, it's just it's once you can see something and interact with it, whether it's a digital product or, you know, even again like some type of 3D render in VR is just and and coming from a background in animation, the process would be, you know, you set your key frames, you set everything up, and then you hit the render button, wait, and then and then you're like, I'm gonna play the render now.

And then you watch it and you're either excited or you're like there's 15 things I gotta change right now, but it's gonna be even better, you know? And it's a really it's really interesting that sort of feedback loop that you get.

And now that feedback loop is getting almost immediate and having things be more, you know, the the notion of spatial computing, it makes things a bit more intuitive or just natural at a certain point.

Um, we, uh, our practice got on everybody's radar early last year because we put together this prototype for what it would be like to watch a Formula 1 race. Oh, yeah. You You did that? Yes. Oh, that went super viral. I saw that. It was amazing. I had no idea that was you. Went unbelievably.

Uh it it was it was a wonderful experience for us but it also it inspired a lot of people that are working in the space and there was a a few different groups of developers who jumped in and started making their own prototypes based on so that was basically a spec work for you.

you weren't weren't paid by F1 for that, but I was totally speculating this uh project just because we were really passionate about this $3500 array of sensors and amazing tech and we were super disappointed that like when we saw all the first demos of it, it was like cool, put on this insane hallucination machine and use it to viewed rectangle your inbox with 2,000 unread emails.

look at that PDF, you know, and and we just thought like there's so much more that you could do with this. And so like that experience and if you're a racing fan, there's a fully fully functioning beta of it today. That's amazing.

And it changes the way that you experience this stuff and you put it on and you do like feel like Iron Man, but you also feel like, oh, this is like this is so obvious. Like of course this is the way that we interact with things like this.

So, I'm just stoked that there's all these different things that are happening with these paradigms where we're still in the like Apple Newton days of all of these things, whether it's spatial, whether it's AI, and it's going to enable some amazing things that we can't even accurately predict until these until we've been living with these things for a while.

Uh, can you talk a little bit about the reception of AI in Hollywood, in the film industry? Like we were talking about how it takes a day to render. I remember when Redshift came out, we started rendering things on the GPU instead of the CPU. That was like a 10x increase in speed. Everyone loved it.

Now we've now we were like, "Oh, we're almost going too fast because it renders instantly and obviously there's like job displacement issues. " But in general is are there pockets of cautious optimism? Yeah. Yeah.

And the the only other context that I would add there is I I think an interesting thing has been happening where uh historic you know good renders have always been uh expensive truly great renders have always been extremely expensive in in context and uh I think there was this idea maybe you know starting a couple years ago what's going to happen to the sort of craft of generating these types of assets and the thing that I've seen happen is the uh uh okay, you know, okay renders are now available almost at a push of a button.

They're not actually 3D assets, but the people that I know that are, you know, truly, you know, uh elite at the craft are actually busier than ever now because companies need to in some ways different separate themselves again from from the sort of average. But I'm curious what you're seeing.

Yeah, I I want to be as cautiously optimistic as possible. Um, but there are there's also a tremendous amount of stress across particularly the visual effects and animation community. A little less so than in digital product design, but I feel like there's a point at which that will start to catch up here as well.

Um, for me these tools, there is something sad about this idea of like this tool is going to do the craft for you for the people because the craft is sometimes what's enjoyable.

I mean, any of the people here love the craft, that aspect of it, and they they like the vision and creating, you know, following through on that vision to create a an amazing end result, but uh so much of that comes from the craft and applying yourself to that.

And there's not, you know, there's not a lot of this work where people are just like, "Oh, I wish, you know, someone else could do all of the stuff for me.

" that people really models and some of the processes for figuring out how the creatives can have a little more control and a little more real time manipulation and basically you know are just closing up that feedback loop.

And the other thing that's amazing to me is as soon as even in you know 2022 firstg gen midjourney stuff, the only people that could make really good stuff with it were professional creative directors. Totally. Whose jobs it was to give clear yep like in you know very articulate direction. Yep.

To achieve their goals and had you know the vocabulary wisdom and now you know like you should study art history if you want to be great a pro. Yeah. you find these like cheat sheets of like, hey, these are all the different and whatnot. Um, so it's it's wild and it's interesting.

You know, I'm I'm excited because things will, you know, we'll we'll get to the end point just faster and faster and everybody becomes a production studio of of sorts and it and it does reinforce, you know, the need for a clear and articulate vision.

But yeah, you know, I just want to make sure people can still hold on to the craft. Totally. Uh are you excited about any of the uh kind of other product unlocks downstream? Like I was I was with my son. I he made like this like little Lego thing.

I was able to take it studio giblet and then but but like just showing the image was one thing but when we printed it out it was like oh this is something you could hang on the wall and I feel like like you kind of reinjject that creativity once 3D printing gets really good or or some sort of manufacturing.

And I know you've you've done like product design in many ways. Is there are are there things that you're excited about bringing you know yes this one aspect of the work is collapse but then there's other ways to instantiate the the vision. Yeah I think 3D printing is uh really really epic really exciting.

I mean at some point it's also just going to be like oh and your humanoid robot will let itself out of the box and we'll craft whatever you instructed it to build. Yeah, that's the next Figma conference or whatnot. That's 2026. Oh, humanoid. Humanoid.

So, uh I I bring that up partially because we've been doing some stuff with some of the leaders in the humanoid robotics space around like how do you create like a face? Oh, sure. Yeah. For these things, which is some of them are so dystopian. It's very I don't want to name names, but some are bizarre.

Really, really wild space. And it's what can you share at a high level around what what you think the inevitable face form factor is for humanoids? What's your optimistic vision? Yeah, it's like uncanny I always think about photoreal or like the aimo just like cute little happy face.

So I think about the example of you know you get up you know uh let's say you get up at 4:30 a. m. You have an early day. You walk out to your kitchen and your your you know humanoid is you know doing some dishes or something like that. Sure.

And what's the face that's that's not going to, you know, I think over time anything, but what's what's going to be pleasant versus jarring. I I even have a tough time imagining what's the ideal future because I've been so obsessed with well, what should it be today because they're already here?

And I I feel really strongly that today it should not have eyes and a mouth. It shouldn't be this thing that's developed to like approach you and be like, "Tell me why do humans cry? " You know, like it should it should just it should be very crystal clear. I'm a tool.

I'm a really expensive like forklift or piece of industrial equipment and just, you know, tell me what to do. You don't have to say please and thank you. Should it even have a head, you know? Yeah. Should it even have a head?

I mean, there's, you know, and I could go on forever about like like why why even humanoid, you know? why why work to those limitations of the human body and and whatnot. But it's a it's a fascinating space. There's a ton of things that you have to unpack and even just right now the priorities are just like safety.

Yeah. Making sure that you know nobody gets hurt or people could predict what a humanoid robot is going to do. Did you see the video that came out of China a couple days ago where the humanoid just goes awall? Well, that was in China. I saw the I saw that crazy kind of like something wrong. Not necessarily.

It didn't seem like Yeah, it probably wasn't trying to attack, but absolutely terrifying. It's like It's like having Yeah, it looks like it's throwing a fit and it doesn't look happy.

And now I can All I can imagine is like that's the that's the ter the scariest Black Mirror episode is the thing that was like loading a dishwasher. It didn't even mean to kill you. It just was like I can't stop swinging my arm at 90 miles per hour. Yeah, it's wild.

Uh, anything else you're excited to check out while you're here? any other partners you're talking to? Oh man. Uh, you know, there's many amazing people. There's a ton of wild talks that I want to check out. Uh, I've been spend a lot of time bumping into um some friends that are in the automotive industry.

Done a ton of work in that space as well, which is like probably the digital experience that needs the most Yeah. unbucking. Yeah, totally. Most people just plug in their phone and then they get this very basic like Apple hasn't really refreshed CarPlay.

The positive is that manufacturers are realizing that people love analog buttons. Oh yeah. Like analog. The problem is they're realizing that today which means that products will be available in about seven years. That's how long it takes to go for.

There's some manufacturers that are putting they figured out how to put buttons on top of the touchcreens. Have you seen this?

Yeah, that's kind of a funny like hack because they're like, "We just really want to do one big touchcreen, but somebody wanted a volume button, so we'll just glue that on and it'll be capacitive, so it just and it's Yeah, it's got like a little like sausage inside of it so that it activates the Yeah, the touch screen basically.

Such a funny uh thing. Well, anyway, thank you so much for stopping by. Good luck with the rest of your config. Good luck with your talk. You nervous? Uh, I'm stoked. I'm excited. I I I love doing that stuff.

Yeah, I'm nervous about walking around because there's just so many goddamn Super Bowl everywhere and that that not enough time. That gets me into my We were at a conference last week and one of our friends said uh he shook so many his hand so many hands his uh his hand got bruised. Crazy. So stay healthy. Thank you.

Enjoy. Have a blast while you're here. Talk to you soon. All right. Take care. Bye. Great to hang. Yeah. Oh, it's fascinating. Um we have our next guest coming into the studio. Um, I I love uh the the the motion design DNA moving from film and television into the real world.

Uh, we're finally able to instantiate some of the stuff. And you do and you do see it pop up in in real world devices, but it feels like Hollywood is always the best at defining some kind of new UI paradigm and then actually bringing it. What's going on? Great to meet you. Nice to meet you. Great to meet you. I'm John.

Excited. Excited. Excited to have you. Um, feel free to throw on those headphones if you want. You'll be able to hear your own voice, but uh, let's kick it off with a little introduction of yourself, who you are, what you do, why you're here, how you're enjoying the day. Uh, for those who don't know you. Sure. Yeah, I'm