Concert documentaries usually come from a small army of camera operators, drone shots and a long edit. Doja Cat’s latest went a different way: most of it was filmed by the glasses on her face.
Image: Meta
MA VIE WORLD TOUR, a 12-minute documentary short directed by Quinn Whitney Wilson, premieres on Doja Cat’s YouTube channel on October 23. Meta describes it as “a first of its kind documentary shot through glasses worn by the artist and her crew,” filmed “almost entirely” on Ray-Ban Meta glasses across seven countries on the European leg of her tour.
What the glasses captured
The appeal is the point of view. Instead of watching Doja Cat from the pit, you see what she sees: waiting in the wings before going on stage, the crowd as the lights come up, the glam chair with her team, and the road between shows. Meta says the custom pair she wore on stage is the same pair that filmed the documentary.
That kind of footage is hard to get any other way. A camera operator in the wings changes the moment. A pair of glasses mostly doesn’t.
A documentary that doubles as a shop window
This is also, very clearly, a marketing campaign, and a well-timed one. From October 17 to 25, Meta Lab LA is hosting a Doja Cat takeover. Visitors can see her Tour Ma Vie stage outfits and the custom glasses, demo Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and try on the Gen 3 Zena and Aviator frames her custom styles are based on. Buyers in the store can get Doja Cat collectibles, including limited-edition lens cloths and custom case engravings, while supplies last.
The dates aren’t an accident either. The takeover brackets her birthday on October 21 and her Kia Forum show in Los Angeles on October 22, with the film landing the following day. The Gen 3 frames launched in September at $449 in the US, and this is about as high-profile a demo as Meta could ask for.
What Meta isn’t saying
There’s one notable gap, and the XR news site Mixed put it well: for a product being sold as a camera you wear, Meta has said very little about the camera. There’s no resolution, no bit rate, no clip length, and no figure for how much of the 12 minutes actually came from the glasses. “Almost entirely” is doing a lot of work.
That matters if you’re wondering whether your own pair could do the same. A big-budget documentary has a professional director, a crew wearing glasses alongside the artist, and an editor making the best of every clip. What reaches YouTube on October 23 will tell us more than any press release.
Our take
We think this is a smart move from Meta, and a telling one. True AR glasses with full displays are still arriving slowly. In the meantime, the feature that’s actually winning people over is the simplest one: a camera that sees what you see, with your hands free.
First-person footage from the stage is something fans have never really had, and if this short lands well, expect other artists to follow. The concert film shot from the performer’s own eyes could become a format of its own. The open question is whether the footage holds up without the help of a professional edit. We’ll be watching on the 23rd.