Oculus has teamed up with Kaleidoscope—which produces a worldwide virtual reality film festival—to launch a new initiative called DevLab, in an effort to support independent VR creators to create new and innovative virtual reality experiences.

DevLab will bring together 28 leading artists from around the world to incubate new work, explore new ideas, and create the next wave of great VR experiences.

“VR is a convergence of creative disciplines and DevLab will bring experts from a variety of fields to help expand the creative potential of VR,” said Yelena Rachitsky, Creative Producer at Oculus in a statement. “Big creative risks will push virtual reality forward, but to empower people to take those risks, we recognize that we need to provide support and encouragement to help an idea become a reality.”

The month-long program will kick off on October 31st with an intensive two-day gathering in Los Angeles where creators will work with accomplished advisors who have backgrounds in both VR and other creative industries, helping to bring their projects to life through hands-on workshops, live performances and discuss ideas. From that point, creators will then work on their own to develop their idea and have an opportunity to present a working version of their project to potential investors at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, CA on December 2nd to secure funding, and take their idea into full production to launch in 2017 on the Oculus Platform.

The creators selected for the inaugural DevLab class include “rising stars in virtual reality” such as Arnaud Colinart, who created Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness, and Ben Vance who made Irrational Exuberance, as well as those with established careers in cinema venturing into VR for the first like Josephine Decker and Julio Medem.

“Our goal with DevLab is to support independent artists because they tend to break free from traditional ideas of storytelling and discover new ways to express the human condition with virtual reality,” said René Pinnell, CEO of Kaleidoscope.