In the early days of cinema, videographers were expected to follow rules we would consider absurd today. They were told not to pan, not to cut, never to move the camera.
“A lot of limitations that were imposed were proven to be rules you could break or bend,” Michael Mansouri with Radiant Images told Newsshooter’s Chuck Fadely at PhotoPlus Expo in New York. So, bending and breaking rules is exactly what Radiant Images is trying to do in the VR space.
Radiant Images is a rental house providing solutions in 2D, 3D, virtual reality and augmented reality. It also offers an in-house fabrication team to provide tailor-made solutions to fit clients’ needs.
When the company began operating in the VR space in 2008, VR accounted for only 2 percent of its revenue. Today, it accounts for 60 percent of the company’s revenue. Despite Radiant Images’ vast expertise (seriously, go look at their credits), Mansouri will be the first to admit they, too, are working hard to figure out the emerging medium of VR.
“When we don’t understand something, we try to classify it. Radiant Images is always trying to bend those rules,” he said. “We move, we cut, we do things [in VR] other people are scared of. With the right approach, you can do a lot of these things.”
As an early innovator in the VR space, here are three of Mansouri’s tips to improve the filming, stitching and sharing process:
Realize you’re not alone.
Radiant Images offers a number of VR rig solutions, from top-of-the-line to consumer-grade cameras. It offers the Jaunt One, Nokia OZO, Imagine Vision Z Cam, Samsung Gear 360, and various GoPro arrays, among others, and plenty of custom-built VR video solutions for daily or weekly rental.
Custom solutions include the Dark Corner rig, which features Sony A7S cameras for improved performance in low-light situations, and the Headcase Cinema Quality VR 360 with 17 Codex action cameras.
Here’s an example of what the Headcase camera can do:
And here’s a sample from Radiant Images’ own Dark Corner rig:
Not only will Radiant Images help develop gear for all sorts of applications you can dream up, they also offer technical support and expertise to assist you with all sorts of VR experimentation.
Take advantage of simplified stitching options.
Anyone interested in producing VR has to realize that it isn’t an easy road.
“Everything is difficult,” Mansouri said. “Just like early filmmaking was very difficult. But in the digital revolution, things are happening much faster. It doesn’t take years for solutions to be realized.”
For example, Mansouri recalls using geometry stitching in the recent past where a VR FX person had to manually stitch everything and those hours accounted for up to two-thirds of the entire production budget.
“Now cloud-based stitching allows thousands of computers to do that manual process almost in real time,” Mansouri said. For example, Google provides cloud-based stitching with their Jump VR rig, and Jaunt offers stitching and rendering services for $2,000 per 15-minute block, according to its website. “It helps you budget for post production because it’s a known line item.”
Streamline the sharing process.
Although this depends on how you want to share your 360 video, for those wishing to create a stand-alone experience (i.e. not posting it on YouTube or LittlStar), distribution is still more complicated than one might like.
“We partner with tech company VRLIVE, which is a livestreaming solution provider, but also created some amazing tech in VR distribution,” Mansouri said. You can simply share a weblink and they will virtualize an app with your experience. That way, viewers don’t have all the extra steps of navigating to the app store and downloading your experience to get started. “You just click [the link] and you’re in the app and we’re streaming to your mobile device.”
Mansouri also shared a novel way to experience 360: Magic Planet. Made by Global Imagination, Magic Planet is a video display with a sphere-shaped screen, ranging from 41 centimeters to 3 meters in diameter.
“It creates a common, shared VR experience,” Mansouri said, adding that Radiant Images sells and rents Magic Planets.
For more information, visit Radiant Images’ website.
