360 degree video

V

valladao65

Well-known member
I had a producer I work for ask me a question today that I didn't have a clear answer on, so I thought I'd throw it out to you guys...

He was speaking to a client of his who owns many of the local Honda and Acura dealerships in the area. His client was asking about some shots for a commercial they are planning. He specifically said he wanted some "360degree video" for the commercial. The producer didn't explore too much more into what the client wanted as the discussion was a quick one and very preliminary.

does anyone have any ideas as to what the client is talking about, "360 degree video"?

The only thing I came up with is where you get a series of cameras in a semi circle and take a snap shot in time of an image, getting it from different angles at the same time, so you can move through and around the shot while everything is frozen in time.

does anyone have any other ideas what the client could be talking about?
 
You mentioned it was for a car dealer, so it could me more likely that the 360 is moving around a car in the centre of the screen.

A similar idea was used in a series of Muller Adverts - Muller Corners Advert

Sounds like an interesting project anyhow!
 
Either that or he wants a continuous shot where the camera revolves on the spot and does a 360 degree turn. Id use a remote head for that for smooth movment, its hard to do that on a normal pan head...
 
nice thoughts, thanks guys

the more I think about it, the more it sounds like the stuff they put out right from the car makers, cars driving down the road with the shot flying anound the car, like a mini-helicopter shot or something.

Not very unique or fun, but hey, these are car dealers
 
on the contrary, I think that sounds very fun indeed ;)

360 degree video to mean means a 360 degree shot, in which you see 360 degress of the environment in one continuous shot.
 
360 degrees of the environment in one continuous shot - like a pan all the way around? or some sort of super wide angle lens?

and what happens to the car while you're panning all the way around, maybe set up some sort of circular course to follow it around. interesting.

ya, I stand corrected as far as the fun goes...it'd be fun to set up, I just meant its been done, in fact its been done in every single National car spot I think Ive ever seen. *grin*
 
With the amount of film out there I think everything has been done at least once... it makes me wish I had been born 30 years ago.

the shot could be the camera dollying in a circle around a central subject, or it could be the camera panning and seeing 360 degrees of an outside circle (i.e., the dealership, roading, car lots, etc.).

What would make this more filmic would be a continuous steadicam shot following the speaker as he patrols the dealership's lot, eventually coming full circle back to where he began. I think that'd be cool.
 
Maybe he wants a shot of the car on a turntable rotating through 360 degrees. Camera fixed (or craning)
 
You could always pay a real estate 360 degree virtual tour company for a crappy stitched together 'video' that'll make the viewers puke from dizziness.

And hey, if the dealers complain about quality, just tell 'em "its good enough for a $750k house - its good enough for your KIA".
 
Sound like he's looking for a QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality). There are two types, an object VR (you can turn the object 360 degrees) or an environment VR (you can move around the object 360 degrees). They use these (and Flash versions) on all the car web sites these days.

Check out the Apple QuickTime site for QTVR. What you do is take still photos around the object (environment) or put the object on a lazy-susan (object) every 12 degrees, then, using the software, you 'stitch' them together to make a seemless QTVR.

...might be what the client means....
 
Why dont you get a re-brief from the client , ask questions and pay attention?

Guessing what he wants wont get the job done and is pointless and futile.
 
I thought it was an interesting question and I thought it may spark some interesting thoughts in this forum. It's one of my favorite things about this forum. I enjoyed reading what people thought about a term I hadn't heard before.
 
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