Been Making Films Since the 60s, Now He’s A VR Producer
Marios Lefteriotis started making films since 1967, and began producing VR photospheres since 2015 and VR videos since 2016. Throughout his entire filmmaking career, he’s always aimed at experimenting with new techniques to express his unique ideas.
His 1970 film, REQUIEM FOR HUMANITY unprecedentedly introduced to the film industry a brand new way of storytelling referred to as “flashing pictures editing” by Marios. Namely the story was told through rapidly changing images in rhythm with a background soundtrack. It was shot on Super 8 film and edited by physically cutting and rejoining the film hundreds of times with a special kind of glue. It was later on recognized and accepted as a classic example of the avant-garde in cinematic art.
Back in 2004, Marios shot 300 3D images of Athens 2004 Olympics, recorded in “3D Anaglyph – ATHENS OLYMPIC GAMES – ΟΛΥΜΠΙΑΚΟΙ ΑΓΩΝΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΣ”; in 2011, he shot his first 3D 40-minute-long Documentary Film “3D ANAGLYPH – EASTER IN CORFU TOWN – ΠΑΣΧΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΠΟΛΗ ΤΗΣ ΚΕΡΚΥΡΑΣ”.
Marios admits that his greatest and ultimate challenge, is “VR photo and video technique, which, I believe, is the last stage in image production which will replace everything we’ve known so far, in movie industry.” For his full visions for the future of cinema, Marios has written an article published under the “Guest Blogs” column. Read it here: http://veer.tv/blog/marios-leftheriotis-the-present-and-future-of-cinema/
After a long period of shooting and editing experimentation, Marios has reached a high level of a Trusted Google Photographer (local guide level 6th), with more than 12M views of his 360 photospheres of the Acropolis uploaded on Google Maps.
In 2016, Marios shot his first short VR video “Driving in style with Mozart”, and discovered the infinite possibilities opening to filmmakers with this new shooting technique of VR.
On the same note, his 360 video “ACROPOLIS FOR EVER” is one of his all-time favorites. He says it’s because the viewer can be informed with the utmost detail about their surroundings for a walk around the Acropolis! What’s worth notice is that “Acropolis For Ever” is almost an hour long, which Marios admits is laying the foundation for his plans of producing VR documentaries. He says: “First step for making long film VR productions, is of course producing documentaries. It is from there we have to start exploring, to create a new expressive language for VR cinema and that’s what I am going to do.”
Marios’ second personal favorite is the “PAINTING EXHIBITION” because it’s an ideal subject for spherical view. The viewer can virtually walk across the exhibition hall and move their eyes all around to enjoy the paintings, just like in real life.
For productions, Marios uses a D810 NIKON camera for creating high-quality photospheres. Usually he takes 8-40 photos to stitch together afterwards. He describes this part of his work where he has to fix the stitching errors with PhotoShop as “strenuous” and “time-consuming”. For medium-quality photospheres and VR videos, Marios prefers his Ricoh Theta S camera, and Adobe Photoshop for processing photospheres and Sony Vegas for editing videos. Marios recommends Ricoh Theta S to those interested in getting started in VR considering its affordability.
You might be surprised to learn that Marios is actually a professional mechanical engineer. Having a secure job has ensured him a good life, where he applies a life philosophy of carpe-diem crossed with joie de vivre. Speaking about his VR filmmaking career, Marios says affirmatively: “I am not a professional and I don’t want to be one. I am free to shoot my photos and videos just as I like and I don’t care what the others expect to see. I am not working for money, so I am totally free to express myself and take the best out of it!”
For more information, please visit these related pages Marios runs:
Home page: http://marlef.blogspot.com
Photo gallery: http://mariosphotos.blogspot.com
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/alaouda
360 Cameras, Adobe, Cameras, Cinema, Filmmaking, Google, Google Maps, Greece, Nikon, Photoshop, Ricoh Theta S, VeeR