You’re An Eye Witness Of “Transreal” 360 Experiences
When asked upon whether skills used in traditional 2D shooting are transferable to shooting VR, TransReal 360’s founder Daniel Dou‘s answer was an absolute yes. Daniel is an innovative artist, an astute businessman and most importantly a logical thinker. He impresses us when he concluded all the difficulties VR professionals face concisely into only two points: Disguise and Attention. Let’s hear what advice that Daniel has for VR creators.
VeeR: How long have you and TransReal360 been creating VR, and what inspired/motivated you to join this field?
Daniel: TransReal360 was founded in January 2015, as we thought that would be the right time to join this new-but-old revolution. We were talking in winter of 2014 about joining together to do it, and we finally did it: We put our money together, bought equipment and made the video. We’ve always been video and IT enthusiasts, so we thought that would be our chance to make the difference.
VeeR: Your content on VeeR focuses on live performances and natural landscapes. Where did you get the inspiration for your videos? Could you explain a typical production process for you?
Daniel: We think our goal is some kind of ‘vision telepathy’, meaning that we always like to offer experiences to ‘move’ our users to other places. One of our goals is also the excellence and quality in our productions, so we choose carefully what we produce. If something has not the quality or isn’t close to our sense of beauty, we don’t shoot it.
So, We always think about the final product before we start: Are we able to offer a quality product? If yes, the next question is if anyone has done it before? Because we want to do something that no one has achieved.
Beauty is another thing we consider shooting, of course. Our production pipeline is like other film or video studios but with the stitching process before editing.
The making of ANIMA series 360 demo-pilot
VeeR: What has been your biggest challenge in VR storytelling, and what were some of your solutions?
Daniel: This is a great question. Our viewers might not know but the biggest challenge we had was to shoot and produce ANIMA series 360 demo-pilot with almost no money. We eventually solved it with our enthusiasm and professionalism.
Then, we needed to think about the cons on shooting in 360º video. First of all, you have to hide all the technical equipment. Secondly, about attention, we managed to direct it mainly in two ways: Actors and actresses’ performance and the audio. I told the actors in ANIMA that they have to be over-expressive, exaggerated, so then the audience could focus on them not the other crews. The more you move, the more attention you have. That’s easier to achieve if you hire theater actors than cinema actors.
Using Spatial/Binaural/3D audio is another powerful tool to guide the audience, although we couldn’t afford that for ANIMA, we know that is an essential way to get the audience’s attention.
Logo of TransReal360 Studio
VeeR: Is there any low/mid/high price range productional gear/software that you would like to recommend (for example, the camera language and positioning, FOV, lighting, audio recording)?
Daniel: It depends on what the creators want to focus on. I would recommend at least going for some professional equipment that allows you to shoot 3D stereoscopic 4K video at 60 fps. Choose something that allows you to get the more versatile, but still professional footage. Be careful and check the test footage before purchase it. Audio should be spatial too if you want to get the perfect immersive story.
VeeR: Would you like to share some tips with rookie VR directors (in terms of shooting, editing, and stitching, etc.)?
Daniel: First, get the most powerful hardware equipment you can afford because you will have to manage massive video files. Second, go out and experiment. Shoot, shoot and then shoot again. Try not to shoot moving scenes, go for the most fps you could. Play with a drone (for example) is fun, but the audience will feel dizzy. So try static shootings instead.
I use Kolor Autopano Video, but I’m about to try Mistika VR. Some cameras offer auto-stitching software, but sometimes they don’t work well, so for now, you have to stitch several footage into a 360º video. Avoid movement between the edges of cameras to make stitching process easier.
Director, Interview, TransReal360, Virtual Reality