GOAL
Write a brief summary about your VR production experience – what worked, what didn’t, what you’d do differently next time, and what you learned.
PRE-PRODUCTION & PRODUCTION
First, we began by looking at spots within the city that would produce a visually satisfying 360 VR experience. After settling on Jing’an Temple, we attempted to get permission by talking with the temple representatives however, we were unsuccessful.
After the failure to secure Jing’an temple, we moved on to the Shanghai Natural History Museum. Starting November 11th, we got in contact with the museum in order to get permission to film. Then I went to the museum to scout possible locations within the building and the surrounding park that would work.
With the location set, we started to brainstorm possible stories we could develop surrounding our location. Our two main contenders were a focus on youth education and environmental protection.
Principle photography started began November 22nd. First day of filming we focused on getting 1 minute in each location we would like to work with. After reviewing our footage we spent the second day of filming on reshooting our primary location, the African savannah exhibit.
POST-PRODUCTION
In order to show convey the fragility of our environment, we decide to create a 360 video that began as a natural landscape and slowly transition to the original exhibit.
Using the footage we filmed, Vera worked on photoshopping a single frame from the African savannah exhibit. Using photoshop, she edited out all the signs of human life and created a “natural” savannah landscape. The edited natural frame was used as the starting frame where then the video would then transition to a frame with an animal faded away and an element of the museum exhibit faded in. This process would be repeated until the still frame would transition to the original video of the exhibit.
The sound mixing was achieved by combining animal noises that transitioned to the original audio captured in the exhibit.
REFLECTION
If given more time, I’d like to work on conveying our story better. After seeing people experience our video, I feel that the transitions did give a sense of what we were trying to achieve however, a lot of people would still ask what the intention was after the experience.
Additionally, I would like to refine the editing and transitions between frames. Having the audio stereoscopic would have lended something more to the experience. It would also help the viewer orient themselves and allow us, the creators, to direct the viewer towards the disappearing elements.