Cinematic VR Crash Course - Produce Virtual Reality Films

Now that you know what kind of cameras are out there, I would like to help you in this lesson with making the right decisions and choosing the best workflow for you. Given the amount of different cameras out there we’ll have to keep this quite a general lesson since we don’t want to dive into one specific workflow. 

Summary:

• There is no perfect 360 camera, but the right camera for the right job

• Use the hardware documentation sheet if you want to know about a specific camera

• Break down concepts with simple questions to find your requirements.

• Use these requirements to narrow down the list of possible cameras

• Research the different options to get a better view of which suits you best

• Think of how you’re actually going to create it in post production

This list contains links to useful hardware and software to help you in your quest to produce high-quality cinematic VR content.

Your brand new camera rig films on all sides at the same time, so everything around it is in view, including you and any set lights you might want to use. On top of that, the points where you stitch your images together, called stitch lines, are very sensitive areas. If people walk through these lines while being too close to the camera, this can result in nasty stitching artefacts which cannot be fixed in post-production. So it is important to think about these topics in advance, which will save you a lot of headaches later on.

Summary:

• Preparation is essential and helps you minimize stitching errors and will ensure your shoot goes smoothly
• In your script, describe all the details of each scene, not only the parts of the scene where the action is happening, as all the surroundings are in view as well
• Use block diagrams to visually describe a scene, and all the actors, objects and actions in it
• Think in advance about how you can use spatialized sounds and audio cues to enhance your content
• Create a light plan so you have a clear idea about how you are gonna light your scenes without having big studio lights in view
• Also consider where you and your crew are gonna hide during the shoot, and how you are gonna view what is being filmed
• Finally, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Today is the big day: we're gonna talk you through your first ever cinematic VR shoot! The process is far from user-friendly, but there is a method to the madness. Let me guide you through the steps.

Summary:

• First, prepare your camera with our 8 handy steps.
• Set up your camera at eye height and hook up the mic and power supply
• Then start your shoot with a little test run to make sure all cams record properly and with the correct settings
• During the actual shoot, always make sure both the audio and all the cameras are recording
• Sync on audio by clapping loudly before calling the scene
• Once a scene is done, shout CUT and check if the camera recorded properly
• Note unusable takes to save you a lot of spotting and stitching time during post-production
• Be prepared to troubleshoot and always bring spare parts
• Overheating is one of the biggest problems you will face
• We covered several ways to minimize the chance of overheating, for example by limiting the length of your takes, and by powering off your rig after each take. To fix an overheated Camera, either reset it or replace it.

You just shot some brilliant 360 video content, and now you have to copy the data from your cams to your editing station so you can start stitching them together. Easier said than done.. But fear not, I've got some tricks for you which will save you a lot of frustration.

Summary:

• The first step is to import your footage from your cams to your computer using the GoPro Studio Importer
• You now have to organize these files to make it easier for you to stitch your scenes
• To keep track of which file belongs to which camera, we first have to rename each file to include the camera name
• Mac has a built in batch rename tool, windows requires you to use a third-party rename utility
• After renaming, organize your files into take folders. You’re now ready for stitching
• It is possible to automate and speed up the file management process using software tools
• You will need a lot of storage capacity to store all your video files
• We recommend using a LaCie 2TB rugged disk for in the field and for backup purposes
• Edit from harddisks in a RAID configuration.

You've shot your content and organized it. Now you're ready to turn all those isolated video files into one seamless panorama using so called stitching software. Hours could be spent talking about the obscure details of stitching, but for the sake of brevity we will only focus on the most important aspects to help you get started. In this video tutorial I'll guide you through the stitching process in MistikaVR.

Today you will learn how to create a realistic ambisonic audio mix. I'm very excited to teach you this, because I believe ambisonic audio is an important topic which is not nearly covered enough. It is important because spatial audio can greatly enhance the realism of a VR experience. I will tell you the basics, and then let our friends from Spook.fm show you the advanced mixing techniques.

Summary:

• Ambisonic audio adds a layer of realism to a VR experience, yet this topic is not covered that often in the VR community
• Ambisonic audio is a full-sphere surround technology, including height data
• In its most basic form, an ambisonic recording consists of four channels
• An ambisonic microphone records in A-format, which first has to be decoded to B-format for editing and distribution, and then to binaural for listening. Some Setups do this during the recording process.
• You can use the free tools like VVMic to convert from A-format to B-format.
• Reaper, in combination with the facebook spatial workstation, is the weapon of choice to create spatial audio mixes
• Spook.fm created an open-source tool to connect a VR video player with Reaper to aid you in your spatial mixing
• Their detailed tutorial explains how you can create your own ambisonic mixes in Reaper

Now that you stitched your videos and prepared your audio, it's finally time to start the editing process. Over the past years, editing software developers have worked hard to provide VR creators with dedicated VR editing tools. Think of live preview in a VR headset, adjusting horizons, simple transitions, placing of titles and exporting settings.I don’t only show you my workflow, but also some of the VR features inside of premiere.

In this video tutorial I guide you through my VR workflow.

In this lesson i’m going to show you how to get rid of tripods and do some basic VFX.
Please note that this workflow which is based on photoshop and premiere is compositing in it’s most basic form. I use this workflow for now because it’s really easy to learn and shows the process of cleaning out certain parts of the image really well. It has some limitations though, but this lesson is only for illustrative purposes. There are software tools which offer way faster workflows for jobs like this and also create overlays which adapt to lighting and surroundings.  You can translate this workflow to any other visual effects software tool, so use this in your advantage!

This is the final lesson of this Cinematic VR Crash Course. We started the course with a short introduction, then we helped you to pick a rig and prepare it for a shoot. We also covered the shoot itself, as well as post-production. You have now arrived at the final stage: distributing your content to virtual reality headsets.

Summary:

• There are several ways in which you can share your cinematic VR content with the world, and none of them is perfect yet
• YouTube 360 is great if you want a wide reach and flawless integration with Google Cardboard
• Kolor Eyes is especially interesting for developers, since they offer an SDK
• VRideo is interesting because they are device agnostic, meaning they plan to support all major VR headsets
• Milk VR is great if you have high-quality footage you want to distribute to Gear VR users
• Again, there is no best way to distribute your content, it all depend on your goals and target audience