360 Degree Film making Workshop 2 - Professional Toolkit

This workshop was much more about the practical side of how to actually effectively use the Rig to film 360. I was very excited today especially since I had come up with some cool ideas of what we could practice filming in our group. Here are the main notes I took while we were learning to use the cameras/rig:

When you are looking at 360 footage you call the top of the image the Zenith and the bottom of the image/video the Nadir. This is really useful to know especially when referring to it in post.

How to make sure your cameras are all synced up...
- Move camera rig around or clap so that you can sync in post.
- Use GoPro Remote synced to cameras to press record all at the same time.
- Omni Rig syncs all the cameras for you but you must always control them from the primary camera which controls all the other GoPros.

Battery management is really important because with the Omni Rig you only get about 18 minutes of battery life.

Data Management is also really important part of this process because you have six cameras in the rig therefore 6 mini SD cards with 6 lots of information.

FPS - Resolution...
The higher the frame rate the lower the resolution will be otherwise the GoPros won't be able to write to the memory cards quick enough.
- 8K @ 30fps, Works better for static camera.
- 5.7K @ 60fps
- 4K @ 120fps, Works better for fast movements.

Kit (we are using today)...
- Omni Rig + 6 GoPros (to record the footage)
- GoPro Smart Remote (to sync to the primary camera and therefore control the rig remotely)
- 6 GoPro USB cables (to plug into the cameras if we need to charge them)
- 6 USB Micro SD Readers (to plug each GoPros mini SD into)
- 6 Micro SD Cards, Class 10 (one card per GoPro, good enough class for recording video we want)
- 7 Port USB Hub (to plug all 5 mini SD Card readers into so you can transfer all files at once)
- Spigot (to attach the Rig to the magic arm)
- Converter (to attach the rig to a light stand as light stands work better than tripods for this rig)
- Allun Key (to take the rig apart not that we should need to)
- Microfibre Cloth (to keep the lenses on the GoPros clean)
- Tweezers (to get the Mini SD cards in and out of the Go Pros/ Rig)
- Power Cable (Incase you need to plus an external battery pack into the rig)

Before we went out to film we first had to Inserts all the Mini SD cards into all the GoPros first. To do this we used the Tweezers but it was very fiddly. However as a group we did manage to get all the SD Cards into the GoPros successfully. We then had to Sync the remote to the main GoPro so we could control the rig. We did this by using the remote controls to pair it with the camera. We then checked the GoPro Settings. Here are the settings we were told to make sure all the GoPros were on...
- Protune On
- Colour = flat
- White Balance = Native
- Sharpness = Low
- ISO = Depends on conditions and lifting wherever your shooting.
- 4:3 = Aspect Ratio of GoPro
- 2.7K from each GoPro to make 8K all together

Shooting Tips...
- The main action should be captured by Camera 1 (primary Camera)
- Be Aware of the Stitch lines and where these would sit
- Keep as still as possible as vibrations etc can be bad for the video
- Moving shots should use a Gyroscope
- Subject should be about 3 - 5 feet away from the rig

We wanted today for our video to try and use the magic arm to attach the Rig to the handle bars of a bike to see if we rode around on it what would happen and if it would work well. We knew by doing this we were breaking some of the shooting tips such as the 'keeping still ' advice however we thought it would be good experimentation so we can see how much we can push these videos now before we make a final piece with this technology. I brought a bike in so we attached it to this and found a gentle hill in the university for me to carefully ride up and down on to see if it worked. I was obviously very careful because of the equipment and also because of the vibrations etc I had to ride carefully. Here is what the set up looked liked...

This was very fun to try out because we got to do something different and we also obviously were learning technically how to use the equipment.

Now that we had been out and used the equipment to shoot some material we got to put it together doing a rough stitch... 

- Firstly we took all the SD cards out the GoPros and used the USB readers and USB Hub to plug them all into the computer at the same time.

- Then we opened the Programmed called GoPro Omni Importer. From here you can choose to search SD cards which is what we did as it meant we worked directly from these which was quicker and we are only doing a quick sticht. However there is an option to work locally off the computer which we could do if we were putting all the files and footage from each SD card onto the computer but today we aren't.
- By Searching Sd Cards it will find all the footage and files for you from the Omni rig and pieces all the relevant files from each take together and displays these to us.
- You can then click on the video/files you want to edit which this programme has already been stitched together quickly for us to preview it in a Equi Rectangular Format. In this screen you can edit basically doing things like adding in and out points, Colour harmonisation, stabilisation and render quality. When you are happy with it you can start processing, choose and save location and hit OK.
- This has then made a basic stitched together 360 video out of our files which is saved where you chose it to be. You can now open and view this on a 360 viewing platform. However you can always go back and edit this again with the files or put it into premiere etc to edit it.

Here is the video we put together using a quick stitch from the bike shots we took:

(This is the Equi Rectangular Format Currently as it was only a quick expeirment)

I am really happy with how it turned out actually because even though we were riding the bike it
doesn't look massively shaky to watch and I don't think it has effected the stitching too badly. I think the worst thing that has effected the stitching is the fact that as I was riding the bike I was very close to the camera so even though on my face hasn't caused much of a problem the handlebar section and my hands have been stitched badly because they were so close to the bottom of the rig. This is something to bare in mind when filming in the future. The closer things and you are to the camera the more it will obscure them in stitching. I am quite proud of our ability to use the equipment though and I am glad we got to try something fun with it.