For my final VR project I went through a couple of ideas before I settle on filming a band practice for “These Walls”. I originally pitched to film the top of St. Regis Mountain in the Adirondacks but when it came to filming on my scheduled date it snowed. Considering that the hike would be 3 miles with equipment was going to be hard enough, snow wasn’t going to make things easier, so I went back to the drawing board. My second idea was to do a director’s cut of a student production on campus. That production dates got pushed back and other complications presented themselves so I again went back to the drawing board and then reached out to a friend who is in a band called "These Walls". The band members agreed to let me film a band practice of theirs.

Filming Process:

Coordinating with the band was a little bit of a struggle when it came to actually scheduling a time to film. I got the ok to film around 5pm and we scheduled a time at 8pm of the same day. I checked equipment out and then had class until about 7:30. When I checked out equipment I made sure that everything was there and that the cameras would turn on. When I got to the house where These Walls were having band practice I set up everything, was ready to sync the GoPro remote to the cameras the remote was completely dead. I didn’t have time to charge the remote since the band was only practicing for a short period of time. Therefore, I had to start each camera at separate times. I recorded a few songs and I also recorded sound with a task cam but ultimately didn’t use that audio because the GoPros picked up good audio considering the small space that the band was practicing in.

Editing Process:

When I went through all of the footage that I captured I had to go through all the videos and find parts that matched up with everything else. I then put all the separate videos into Final Cut Pro to get about 4 minutes of synced footage between all the cameras. Through this process I found that the top camera captured about 20 seconds of footage before shutting off. Therefore my project does not have the top camera, which is terrible unfortunate. I really, really, really wish that I had caught this and then plugged the cameras into the battery packs. I didn’t because I didn’t want to disrupt the videos since I could not stop/start the cameras because the remote was dead. Stitching was a nightmare. If you want to get sick then please watch my final project but if not then please don't. Link is here: https://youtu.be/SZA8U3lCPPk

Takeaways:

-Don't just check to see if all equipment is in your kit but also if everything has been charged and deleted from the previous user.

-VR is not for everyone, especially me.