-Julian Schoenbohm

Original post of our team’s producer Shuran Huang:

„Video Link: https://youtu.be/xMn21GbOdBs

Our original idea is to make a 360 video of a tour in Landmark Theatre including a show at the stage, however, since Disney Productions doesn’t allow us to film in the theatre, we had to change the topic.

So our revised idea is to create a 360 video of a wedding, since I was also shooting the wedding as a photographer and I barely saw people making 360 videos of weddings. It would be a cool idea to have the couple remembered their special day after decades.

I was basically filming the whole process of the wedding and shooting from scene to scene. The whole wedding happened in a park. It was not a super fancy wedding, so you may not see that many variety of shots in the video. The scenes I shot include:

• The preparation at the couple’s house
• The cocktail and dessert scene
• The actual ceremony scene
• The dance party scene
• The pizza eating scene

The video shooting was pretty tough, because I was also documenting the wedding as a photographer. Due to the stitch problem and I wasn’t able to see how each individual clip looks like, I was basically trying to shoot a couple different clips from different angles at the same scene. The wedding ceremony was actually the most important part, so I had the Samsung camera sat on a chair near the spot where the couple was exchanging the rings.

The video is longer than you are expected. However, we believe that the video is made for our clients and the couple is our client. They expect to see more details in the video, and that would help them remember their day after a long time. They also want to show the video to their family and friends. As a producer, I am super proud of our teamwork. We really wanted to make a video of the theatre, but we were forced to change the topic due to Disney Productions’ trademark issue. The wedding was host in Connecticut and due to this location barrier, I had to in charge of filming all the clips in the 360 video, and Julian and Nan were in charge of editing the video.“

Since there were some issues with the first idea of a 360 tour through the landmark theatre, we had to rethink everything and come up with a new plan. Although I was very excited for the Landmark Theatre, I am glad that we could successfully produce another interesting video.

As Shuran already mentioned in her blog post, she came up with the idea of filming a wedding, where she also was in charge of the photography. We thought that experiencing a wedding in 360 is something that has not been done often before and could also be interesting in terms of actually using such material for clients and to see their reaction.

Since a wedding is a pretty intimate event for the families of the married couple and the couple itself, it was not possible for Nan and me to be a part of the shooting unfortunately. We agreed that we will split the work of the project in a way that Nan and I are responsible for the editing and finalization of the project while Shuran is undertaking the task of the shooting.

Although I have already used Adobe Premiere before, I am glad to say that I could still learn a lot. Editing 360 videos differs a lot from editing regular videos, especially in terms of effects like the offset for instance. The right adjustment of the offset has a huge impact on the storytelling itself, which is why it was nice to work with it. Also, the Skybox tools are pretty important, especially when adding text to 360 videos or when using a nadir.

In addition to that I could learn how to actually create a nadir, which offers a lot of opportunities when it comes to designing, personalizing and improving your 360 video. By doing so, I was also able to improve the ability to work with the Adobe Creative Cloud in general, since the nadir was created with Photoshop.

The video might seem to long for someone who does not know the married couple. We were thinking about that a lot, but decided to edit the video in a way where it meets the wishes of a potential client, which is the couple in this case. We thought that keeping the target group of such a video in mind, also plays an important role in terms of storytelling.

All in all, despite some issues at the beginning of the project, everything worked out pretty well, which was mainly because the good teamwork in this project.