Shoot shoot shoot! Capoeira World VR — Week #4 — My journey into the Oculus Launch Pad

Shooting at the UCA Berkely batizado event

This week was all about shooting!

If you missed previous episodes, catch up with weeks 1 to 3 on my Medium blog.

Progress

Ready to shoot!

1. I took my Samsung Gear 360 out to shoot at the open capoeira roda — Silicon Valley, at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The event was great. Everyone was super friendly and brought high energy into the game. Before the start of the roda, I introduced myself and my project, Capoeira World VR. I explained that I would film in 360 and asked if anyone had an issue with it. One lady said she’d prefer not to be in it. It will make things a little more complicated, but I can make sure we don’t see her much (that’s a shame, because I had a good game with her, and I won’t be able to include it in the film). So did it all go well? No! A guy accidentally stepped on my tripod legs, the camera fell and one lens cover got badly scratched. Oh no! my brand new cam! Well, those are the risks of filming in the heart of the action. Accidents happen. It sucks, but I’m over it. I had other issues with the camera, as it was overheating and stopped recording suddenly after about 15 minutes. This is annoying, as I realized that some great action was not actually captured, since the camera had stopped recording.
2. I ordered new gear. I went for the Zoom H2n microphone and a new tripod. My initial reason for getting a new tripod was to be able to put the camera at face height. However, following the roda accident, I figured that stability was also an important factor. I was using a monopod with little tripod legs so far. This is great for 360 as it does not show much on the photos and videos. Good for me, as I’m not sure I have the skills to remove the tripod in post production. However, I think it’s safer to shoot with a bigger, more stable tripod. I went for a light stand. Those are versatile enough to make good tripods for 360 video. I haven’t received my new toys yet.
3. I went out again to shoot at UCA Berkeley’s Capoeira Batizado & Formatura in Berkeley, California. This event was organized by Mestre Acordeon and Mestra Suelly. I had been made aware of the event by my new friend, Vivian, who helped me obtain permission from Mestra Suelly to capture 360 footage at the event. But things don’t always go according to plan! When I arrived, Vivian introduced me to Mestre Acordeon. The three of us had a long chat. He seemed reluctant to let me film at first, and there was a point when I thought I had come for nothing, but then he finally agreed to let me shoot. He wants to approve the final edit before it’s published, which is fair enough. So in the end I managed to capture some great footage at that event. I had camera overheating issues again and some more technical issues. The floor was not even and people playing near the camera made it shake a lot. I hope I can stabilize the image in post production.

Stanford roda — See how vulnerable the poor camera is! No wonder accidents happen

Here is my weekly Vlog, recorded at the Berkeley shooting location!

Vlog from the shooting location — You can subscribe on YouTube to stay up-to-date!

Lessons learned

• Filming in an uncontrolled environment is tough! Filming capoeira is even riskier! My philosophy is to go with the flow and not be too upset when things go wrong (something WILL go wrong, for sure!). In the case of my camera, I can’t blame anyone but myself. It’s tricky, because for a great VR experience, I want to capture what’s going on close to the heart of the action, but that’s also exactly where there is more risk for the camera to get knocked down. After the accident, I stayed close to the camera most of the time, to protect it from kicks. I guess the viewer will feel like I’m their new BFF!
• Technical issues WILL happen. The Samsung Gear 360 tends to overheat and stop recording at unexpected times. I’ve missed some critical action because of that. Again, I’ll make do with that. I hope I’ll have enough footage to still deliver a great experience. Some technical issues during the shooting can be overcome in post-production. For example, I hope I can stabilize the shaky footage in post.

Next steps

Next week will be about:

1. Organizing my files. 360 videos take a lot of space… like… a lot! Particularly when shot in 4k. For example, I’ve got a 6 minutes video that weighs 1.3GB. My first job will be to make space on my laptop, then transfer all the footage from the camera and microphone onto my computer and organize the files.
2. Then it will be stitching time! My laptop is not super powerful, I hope it will let me do that in a timely manner.
3. Finally, I’ll start editing. Again, I hope my laptop will be up for it. I also want to learn to use Adobe Premiere Pro, so the editing step will take some time.

I hope you find this blog useful. Let me know in the comments if I can answer any question that you have! Follow me on Medium to be the first to know what happens next.