How to do VR Film Production Right
Lessons from Joergen Geerds, CEO and Creative Director of Koncept VR
With the Virtual Reality (VR) renaissance of 2016 there has been an influx of production companies developing VR cinematography.
Koncept VR is one of the leading 360 video production firms right now. They are based out of Long Island City and have done amazing work including productions with Jay Leno’s Garage, the popular musicals Hamilton and School of Rock, and rocket launches with the United Launch Alliance.
I invited Joergen to have a conversation about the innovative methods, lessons, and techniques that they are developing to make 360 video production a pleasant and seamless experience for the viewers.
Beyond the Headset : How did you come to be CEO and creative director of Koncept VR?
Joergen Geerds (JG): Koncept VR actually developed out of a different company that we founded: Freedom360.
We started working on a spherical video [camera]. And in early 2012, we finished developing the first fully spherical video rig that allowed you to capture 360-degree footage without any blind spots — having that capability finally allowed me to film Virtual Reality (VR) in new ways.
So while selling these new cameras to film-makers worldwide, I also continued as a filmmaker. I wanted to explore this new medium to see what could be accomplished with a camera system that has no blind spots.
The business from Freedom360 to Koncept VR then started to develop as we did more and more productions. People came to us saying, “Hey can you help us? You know how to shoot, and you’re a photographer.” At one point, the demand became so large that we realized we needed to find a completely different company that handled only productions and that is how Koncept VR was born!
What was your first experience in VR?
JG: The very first time I had a headset on was actually disappointing. It was very low resolution, and the image was grainy. I thought that it needed quite a bit of work to get to a point of usability.
For me, personally, the big breakthrough was when the Samsung Gear VR came around. Its ease of use allowed us to show the stuff at trade shows or during events — and that’s what allowed us to have the cinematic VR we know today.
Cinematic VR is so different from regular cinematography. What is the secret to doing it right?
JG: The challenge on set with cinematic VR is that you cannot direct from behind the camera (Because the camera captures a full 360-degree image, there is nowhere to stand behind). You need to find hiding spots on set to monitor the filming. The basic rule in VR production is, “If you see the camera, the camera sees you.” It’s very simple. When you’re in the field, you need to trust your actors and your talent to know what they’re doing without getting too much direction from you.
On Camera Movement
Most of the 360 footage that is released these days is stable footage. What are the rules to camera movement? Are you allowed to move the camera on set?
JG: There are two reasons for using a stable camera when filming in 360. The first is that it is safe and easy, and the second is that the Oculus team put it in the rule book that you cannot move the camera. The reason for this is that [the camera movement] creates nausea for the viewers.
When I built my first Freedom360 camera, the first project I filmed was me walking through Grand Central Terminal. Because I knew from the early days that having a static camera cannot be totally satisfying to the viewer or the filmmaker.
At Koncept VR, we are super keen on moving the camera and have some great strategies developed. We know what is acceptable and what is not. We introduced this into our creative development. We needed to see that when a camera moves, does it make sense? And when is a static camera more appealing to the viewers? In the creative editing process, we introduce a combination between static and moving to give a variety of experiences to it and drive the story forward.
So you’re writing the rules as you go along?
JG: Yes, and we have many different ways to move the camera. We can put it on a drone. We can put it on a dolly, cable cam or even hand carry it. There are so many ways to move the camera and add to the experiences.
Camera movement is very important for more than one reason. There are some in the VR community that say a stereoscopic (dual camera) is the only way to go, because it gives people depth of field. But it’s actually only one of eight different ways that our brain calculates the 3D world around us.
Adding camera motion is another way to add depth of field, because the parallax changes as the camera progresses through a room, and you see things from a different angle. The other important aspect to camera movement is that humans never stand still: we always move. We cannot keep our eyes, our bodies or our hands still — so to have a static camera that doesn’t blink and doesn’t move can feel unnatural. But this is not set in stone, because two of our most popular experiences that we filmed actually have totally static cameras with no movement whatsoever.
How do you direct a viewer’s attention when they have 360 degrees of view?
JG: When we script out our creative experience, we try to focus on the main action in the dead center. Once the user looks around, they can be presented with secondary and tertiary actions. They always need to know where the main experience is, and we direct their attention so that they will not miss it, such as placing the viewer in chair that is focused in the primary direction. It’s also important for us to give enough additional things in the full 360 frame. Therefore, one of the primary things that we verify before we even begin to engage in a 360 video production is the question: Does it even make sense? So would it be more practical as a standard ‘flat’ production that can be better handled with traditional media?
What have been your most successful productions until now? And why do you think they were so?
JG: I would like to point out a few. The earlier one was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock launched here in New York. It takes the cast of the musical into an actual classroom in Brooklyn and for five minutes, the piece summarizes the whole musical and how the character recruits all the kids into the band. It was specifically written for VR as a promotion for the musical and produced by Steam & Motion. It touches on the musical, but it doesn’t try to recreate the musical which is very important. It is a proprietary experience.
“It is a proprietary experience”
Another one of the pieces that I’m really proud of at the moment is a rocket launch with the United Launch Alliance. We were in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where we filmed the rocket launch straight on the pad from different angles. This production went into a more documentary style film recording on what it takes to launch a rocket — to construct it and actually get it up to space.
It was intentionally a thrilling experience so we took camera positions that may make the viewer a little bit queasy. We were on the tower at the top, which is about 40 stories up hanging in midair. That’s part of the excitement for me of the VR capabilities, because I like to challenge people’s senses a little bit and give them a thrill because people like to get excited.
How does audio differ in 360-degree productions?
JG: Audio is a very interesting field, and we are lucky to have audio engineers who really understand what VR is all about.
Sometimes, simply placing more ambient microphones in the room to get larger spatial separation of sources is helpful. All the editing at the end is up to the audio engineers, but I do like to give them as many audio sources as possible.
Do you think VR will ever make its way into mainstream Hollywood productions?
JG: Absolutely. However, at the moment I would say cinematic VR is better at accompanying standard movie productions. The infrastructure to display VR on its own is not in place yet.
What are the largest challenges that you face as a CEO in the VR space?
JG: Getting good talent. People that are excited about VR, that love it and really see the vision of what VR can be. We are very proud to have many good people working here now that are very passionate about VR and are really excited to push the medium to new levels.
What advice can you offer those who are interested in getting started in VR cinematography?
JG: If you are interested to start in VR production, it does help if you have a filmmaking background or a strong interest in storytelling on screen. If you don’t have that, try partnering up with someone who has production or editing skills and start with a very simple camera setup. Get a Ricoh Theta or Samsung Gear 360 or any of the other relatively affordable 360 camera systems with dual lenses, because they don’t require 360 stitching.
“Just be experimental. Do test shots. It may be crummy quality at the beginning, but it teaches you all about how you place the camera, how you move it, how you tell the story, what makes an interesting frame, and how to compose the shot in 360”
Just be experimental. Do test shots. It may be crummy quality at the beginning, but it teaches you all about how you place the camera, how you move it, how you tell the story, what makes an interesting frame, and how to compose the shot in 360. All the basics can be practiced with really inexpensive hardware, and once you feel that you’ve got the idea, you can start looking for a sound engineer and a sound mixing studio that is into VR and can help create soundscapes around you. You can then invest in more expensive camera systems that give you higher quality.
At the moment, all the consumer systems are limited to a 4K 30–60 frames per second and that is fine to show on today’s headsets, but tomorrow’s headsets will need higher resolution. To future-proof it (future proofing is the act of ensuring that the material is suitable for systems that are more technologically capable than current ones), our systems for the last four years were already shooting up to 6–8K. To accomplish this, we make sure that we do have enough material on the editing suite to re-export at a higher resolution for future headsets, thus ensuring that our productions are suitable as far into the future as possible.
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