360 Video Shooting Tips

Tips for shooting immersive video

Some useful suggestions on what not to do are also featured in this YouTube video.

1. Think of the camera as the viewer’s eye level

For a viewer watching 360 video — especially in a headset — the position of the camera is their perceived eye level in the virtual space. My first thought in the first piece I watched on a Cardboard was “Why am I so tall?”

So, think hard before you put a camera on the ground or in the rafters. Have a good reason for it if you do.

Otherwise, we tend to do a lot of shots deliberately positioned to about eye level for a seated or standing person. Putting the rig a little bit below eye level — chin or chest level — tends to yield the best results. The subject of your shot can be the measure, too — lower the camera if your subject is short, and vice versa.

2. Mind the mirrors (and shadows and reflective situations)

Try not to have your rig or arm create shadows on what you’d like the viewer to look at

It seems obvious — you’d never have your own shadow in the shot for a flattie, but when you can’t see the actual shot (and it is a bright sunny day) sometimes you forget about the obvious.

This goes for mirrors, shadows and reflections in windows as well.

3. Be kind to your viewers’ vestibular systems (a.k.a. be careful with camera movement)

Put simply, our vestibular systems let us know when we’re moving, and if what we see and what we feel doesn’t match up, it can make us sick. (Read: As a 360 video producer, you have the power to make people puke.)

With immersive content there are a lot more complexities to it than that, and Research VR, which is all kinds of awesome, did a long podcast on motion sickness in VR with a whole lot of insights that carry over to shooting 360 video. Check it out if you want to go deeper on these questions.

For practical applications, camera movement in immersive content can have on a viewer’s balance and spatial reckoning systems — but this doesn’t necessarily translate to a consensus on what’s safe and what isn’t.

Natural movement can be ok: Natural” movement, such as situations a human might actually find themselves in that would make them sick in real life, too — and the VR just compounds the problem — like sitting in a backward-facing seat on a train, for example.

One strategy for getting away with moving camera shots is to let the viewer see what they’re traveling in, to give them a reference point. Helicopter shots are pretty popular.

Riding in a car or taking a train or bus can work better than extremely fast moving shots.