Facebook introduced Surround 360, a high-end video camera, today at F8, the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco. In reality, Facebook unveiled a reference design for the VR video camera, which it plans to release as an open-source project on GitHub this summer. In other words, Facebook will not be producing the camera. Instead, Facebook is open-sourcing the camera in order to encourage developers to take the design and create their own version of the camera. “In designing this camera, we wanted to create a professional-grade end-to-end system that would capture, edit, and render high-quality 3D-360 video. In doing so, we hoped to meaningfully […]
by Paula Bernstein on Apr 12, 2016The past year has seen a lot of development in VR cameras – cameras that can shoot 360-degree video. Offerings range from inexpensive rigs for mounting multiple GoPros to custom units that cost many thousands of dollars. It’s an interesting field for sports and experiences, though it remains to be seen how this will impact narrative film making. We recently spoke to Koji Gardiner, Jaunt’s Director of Hardware Engineering, about their Jaunt ONE camera. This is a single unit that contains 24 camera mechanisms. After two years of development the unit is now being used for a variety of production […]
by Michael Murie on Jan 12, 2016The Tromsø International Film Festival has always pushed the boundary when it comes to open-air cinema. The only international film festival that takes place in the Arctic Circle has a Winter Cinema, an open-air cinema with sofas positioned on top of the snow in front of a large screen with picturesque hilltops on the horizon. Most of the program is made up of short films made for children that play in the dark afternoons, but this year Festival Director Martha Otto put on a late-night screening of Dead Snow to boot. It added a new challenge for the audience, to […]
by Kaleem Aftab on Feb 5, 2014We file past a solemn priest down the stairs into the church basement. My friend and I excited.“There are the infected. There are the survivors. Then there is you.” That’s what the e-mail boasted when it arrived 30 hours earlier, promising a mix of live theatre and film called a 360 Screening. We were part of a sold-out audience of 200 that paid $60 apiece to see a film without knowing the title until the last minute. This was the third 360 Screening in Toronto and its first Hallowe’en edition. Tonight it was taking place in the old Berkeley Church […]
by Allan Tong on Oct 30, 2012