Recently we had a great time working with a Team from BBC Research and Development and Rewind who recorded some 360o footage at the Heritage Centre. Even if you didn’t know that the BBC has a R&D department, you’ll almost certainly have used some of the technology that they have worked on over the decades like Ceefax (for those if us old enough to remember it!) or more recently HDTV. In fact, conducting research is part of the BBC’s obligations under its royal charter.
360o video is quite a new technology, recently the BBC created the first full 360o TV show, an episode of BBC Click. Examples can be found on YouTube and unlike normal video that has a fixed view point, in 360o video you can look around. On a PC you drag the view around with a mouse, on a phone or tablet you can move the device to look around, and with a Virtual Reality headset you can just look around as if you were there.
The format is still being explored and BBC R&D are looking at things like presenting graphics within 360o video and other aspects of usability. To do this they want to film in interesting places and Apedale is one of them. The filming took place over two days, in between school visits and a civic visit, which made for a very busy week. Two members of our mining team were filmed doing parts of the mine tour as well as making sure that everything was done in a safe manner, and other volunteers helped out behind the scenes, fetching carrying as well as feeding and watering the crew!
Although the results aren’t likely to find their way onto prime-time TV we hope that we’ll be able to share something with everyone in a few weeks once the video is processed and edited.
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- Discussing the days shooting
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- Two Daves ready for the first shot of the day
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- Posing for pictures at deployment
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- Alisdare the sound man with our guides
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- Alia the Director and Producer discussing the shot
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- Side-loader
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- A still from some initial footage, showing what 360 video looks like “unwrapped”
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- A still from a take at deployment
