Innovate in 360
The tree is up, the tap has been filled with Christmas beer, RESLV is ready for the holidays! This week the team took some time to decorate all around the office. Lights were hung and Styrofoam snow coated the floors. Whether you are planning your holiday parties or having intense discussions about elf character design, we wish you all a happy holiday season!
Most people know by now that videos are the new standard for engaging content, but does it always have to be just a standard video? Some of our favorite projects recently have been ones where we can get creative and push the boundaries of visual content. One of these ways is with 360 videos.
You’ve probably started to see 360 videos pop up on your Facebook and Twitter feeds or have even searched it out on YouTube or Vimeo. It’s cool, engaging, and innovative. So why isn’t everyone running out to get their own 360 content made? Well, there are a few different reasons for that. It’s not that 360 videos are extremely hard to film, they are actually quite straightforward and can be shot on a variety of different types of cameras. Maybe you even have a 360 camera on your holiday wish list right now.
But before you go get 360 cameras for everyone on your holiday shopping list, it’s not the filming that’s the difficult part. Where 360 videos start to get tricky is in the editing. If you have seen 360 videos with floating arms coming out of nowhere or objects getting deformed by obvious lines, then now you know it wasn’t the shoot, but a victim of bad stitching software.
If you didn’t already know, 360 videos don’t just come out of the camera in perfect 360 format. They come out in pieces, each shot must be carefully and precisely stitched together by an editor. To cut down on time or money sometimes a stitching software is used, but this is typically where the mistakes happen. To save yourself from an embarrassing instance of people in your video getting cut in half, hire a great editor!
Okay so 360 videos are cool, but where can I show them? Like we mentioned before they integrate really well into social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This is great because social media strategies are all about engagement, and 360 videos are inherently engaging! 360 videos get more click-throughs and engagement than a traditional video and those metrics matter most when trying to improve a social media presence.
And 360 videos don’t just have to live online, they can be brought directly to viewers with the use of VR technology at places like trade shows. Which booth do you think everyone is going to go for? The ones with stacks of brochures or the one with the cool VR headsets? I think you know the answer.
So next time you are in the market for a video, think outside the rectangle boundaries and try out 360. If you’re not inspired yet, check out the 360 project we did for the Cincinnati USA Regional Tourism Network: