Thailand: Find Your Journey campaign featured in New York Times article

The VR campaign we created with New York based agency Curate Directive for the Tourism Authority of Thailand was featured in this article about VR advertising by Jane Levere in the New York Times. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/business/media/travel-virtual-reality.html?_r=1

"Real" mentioned in Producers Guild Magazine

"PRODUCED BY" Magazine - DECEMBER/JANUARY 2016

By Brian Seth Hurst

"I am in a Dystopian World.  Something has happened that has altered the course of society. I am watching a woman, bereft over the loss of her husband and desperate to be with him again. To get there she dons a pair of Mad Max-style goggles. The shot changes and suddenly I have become her. And I am lying in bed face to face in the morning light with her husband brought to life again, looking into his clear, loving and content blue eyes as he asks me (as her) "What would you like to do today?” The effect is nothing short of stunning. I know not only why she loves him but also why she misses him, and I can actually "feel” the experience. I am in a head-mounted display at the Kaleidoscope Virtual Reality Film Festival and in the world that independent VR Filmmaker Connor Hair has created in his 12-minute film, Real. Hair, by moving from 2D stereoscopic into 180° VR has succeeded in the emerging art of VR storytelling and what I have come to call "immersive forward moving narrative."

 

Continued at

http://www.producersguild.org/blogpost/1329400/235787/TO-BE-REAL-The-Rise-Of-Virtual-Reality

"Real" is an official selection at Kaleidoscope's 2016 World Tour!

We are super excited to announce that our VR short film Real will be screening as part of THE 2016 KALEIDOSCOPE WORLD TOUR at the following locations around the world.

PARIS - March 1

TEL AVIV - March 5

LONDON - March 8

STOCKHOLM - March 12

KÖLN - March 18

BERLIN - March 22

AMSTERDAM - March 25

PANGYO - March 31

TOKYO - April 6

MELBOURNE - April 12

Produced in association with WIRED and powered by Wevr Transport, THE 2016 KALEIDOSCOPE WORLD TOUR is a traveling showcase of the best in cinematic virtual reality & immersive experiences. Visiting 10 cities around the world, Kaleidoscope brings together innovators for an evening of virtual reality demos and discussions. 

For more info on the film and to check out our trailer please visit the following link.

http://kaleidovr.com/showcase/real

 

 

Mettle's SkyBox 360 VR Tools For Premiere

The new Skybox 360 VR tools for Adobe Premiere are absolutely essential for VR filmmakers. We're extremely excited that Mettle integrated these tools into premiere because now we can cut out the need to use After Effects for basic 360 editing.

Perception Squared will be using this toolkit for all of our 360 projects. The most useful tool in our eyes is the ability to easily adjust the center point of a 360 shot. This allows for editing with eye trace and gives you an easier way to guide your audience's attention.

Before Adjustment

Before Adjustment

After Adjustment

After Adjustment

The noise reduction is also a great addition. Shooting with GoPros in dark environments always ends up with noisy footage. Mettle's noise reduction is a nice alternative to sending your project to Davinci Resolve or using other 3rd party noise reduction plugins.

If you work in Premiere with 360 footage you shouldn't be without this plugin. It greatly simplifies your workflow and makes 360 editing a lot more straightforward.

We have also been using Mettle's VR player in post for all of our VR projects. This plugin allows the user to work entirely in VR without ever needing to take the headset off. Using this plugin we are able to view our footage in 360  and then seamlessly switch into viewing in Premiere on a large virtual monitor. This greatly simplifies post for VR projects and allows us to work much more efficiently without having to export a project every time we want to view the edit in 360.

"En Pointe" selected as winner of Samsung VR Filmmaking Challenge

Article About En Pointe.png

Los Angeles, CA 1/22/16 — The Winners of Samsung’s “There in 60 Seconds” Gear Indie Challenge were announced by Fast Company & VRScout this morning. Among the five winners was Connor Hair's film ‘En Pointe’.

"After being cut from the ballet, a young woman stays late at the theater and dreams of her perfect performance."

Each of the five winners receive $10,000 and will have their work shown immediately on the Indie Winners section of Samsung’s MilkVR app, as well as this week at the Sundance Film Festival.

"EN POINTE" PRODUCTION FEATURED IN KIRKLAND REPORTER

Kirklander films at Performance Center, enters Samsung Contest

Kirkland, WA 1/1/16 - By TJ Martinell

A Kirkland native recently took advantage of the Kirkland Performance Center's stage for the set of a short film using a 360-degree camera.

Connor Hair, who currently works at a production company in Los Angeles, returned to Kirkland late last month to shoot a 60 second film he plans to enter into Samsung's "There In 60 Seconds" Virtual Reality Film Competition. The competition has filmmakers use a special camera to create 360-degree virtual reality films, with a $10,000 cash prize for the winner.

Hair's film, "En Pointe" tells the story of a ballerina (played by Lindsey Williams) dreaming of landing the part in a ballet she's applied for. Although she doesn't get the part, Hair said, she goes onto the empty ballet stage and performs the dance, trying to envision the audience in front of her. There are no speaking lines in the film.

Hair, a Bellevue High graduate, said that through the editing process they gave the film a very dream-like state, aided also by the new camera.

"It is experience-based, putting you in her place," he said. "It's almost like a ride, if you think of a ride at Universal Studios."

It's not the first VR film he's shot, having filmed a 12-minute film that he said has received positive feedback, as well as being a cinematographer on six feature films. He's also shot projects for Microsoft, VW, Boeing, Delta Airlines, T-Mobile, Wells Fargo, and Nintendo.

Although many films using the VR camera to convey a unique viewing experience, Hair said he also just likes to tell stories.

"People seem to really respond to it," he said. "We think storytelling could be very powerful in VR."

When planning the production, Hair said they looked for local venues to use as a location and were able to get the KPC to lend their stage.

"It's way easier to film in Seattle than in LA where I live," he said. "We knew we couldn't secure a theater down there. I thought that it (KPC) would be a nice little theater we could use."

The Film will be available on GearVR, Google Cardboard and YouTube 360.