Virtual Reality Close Up
| Author: Johannes Schmülling | Photos: Pia Henkel»Silent Disco« is a 45-minute virtual reality experience that I created together with director Fabio Thieme. Our vision began to take shape during pre-production: The unifying element of the films are the states of ecstasy experienced by viewers in virtual reality against the backdrop of their own transience. Fabio and I are of the opinion that both can be very similar states. You can find out more about the content of the project on the project page of »Silent Disco«.
The technical challenge was to achieve the most intense immersion possible. To achieve this, it was necessary to allow our actors to interact with the camera at a very close distance.
From numerous VR shoots for a federal agency, I learned that conventional stereoscopic 360 cameras work poorly in close-up and often require a minimum distance of 5 feet.
Months before I was approached for »Silent Disco«, I was in contact with Arne Stadler, then segment manager at Canon EMEA, and carried out various tests with the Canon Dual Fisheye RF 5.2mm lens. This lens offers the advantage that actors can interact with the camera with a close focus of just 8 inches and can be combined with any camera body.
Our minimum requirement was a resolution of 8k (4k per eye at 200 degrees), 50fps and a high-quality codec. There was another camera to choose from that would have given us 8k at 120fps, but in the end we chose the Canon R5C because it has a small body, which was necessary for our rig. A dual-gain sensor readout would've been perfect: However, this point was not decisive for us, as we were shooting exclusively in controlled lighting situations. We combined the R5C with a monoscopic 360-degree camera. I built a template for the Canon footage to be able to extract the full 200 degrees. I then wanted to stitch the footage in Davinci Resolve Fusion. The concept was rounded off with 3rd Order Ambisonics audio, which was the responsibility of our sound designer Istvan Hollos.
It was great to see that the team around camera assistant Teresa Marakova and gaffer Jakob Schleiter were able to get excited about calibrating the stereoscopy and lighting in virtual reality so quickly. In total, over 30 people were involved in the project in front of the camera and another 30 behind it.
We shot the project over three days (and one pre-lighting day) in Berlin. It was financially supported by the experimente#digital grant from the Aventis Foundation. We would also like to thank ARRI Rental Berlin, ARRI Rental Munich and Canon Germany for their support! More about »Silent Disco« in the current issue of Film & TV Camera 9.2023.