No one is more excited about 360 video than the guys at Lucky Dog 360. Todd Barbee and Bill Reitzel are both seasoned San Francisco Bay Area creative professionals that happen to jump into the world of 360 video by chance. Today their roster of clients includes the world’s largest winery company.
Their story began when back in September 2016 a client, Beringer Wine, asked the two if they knew anything about 360 video. Uncertain but determined to explore the space, they set to create a beautifully crafted 360 video using the Pro10 v2 Bullet360.
Lucky Dog 360’s shoot for Beringer Napa Valley
“We are just so excited about telling brand stories for our clients and exploring cinematic and documentary opportunities in the 360 space. This new medium offers filmmakers the ability to almost physically immerse their viewers in a story, and when planned and directed properly, offers a visceral experience that is far more difficult to accomplish with traditional filmmaking. We really believe that 360 video is a game-changing technology that will forever impact media, medicine, business, and our society in general.” Said Todd Barbee when asked about advantages of using 360 camera system.
Over a period of a few weeks, 10 thousand dollars later, their very own radio-controlled dolly out of an electric wheelchair, and editing on Kolor they delivered a content never seen before and the client was hooked! They were even asked if they could translate if we could translate the voice of Mark Beringer into Mandarin for the piece to be shown in China.
Their success didn’t come without any challenges, Todd pointed out, “There are a host of new filmmaking challenges that we’ve discovered when writing, planning, shooting and producing 360 content. For example, with traditional filmmaking when you have a two or three camera shoot, you have two or three potential problem points in terms of lighting, focus, settings, shot blocking, audio, etc. Proper planning, experience and good equipment minimizes the chance of something going wrong with a shoot of this nature. We think it is a good rule of thumb for anybody entering the 360 production space to say that for every hour of shooting, you have a good 8-10 hours or more in stitching and in post.”
Although filming 360 video does present a learning curve the end result is nothing short of amazing. Todd said “Every one of our current clients that has seen our 360 work has responded with an emphatic “WOW!” Several of those clients have booked us to shoot 360 video for their brands, and we expect a tsunami is on the way in terms of more of clients wanting to enter the space in the coming year. In fact, we are actively seeking editors, stitchers, graders, and producers, to join our team so we can offer our services to as many organizations as possible.”
Lucky Dog 360 strives to set themselves apart by offering VR with a clear focus on high production value using the 360 space as a vehicle to tell marketing and cinematic stories in a new, compelling way. Keep an eye for more projects like this in our content creators spotlight feature stories.
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