360 Camera Techniques

360 video shooting tips from award-winning filmmaker Faith Granger

Award-winning filmmaker Faith Granger gives tips on shooting 360 videos
Award-winning filmmaker Faith Granger gives tips on shooting 360 videos

Here is a 360 video and 360 shooting tips from Faith Granger who made the film Deuce of Spades, which has won several awards.

Faith Granger made the film Deuce of Spades, which has won several awards including Best Feature Film, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing from the Monterey Automoto International Film Festival, among others.   After creating Deuce of Spades, Ms. Granger began a travel video series called Tales from the Road.

Based on her work, Intel and Magix invited Ms. Granger to create a 360-degree video episode of Tales from the Road.  In this episode, she takes viewers through a tour of her favorite spots in San Francisco. Here is her 360 video, which was featured on Intel’s page (for best results, please view the video in a Google Cardboard or other VR headset):

It’s a simple but cool video, and I like how she told her story using only visuals and no narration except at the beginning.  Now here is a behind-the-scenes look at how Ms. Granger made the video:

To be hones, I’m a little surprised that she used the Samsung Gear 360 2017, a camera that costs well under $200?  The Gear 360 2017 has pretty good image quality, although the stitching takes a long time and warps whenever any object crosses the stitch line.  But you didn’t see that issue in Ms. Granger’s video because she used the realtime stitching feature of Magix Movie Edit Pro Plus 2018.  There were also scenes in which Ms. Granger was walking, and the camera remained steady.  That’s because she used the Guru 360 gimbal.  Finally, for the aerial shot, she used the DJI Mavic Pro quadcopter with Jean-Marie Cannie’s mount.  In summary, she didn’t use any specialized equipment but rather equipment to which we have access.

One thing that Ms. Granger didn’t delve into too much detail about is how she edited her 360 video in Magix.  But if you scroll down Intel’s page, there are a couple of tutorials there… by yours truly :D.

My takeaway from Ms. Granger’s video and tutorial is that the tools to create 360 videos are accessible to us, and in fact, many of us already have them.  Now it’s up to us to use those tools to get out there and create stories.    Meanwhile, let me know what you think of Ms. Granger’s video and tutorial!

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  • Agree it’s a pretty cool video, and uses equipment and techniques available to everyone. I’ve started playing around with the video of the Xiaomi Mijia 360 (previously I’ve only done 360 photography). I’ve tested some walking footage and have used the app gyro stabilisation function, but still have some “bouncing” and shaking in the footage from walking. Would you know any way in post to smooth out the footage to remove the shakes? I was thinking of using traditional methods like Mercalli or the Warp Stabilizer in After Effects which I’ve a used a bit in the past, but they generally work by resizing the footage which will mess up the 360 video.

  • Hi Rolland, none of the footage I shot of me walking with the 360 camera was stabilized in post, in short you can produce super smooth footage ‘in camera’. A few tips: Use a good gimbal designed for 360 cameras, and practice on walking smoothly, that’s a big factor. I sway in the hips which allows me to walk with less up and down motion… My dance background probably helps too ;).