360° Documentaries

California is rich in its history and culture. From its vital rivers to its devastating wildfires, there are stories to be told.

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San Jose State University’s Immersive Storytelling Lab aims to share these stories with the rest of the world through newer means of storytelling by utilizing 360 virtual reality technology.

In traditional storytelling, you can make the audience see and hear a story, but what if you wanted to actually be inside the story itself? 360 virtual reality technology does just that. Virtual reality lets a person hear, see all around them, and actually touch with the story. The audience can move and interact with the environment. Likewise, 360 video allows the audience to see all around them in a 360° field of vision.

With 360 video we aim to tell these stories in a new and compelling way.

Living With Fire:
California Wildfires

California is experiencing wildfires more frequently and of greater intensity each year. These fires affect over hundreds of thousands of people and threaten millions in property. Behind the destruction of these wildfires are the people: Firefighters, climate scientists, farmers, workers, and those directly impacted by them. These people all share a part of the story of a forever-increasing issue.

Let's talk about water: The Sacramento
San-joaquin
delta

California is known for its droughts and water issues. Despite this, California continues to push through thanks to its most vital source of water: The Sacramento San-Joaquin Delta. With its unique geography and history, the Delta provides a home not just to the local environment and people, but also water to the entirety of California. With waterways reaching and pumping water to the farthest corners of the state, it is no wonder why the Delta is known as the "Heart of California".

process

Creating 360° video is not too far of a stretch from creating regular videos, but there are still things you need to learn and do specifically for them.

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At the start of this project, I began learning how to actually edit 360° videos. Some additional software needs to be downloaded in order to process 360° video files as Premiere Pro cannot read them straight away. Downloading these different software also adds plug-ins to Premiere Pro for additional 360° video editing. There are specific settings that need to be done for 360° video to make sure everything matches and that it exports correctly.

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Alongside this, a strong computer is suggested as 360° video files and, if you're using Unity, loading 360° environments can be very, very large and taxing. 

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As for recording, you want to make sure you are completely out of frame. This can be done by hiding behind things or walking off out of view.

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For the Wildfire documentary, I utilized 360° environments using Unity to make some parts of the video more immersive. I wasn't able to actually go directly to a wildfire site (I got close to the Yosemite 2022 wildfire but couldn't go farther) and the 360° camera isn't able to work in extreme heat. Because of this, I used a 360° environment of a forest from Unity and used regular video editing to make it look like the forest is on fire.

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The Delta documentary was kept more traditional with regular B-roll and interviews.