3D POV

I’ve started this blog to have some fun with POV (point of view) film-making. You’ve seen it before - the kid with the POV sports cam skiing down her first snow hill, or the impossibly fit surfer dudes smoking some waves in the GoPro demo reels.

The POV sports cameras are cheap - now less than $200 - they’re lightweight, super wide angle, small and they record in HD quality. All of these things make them excellent for capturing your adrenaline fuelled sporting exploits and sharing them on Youtube.

My question is, how viable are POV sports cameras for dramatic filmmaking - you know, with actors and shit?

At first glance, not very. The cameras generally suck in low light and are so automatic that it would make any self-respecting Director of Photography either cry or wonder if they’ll be needed anymore.

But the portability, quality and light weight of the cameras has got me burning with curiosity about what kind of stories you can tell entirely from the first-person perspective of characters…

So, starting next week, I’m going to be posting a series of videos and articles documenting my explorations. And to make it even more fun and challenging, I’m going to do it in 3D. And with binaural sound recording.

Huh?

I recently purchased a GoPro 3D kit - which is essentially a plastic housing that fits two GoPro Hero2 HD cameras and comes with a sync cable to keep them recording in time. Together with a bit of software, I can now make honest to goodness stereographic videos (3D videos) that can be watched on YouTube in 3D or at home on a 3D television.

I’m also working with my friend and sound recordist David Guerra on adding binaural recording into the mix, which basically means that we’ll be recording sound with two microphones, each one placed roughly where a person’s ears should be. The effect will be to see like we do  - with two eyes - and hear like we do - with two ears. (Apologies to any cyclops reading this).

So, stay tuned… Next week I’ll post a video of our first attempts at building a wearable 3D POV helmet that can hold the 3D camera, two mics, audio & video transmitters and batteries - all this without breaking the wearer’s neck.

Hopefully. ;)

Seeing and hearing like we do.