Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/691968
Drones m ay . j u n e 2 0 1 6 c g w 2 9 camera footage, so the director could scroll though in 360 degrees before moving on to the next shot. "With 'Patron,' we pushed the rules to the limit. We are always moving," says Akey of the camera motion used for the production. "If you use motion well, you will get far better VR than if it is just static." THE PRODUCTION PROCESS Shooting the footage for "The Art of Patron" took a few days, but postproduction spanned eight weeks and involved 35 to 40 people at Firstborn and Legend. Without question, the project contained a lot of moving pieces and required input from a number of parties. To help manage production tracking, digital asset management, and team collaboration, the groups utilized rack's cloud-based creative project management tool. For the most part, Legend was responsible for stitching the video in 360 degrees, 2D-to-3D stereo conversion, VR formatting, color correcting, cleanup (such as rig removal), and integration of the VFX work from Patron and Firstborn. Legend used The Foundry's Nuke for all the painting and compositing work. The post process was far more involved than just compiling on- set video. "To accomplish a complete tour of the Patron-making process and to do it at the highest quality, we needed to combine live-action VR filming with vivid, cinematic CG, a first in the VR world," says Tabor. To this end, Legend developed custom systems to track the CGI amid the 360-degree live footage. The facility used its proprietary S-Track soware, which provides an automated camera track of a stitched live-action image for easy VFX integration. This enabled the teams to stitch together the footage captured simultaneously by the drone cameras, while accommodating the CG additions and tweaks within the presentation. "We used R-Kill for the plates, and we did a stitch on those plates. Then we used our tracking soware to create a solid track and did VFX integration into the virtual environment," explains Akey. Photorealistic CG was integrated into the stitched-together foot- age, to put people in places where the camera couldn't go. "When you put on the VR headset and become the bee [in the finished experience], and you are flying around the Patron Hacienda, it's unlike anything I have ever seen. You forget that you are human, and you get this sensation of flying and floating through the air," says Adrian Parker, VP of digital marketing at Patron Spirits Company. The final experience was finished in 4k x 2k resolution for presentation on Samsung Gear VR headsets. Finishing and posting shots with the GoPro-based system was especially challenging at the time. "Everyone was trying to figure out how to get the highest-caliber image, but also find a way to play it back and not have to wait hours for it to download," says Akey. "There was a lot of R&D required with the codecs." The work was challenging and groundbreaking, but the end result is impressive. And for some, the irony of using state-of-the-art technology to present the story of an old, handcraed process for an inventive project was not lost. Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of Computer Graphics World. are benefiting from this new tool. In fact, Braben says he has seen an uptick in lower-budget productions using aerial pho- tography from these systems. This includes television series, commercials, and more. One of the more compelling commercials using footage captured from a UAV is "The Art of Patron," a longer-form adver- tisement that takes viewers on a VR journey to witness Patron's handcraed tequila-making process, all from the point of view of a bumblebee. The spot, which is available online and used at Patron-sponsored events, combines live footage, nearly all of which was captured from a UAV, along with CGI, and presented in stereo (see "Gener- ating a Buzz," page 28). The use of a UAV for aerial photography, both here and in other projects, goes far beyond the "cool" factor. It enables a director to get a novel point of view or move into a scene in a dramatic way. "Steadicam was revolutionary in that regard. To- day, the drone is becoming one of the most useful tools of VR filmmaking. You have the ability to get really high angles, but you also can push the depth more than what would naturally be there in a captured moment like that, through 3D conversion," says Matt Akey, executive vice